If your organization is raising the funds and you obviously have your own checking account since you're paying the school at the end of the year, then you should definitely be keeping a record of where the money is being spent.
Does your membership vote on anything to do with expenditures?
We put together a budget at the beginning of the school year that list all our income and expenditures. We have discussions and votes on where that money gets spent. We even have access to the purchase orders our teachers put in when they spend their allotted funds. We know where EVERY cent goes. In our school it would be difficult to get people enthused and involved if they didn't have knowledge of just exactly what all our hard work goes toward.
Do you have your own non-profit status or are you operating as part of the school? If you are your own non-profit organization, I would think that the IRS would frown on your lack of knowledge as to where the money is going.
Our school secretary runs a tab for the PTO all year long and then we reimburse the school at the end of the year. Last year the amount was $5000. We are having some big financial problems this year and I requested an itemized list from the secretary for last year. She told me that it all goes back to the students but she didn't have a list and acted like it was no big deal. I was very irritated. I can't believe we paid $5000 and really have no idea what it went towards. I'm expecting that we will have to raise around $7000 this year to break even and we've already had our BIG event for the year and made $3000, so we have a ways to go. So it is crucial that we aren't paying for things that aren't necessary. Is this normal? I think that I am going to request that we are given an itemized statement every grading period this year so that we can keep track throughout the year. Does this sound OK?
