I don't have any experience with a school store, so I won't be much help in that area, but I have been a PTO treasurer for a few years. Hopefully I've learned something that might help you feel more in control if there are other specific areas where you'd like advice.

You mentioned paper trail - I'm all for a paper trail, even in today's world of email and computers. If you don't already use official forms for financial transactions, you might want to consider using the forms we use in our PTO. Tim was kind enough to make them available from the Useful Resources tab over to the left side of your screen. I won't handle money without having the proper form as backup.

I too am a new treasurer with a sinking feeling that all is not being done "up to snuff". the previous treasurer gave me little guidence and I feel I am barely treading water. I try to leave a paper trail for myself but it isn't always easy. school store is a big problem right now, a lot going out, little coming in. How do you keep it all in check? :confused: Should it have an annual budget?

Thanks again for the feedback. Your thoughts confirm the need for better control. I will try to find a delicate way to approach this subject in our next meeting. People don't always like change but I believe it is in all of our best interest to make changes. Handling $$ in this current manor could lead to doubt and other issues. Controls are usually in place for a reason. I think that if these issues are brought up by the treasurer it should be well received. I'd rather raise the doubt than be doubted by others first.

You are right that isnt right. As I posted in my prior post. As treasurer you maintain all the supporting documentation as to how you got the money. Another example would be you have a student store, you would post the gross reciepts for that store for x period to the books, the reciepts would be kept as backup documentation by you.

Let me put it this way - how do you and the other people responsible for this know that you took in $Y and that $Y were handed over or accounted for if each committee chairperson (or whoever these people are) can only turn in what they say they collected.

We recently completed a cookie dough fund raiser. A copy of each order was made and handed over with the money for deposit to the treasurer. The treasurer working with me determined that we owed the supplier X based upon those copies. We issued a check directly to the supplier (not the person running the fund raiser) to pay for the cookie dough ordered. Check and Balance since the amount we determined was the same as what the supplier said we owed them. We will maintain as part of the financial record the order forms the reciept for the gross and ofcourse the check issued for payment. The sectretary maintains the board minutes and backup documentation that authorized this activity.

BTW I keep mentioning Gross reciepts as opposed to net! I trust all the 501(c)(3)s out there understand why.

Thank you for the information!! All feedback has been welcomed. I am a new treasurer this year and have wondered about the "lack" of book keeping. It seems to me that there should be more to this position than just collecting the money depositing it and inputing the figures into the budget and cash flow statements. For instance we had a "fund" run and parents donated money. I rcvd the checks from the event person and have yet to see any other back up work. I would think that for tax purposes alone I should see more than that. We are 501 c 3 and I would also think that there should be some record keeping of donations received. To date event money has been handled individually. I have picked up funds from peoples houses etc and have recounted it in my own home for deposit and record keeping purposes. This just doesn't seem right to me... I'd appreciate any feedback.

I am going to jump in here with an example of a process for accounting for activities.

We do monthly a snack day for the kids. This is a recuring calander item so does not need approval of the board as we already have that from the meeting approving the calander (First two documents needed to track kept by the Secretary).

Snacks are normally on Friday. Announcements and the classroom package goes out on Tuesday - the packet includes 1 order/money envelope for each child (the order envelope imcludes all the information that would have been on a flyer, and and order form for items the kids want, this massively reduced the amount of paper work we had to put out), one teacher tally sheet.

Orders are due in on Thursday for Friday delivery (there are legal reasons for this that I wont go into here). When the baggie with the class individual orders arrive we open each envelop and count the money against the order, the counter initials the envelop (we have 3 counters working at the same time 2 doing the intial count and one doing a verification), the verifier collects the money counts it and records the amount on a class roster sheet. Then puts it into another envelop for that classroom, the order enevelop is seperated to the baggers. Once the entire class is counted the verifier hands the money envelop off to either myself or if I am not there the Treasurer who then counts the money again and records it on the master class roster. The master class roster and the verifiers class roster are used as the control documents the two amounts should match. Based on the orders we then shop Thursday afternoon or evening and pick the items we need up (yes this process has cut way back on storage and stockage between events).

I wont go into the order filling process because that is not necessary for this discussion.

All the above steps are performed in the same room with 5 to 7 people in attendance at all times. The audit documents are, the minutes of the meeting approving the function, the two class roster sheets to verify the amount of money collected, the reciept for items purchased (there is an inventory system kept also because we always have left over due to bulk purchase, which may be needed kept by the manager of our student store), and the bank deposit or reciept for transfer of funds to another account (such as petty cash). This all becomes a line item in the books showing gross reciept, expenses and how the net was dispursed (deposit, transfer, etc).

Another example: We on occassion run a food/drink trailer. We start the people out with a cash box. We have an inventory of everything in the trailer for sale. One person signs for the van completing the intial inventory and for the cash box. They are the responsible person. At the conclusion of the activity - we re inventory with the responsible person and count the cash box. This may include restock which was added to the orginal inventory - collecting excess cash from the cash box, a reciept for that is given to the responsible person. All this will tally to a gross reciept amount. Expenses for stockage and misc is again taken from the Gross to arrive at the net all this is once again recorded to the books as above.

The records are kept seperate of the books in their own individual file. Copies of everything is made and maintained by another board member as well (this is a back up to loss of records) - records are maintained in our PTO office in the Treasurer Cabinet. We also have this information (but not the documentation) on computer on spread sheets which are both detailed and summary of all activities.

This may sound like a lot but it really isnt. There are enough people involved that the tasks are fairly simple and we are always looking for ways to simplify a process, cut out steps that arent needed. As an example of this, on the snacks two years ago it took them about 8 hours to count the money accurately - today we have that completed in around 2 and we have a complete paper trail for tracking.

What you need to do here is think about the activity and create a process that will work for that process not a master process that you then try to apply to every activity. Also keep in mind that an audit does not mean just the books, it includes other documentation that supports the financial end of the activity as well as documents for activities that do not have a financial impact. An example of that might be volunteer awards (Yes, Virginia we have one of these too ). Imagine a person who thinks they ought to get an award for their volunteering and they dont get one becuase no one tracked their activity, do you think you will be able to count on them in the future? Non of this is hard a simple sign in sheet is what we use. It notes who the time they spent and what they were doing. We tally these twice a year. In matter of fact we held this past Tuesday our semiannual awards dinner - we honored nearly 100 people giving awards for their volunteerism to our school and PTO.

Keep what you need to back up what you say you took in, what you spent, how you spent it, and the process you used to control it. Anything else you dont need :cool: