Ninety-five percent of everything in my binder is black/white. It's the catch-all/Misc expense category that is gray. Only talking about $100.00. It's to our benefit, not missing, which is better, I guess.
Our Treasurer will keep these types of expenses all on one journal page. True, the money that pays for these misc expenses come from various events throughout the year, but we subtract them under Misc. Expenses. (ome, however, may be covered under gifts to school) But if you have them all listed together, you should be fine. It sounds like you have everything well organized. When you have your appt., bring everything. It's better to have it, then to have to reschedule.
I have the 990/990EZ packet here in front of me as I get the thrill of completing the form for our PTO this month. The info asked is based on category, not just income v. expense. If you have a preformance to budget report, a transaction journal, or at least the account sheets you mentioned, you probably have all the accountant needs. You might, however, want to be certain you have good descriptions documented for each account, and even each transaction if the account is large and very general.
MS Money and Quicken are good options for computer-based accounting systems, but they include tons of features you don't need for the typical PTO, which make them more complex than necessary. PTOToday's own financial management system, Finance Manager, does the same stuff that MS Money and Quicken do, but in a very simple user environment, designed specifically for a PTO. Definately something to consider if you're considering automating the PTO's books.
We use MS Money for our financial tracking. That way everything is categorized and put into a budget line-item at the time of receipt/expenditure. It makes it very easy to print all income or all expense, or only certain categories, etc.
If you're talking about tax filing for purposes of paying taxes on income (ie sales tax, income tax, etc.) then I would simply err to the benefit of the government given that the amount is so small at $100. It's always better to over-pay a little than under-pay. However, it's even better yet to keep track during the year so all is accounted for in the end (which I'm sure you're aware of).
Previous to my term as prez, I was the treasurer and took over the books from someone that netted every single category so nobody had any idea what was actually going through the pta. If you would have looked at our books 3 years ago, it would have looked like we had a $10k budget. The truth of the matter is we have about a $50k budget.
If you have specific questions, let me know what form you are trying to complete and I'll see if I can help.
I do have seperate account sheets for each area of our budget and most of them are very cut and dried. There are some gray areas where we purchased items such as water bottles, key chains, etc that we sold over a period of time and I can't account for the profits coming in to cover such expense because they are mixed in with the different event monies. Nothing major.
My Treasury Reports are very detailed with every check written documented along with deposits and any adjustments that were made to book. These all coincide perfectly with bank statements and the checkbook register.
Ninety-five percent of everything in my binder is black/white. It's the catch-all/Misc expense category that is gray. Only talking about $100.00. It's to our benefit, not missing, which is better, I guess.
I've kept the most detailed books that the group has had. I think I got too finite with my details and that's what is messing me up. The last Treasurer just had everything in chronological order with no categorizing at all. She made it through okay, so I'm sure I will, too.
I'm just a perfectionist and get all nervous about taxes. I pride myself in having the answer to any question asked when it comes to the books. Just don't know what kind of questions I'm going to be asked in this case and want to be prepared.
Don't you have your journals for each line item under your budget? You should have each journal completed for each of your line items. Then you have your monthly balance sheets showing the total income and expenses on a monthly basis. Bank statements will show your balance and you should know what outstanding deposits and bills you still have when you meet with them.
I am clueless when it comes to filing taxes. It's one of those things that I just know nothing about. What sort of information do I have to have for the accountant?
I have a huge binder with every piece of paper in it for the year but I'm sure he doesn't want to go through all that. Do I bring him bank statements to document income off of? Do I give him the number for expenses?
