Thank you, Thank you, Thank you!!! You have been a big help. I'm on the road to filing!

I sent your our notes and checklist. It's nothing fancy, but help some - especially with the calculations. Again, this is just the way we did it the last couple of years. No claim to being an expert!

When you go to Guidestar, go into Advanced Search, put 'PTO' in keyword and select 25-100K as the income range. (You can choose your state if you like, but that doesn't really matter.)

You'll get a list of PTOs and will see an icon for the 990 if it's posted. Go into that entry and choose "financials". Then you should see a line that says:
<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>You may also view the image of the IRS Form 990EZ <hr></blockquote>

Once you click on that, any 990s for that group will list.

Good luck!

I am reposting as a registered used. If anyone has any information, please let me know. Also, thank you for the web site, I have found another 990 form filled out by another school, so I can look at that also.

It's been awhile since I did one, but the basic principal is pretty simple (assuming your PTO is like most and has only a banking account as a financial asset):

Begining Bank Balance
+ Revenues
- Expenses

---

Ending Bank Balance

Slicing and dicing your transactions (revenue/expenses) to match the lines on 990 is what might take awhile. But after the first time, you may rethink how you code and report transactions internally during the year to make it easier to pull it all together at the end for 990.

To see samples of what others have done, go to www.guidestar.org/ and use "PTO" (or PTA) in your search criteria. That will bring up a list of PTOs that are 501c3 and have their information posted there - often with the 990's.

We put our info into an Excel spreadsheet first and then transfer to the form once we have it all balanced. I think I can dig up an old one.

If you register (and allow your email to shows up on your profile) others will be able to email you things that might help. Post again with an email addess(or contact me off line - click on the icon of roledex card) and I'll send you the spreadsheet.

Good Luck!

[ 07-10-2003: Message edited by: JHB ]</p>

I am currently the treasurer of our PTO. This is the first year that we have to fill out a 990 form since we were a pta previously...can any one help. I am trying to do this form myself and it seems very complicated. Is there any place on the web or anyone to walk me thru this?