Each month, Treasurers should provide an update on the financial status of the PTO to the PTO officers, committee chairs and members.
And to make it easier, a written report is best!
I’ve sat in many meetings when treasurers presented reports over the years.
Some included enough information to the extent there were no follow up questions. Yay!
But some were too barebones and didn’t have enough information in them to make sense to meeting attendees. Ehhhh…
And in this case, there were lots of questions.
That required more time to discuss the PTO financial status than would’ve otherwise been necessary.
That makes for a really painful meeting…
In this post, you’ll learn exactly how to give a Treasurer’s report.
You’ll see what’s important to include and what’s not.
Let’s get into it right now!
What to Include in the Treasurer’s Report
In order to give a full picture of the PTO financial situation, you’ll want to include the following information in the Treasurer’s report:
Monthly Activity
Start off the Treasurer’s Report by stating what month the report covers. Typically, reports include the time since the last meeting.
So for the April meeting, the Treasurer’s Report should include transactions that occurred in March.
And at the September meeting, the report should include all of the Summer months since the last meeting.
Budget Update
Next, one of the most important pieces of data to include in the monthly Treasurer’s Report is a comprehensive budget status update.
In the updated status, the Treasurer’s Report should include the PTO budget for all categories of income and expenses.
It’s important to include not only the budgeted amounts, but also the actual amounts received and spent as well as the difference between the two.
This information is crucial to have at the meeting when everyone’s present to make spending decisions.
If there’s unexpected income or expenses, the overall budget may need adjusting and that’ll need to happen at the PTO meeting.
Another common situation is when there’s a request for the PTO to pay for something from the Principal or a teacher.
For example, the Principal may come to the meeting with a request for the PTO to provide $500 for t-shirts for the 6th graders.
Without the big budget picture, you won’t be able to make the funding decision on the spot. You won’t be able to see where available money is in the budget.
Also, officers should be closely monitoring the budget throughout the year.
At every meeting, your PTO should be looking at the overall budget numbers to ensure no overspending and that at the end of the year, there’s money left over!
Income
Another crucial category of information to include in the monthly PTO Treasurer’s report are all income transactions since the last meeting.
Include upcoming income that the PTO anticipates receiving or those that occurred after the month included in the report.
- Date of deposit,
- Description of the transaction,
- Income category, plus
- Transaction amount.
Expenses
The next category of information to include in the Treasurer’s Report is any and all expenses that occurred.
The expense information should be itemized with the following noted in the report:
- Date of check,
- Check number
- Check Payee,
- Description of the transaction,
- Expense category, and
- Transaction amount.
Account Balances
The report should also state the beginning and ending balances of all bank accounts, including checking, savings or money market accounts, plus any investment accounts.
This information should come right from, and match, the bank statements.
Upcoming Income and Obligations
Another really useful bit of information to also include in the Treasurer’s Report is income and expenses that are coming up or that happened after the end of the month covered in the report.
Usually there’ s a gap between the end of the month and the PTO meeting.
There’ll be questions if upcoming items aren’t noted in the report.
And it’s helpful to see what’s coming up for planning and spending decisions.
Wrapping up!
The PTO Treasurer’s report doesn’t have to contain anything else.
Make sure to cover the starting ending account balances, a budget update, the actual income and expenses for the month and upcoming income and obligations in the report.
This comprehensive information will give everyone in the PTO the exact information they need to make informed decisions!
Another benefit to presenting the report like this is that the Treasurer doesn’t necessarily have to be at the meeting.
The report can speak for itself!
One final note…
When giving the report during the meeting, it isn’t necessary to read off every transaction.
Your PTO People are smarter than that and really don’t need to be spoon-fed the information.
Usually stating the balance and any notable transactions is enough!
Need help putting the report together?
One tool that makes putting the monthly Treasurer’s Reports together super easy is the Treasurer’s Finance Manager.
It’s a straightforward and easy to use system that is a complete solution for managing PTO finances!
The Finance Manager makes it simple to pull together the monthly reports in just a few minutes. Watch a quick tutorial here:
Simply grab screenshots of the monthly transactions and paste into a document.
Add in the other information outlined above and you’re done!
Nothing complicated or time consuming about it!
Get your copy of the Treasurer’s Finance Manager here:
Watch this!
