We recruit a volunteer (one) who is not connected with the PTO finances to do our annual "audit". It's usually a parent from the school who has some accounting background, but not necessarily a CPA. In 10 years, we've never had to pay for the service. We also do our own return each year. The only really hard one, is the first one. After that, they are similar year to year, though of course the numbers are different. The IRS is revising the 990 forms this year, so I guess we'll be learning something new in 2008 or 2009. Hopefully it won't be a total revamp!

Many of us here use a committee of volunteers to handle the yearly audit. It's usually 3 or more people who are not normally associated with the PTO's booking keeping or financial decisions. It's really not hard. You may want to search the Forum for "audit" and glean some info from past postings.

Many of us also file the 990EZ ourselves, and many of us file it even if we are under the mandatory $25,000 amount. The IRS is supposed to notifying small organizations of the new requirement for the 990N or "electronic postcard", but I don't know much about it yet.

If you are able to recruit the volunteer services of an accountant to help you, that's great. But I wouldn't pay for a routine audit or 990EZ filing. They aren't that hard to do.

We are in the process of formalizing our group. We will fall just under or just over the IRS threshold of receipts of $25,000. Once we recieve our 501C3 status, from what I understand, we will either file the new postcard return or the 990 EZ. Is this correct? Who needs to audit us and who needs to prepare our return? Must it be a CPA? Thank you.