I am the Treasurer for our PTO. I also had no previous accounting experience, but I am a very detailed person. When we were trying to find an accountant to help us with our annual audit and taxes, we ran into one stumbling block after another. No one wanted to reduce their fees. As a non-for-profit, we can't afford high fees. There is a university about 30 minutes away so, I checked on their website, found that there are accounting societies at the university, and emailed many people. I was surprised when an audit professor actually emailed back with the news that he does audits and taxes for non-for-profits at a reduced rate. What I learned from him was invaluable! No to mention that he was up-to-date on all audit and tax laws. Our audit took a little longer than usual. I had to learn about fund accounting, but I can honestly say that I know how we can report our monies and how to keep us out of trouble with the IRS. I think this is the best our books have ever looked --- and with a "non-accounting person" doing them. Don't hesitate to contact accounting professors at universities and even local community colleges. Also, don't hesitate to contact your state's society of accountants local chapter.
Hi!
We're a new pto as well. When we joined NPN we got the 3 guides and the treasurer guide seemed to be very good. I have an accounting background so I did not read all of it. However, from what I saw and with a little help if necessary that would be a good start.
Beth McGoldrick
If your books are well organized, you should be able to sit down and break things out by events/programs. Then simply make a spreadsheet showing all the income and expenses for each event/program. If you have other things coming up, you can try to estimate what you think you will make and spend on each of those. Plug those into your spreadsheet and voile a projected budget!
As time goes by, you will get better and better at estimating what you will make and spend and can have something laid out at the beginning of the year.
Okay - so reading through all this, I have just now discovered how incompetant I am!! Just kidding, but since our PTO is brand new this year, we have really been feeling around in the dark. Our treasurer is a doll. I have checked the receipt books behind her once and found an error, but we handled it quietly together. I don't ever want to embarrass her. The situation I now face is we are starting to bring in more money and we don't have a budget. When we started we had no money, therefore no need for a budget. HOW DO YOU GET STARTED? Wow - that seemed like a loaded question, but I really want to get some type of order so when it is time to hand over the reins, all will be okay. Thanks!
I became the Sectertary without knowing I needed access to a computer, how to type, how to use Word, and build a newsletter...are you nuts!? It took me a couple months but I got my act together and I have really amazed myself!
So when it happened a couple years ago that my Treasurer went a-wall I had to do the books. Okay, in college I did okay in Accounting class but boy did I get a wake-up call! I was lucky enough too to have a Business Mgr. at school watching my back and in the long run help me fix my errors.
I met with the Biz Mgr to figure our books out, is this something that can be done here? Think of it as a day of overdue training.....
****I have learned more volunteering than all the time I could have spent in college. Made a few more friends too. [img]smile.gif[/img] *****
I guess if there's something positive I read in your post, it's that your finances are actually managed by the Business Manager who presumeably provides a level of checks/balances. That said, what to do to help your treasurer?
In PTO, if a project or event is poorly managed, well then maybe it's not as successful as it could have been. But when the money is poorly managed, well then emotions start to boil. Your treasurer needs to understand that your concerns have nothing to do with her personally. The entire board has an obligation to protect the money. The money belongs to ALL the PTO members (and ulitmately the kids), and the treasurer is merely the custodian. She has a moral responsibility to do everything she can to protect the money - that includes verifying activity that the Biz Mgr is doing versus what the PTO expects and reporting thoroughly each month.
My suspicion: she said yes to the job without really knowing what it involved. And now she's not only feeling overwhelmed, she's feeling embarrassed that it's going badly. Can you help her behind the scenes? Don't make a big public display of your involvement, keep it private and let her take the credit for getting the books back on track. Allow her to decide if she wants to acknowledge your help publically - let her save face. But help her definately. I've been a treasurer for several years. It is probably the hardest job in the PTO because there's no room for error. Tasks have to be done on time (ex: checkbook reconciliation), mistakes can quickly compound, and virtually no one else understands the work involved. It's lonely being a treasurer!
If it would help for her to communicate with someone else in the job, give her my email. You might also want to dig out the past issues of PTOToday magazine and have her read the Treasurer's Report column in each issue. That might help.
