I understand this post is 4+ years old, but on the off-chance that you see this, were you happy with the transition to the PTO Management software? Would you do it again or would you go with Quicken, QuickBooks or something like PTAEZ?

I've been treasurer for our PTO for three years as well and I went in the opposite direction of Excel. The prior treasurer used Quickbooks but also entered everything for the budget into Excel which was very time consuming. I love Ecxel for most things, but it simply didn't make sense to spend the time re-entering it all. I created the budget right in Quickbooks and can print reports that show Actual to Budget at any time. Most of the reports are customizable too. I just need to make sure that I have everything up to date before the meetings. It sounds to me like you just need somebody who can understand the software and spend the time before the meeting to look it over. I also find it helps me to have somebody else review the reports, like the prior treasurer or the president, before the meeting if they can. Just to make sure there isn't something I've missed.

I've used all of the ones mentioned previously, plus one called "MoneyMInder," which is an online program. I'm an accountant by trade, so I don't have any problems using any of them. But my experience has been that MoneyMinder is by far the easiest one for non-accountants to use. It's web based, and you have to pay for it on an annual basis, which some people don't like. But given that some people seem to be incapable of backing up their computer files on a regular basis, I think online programs like this (and Finance Manager) are worth every penny. Quicken has an online version, but it is just terrible.

PTO Manager from PTO today is wonderful-- easy to use, print reports from, see individual categories, etc... very user friendly and easy to show others hows to use--- most of the school PTO's in our school district now use the program and it makes it a lot easier when we go through our audit as well.

That would be an interesting poll: what do you use to track finances?
1) Excel
2) Quicken
3) QuickBooks
4) FinanceManager from PTO Today

I use Quicken; I was very fortunate that the 4 treasurers before me also did, and did a reasonably good job of it, because I needed all that information for the 501(c)(3) filing.

I guess recent versions of Excel have ways to group expenses by category; I'm not that familiar with the advanced features. Quicken is designed for this: categories, bank reconciliation, etc.