Question: Treasurer Reporting

I am the new PTO treasurer for the 2010-2011 school year. I have gotten checks to deposit and bills to pay which are from events that happened in the 2009-2010 school year. When I present my monthly Performance to Budget report, would these revenues and expenses go on last year's budget or should I put them as part of this year's budget for comparison purposes?

Asked by tavlav

Answers:

Advice from PTO Today

Craig writes:
You should record the items now rather than back-dating them. PTOs do what accountants call cash-basis bookkeeping. It means you record income and expenses when cash is received or spent. This is generally a simpler way to keep track of your money than recording expenses when they are incurred. It does create some instances like the one you've run into, which can make it harder to compare from year to year. For most PTOs, the summer is a slow season, which makes it easier to close out the books from one year and start on the next. In your case, you should make officers aware of the situation so they can compare budgets more accurately. Also, you can create budgets for events and programs by looking at the specific income and expenses for those programs over the entire time they ran rather than just during the fiscal year.

Community Advice

tavlav writes:
Thanks for the resonse Craig. That is what I had thought but I just wanted to double check.

Community Advice

ckck96 writes:
I have a question related to this. I just set up our Finance Manager this summer (fiscal year ends June 30). When I set it up, I was required to enter my July bank statement beginning and ending balance. In order to get that month to reconcile in the Finance Manager program, I had to record checks that were written in the last fiscal year, but cleared by the bank in this fiscal year. The problem lies in that the previous treasurer recorded the checks in their old spreasheet for the previous year. I want to take it out of this year's report, but then I can't get July to reconcile in the Finance Manager. Any advice for me???