You are sitting in the clubhouse after training. There is a receipt book on the table, a carrier bag of till slips from the tombola, and four photos on your phone of receipts you were not sure about. The bank statement arrives next week and you have no idea which slip matches which line. This is how a lot of volunteer treasurers start the year, and it is a fair way to describe most small clubs, PTAs and Scout groups before anyone sets up a proper system.
This piece is about moving that paper trail onto a cash book you can reach from your phone. It covers what a phone cash book can and cannot do, a routine that fits into an evening, and what to keep and where. It is general information for UK volunteer treasurers, not legal, tax or accounting advice. Check current HMRC guidance and your own regulator's guidance (the Charity Commission, OSCR or CCNI) for anything involving Gift Aid, collecting tins or membership benefits.
What a phone cash book can and cannot do
Vasker is a web app. You can use it in a browser, install it to your home screen as a progressive web app, or download the App Store and Google Play clients. Those are all the same cash book with a different front door.
The important limit is this: the cash book needs a connection. Vasker does not offer offline bookkeeping. If you are standing in a field with no signal, you cannot enter a transaction and expect it to save until you are back online. Plan around that from the start. Do not rely on the app to hold a week of entries on a phone in a car park.
What a phone does well is capture the moment. You can see your balance, check whether a payment has come in, and add a line while the details are still fresh. What a phone does less well is the careful end-of-month work of matching every receipt to a bank line, so keep that for a laptop or tablet if you have one.
A practical routine
Most treasurers who stick with the job end up with a two-stage routine, and it takes less effort than it sounds.
On the day, keep a note of cash coming in and going out. A small notebook or the notes section of your phone is enough. Write the date, the amount, what it was for and who paid or was paid. Put any slips or receipts in an envelope marked with the date. Do not try to tidy this up at the time.
On the evening you have a decent connection, usually at home on wifi, enter the day's cash and card transactions into the cash book. Do this in one sitting, while the notebook is still in front of you. Ten or fifteen minutes is often enough for a training night or a small event. Larger events, such as a quiz night or a sponsored walk, may take longer, and it is worth scheduling a separate evening for them.
Once a month, open the bank statement and tick each line against the cash book. That is the point where you find the missing entries before they become a problem at the AGM.
Receipts: what to keep, and where a photo helps
Keep the paper. A photo on your phone is a useful backup but it is not a substitute for the original, especially for anything that might be asked about later. HMRC expects records to be kept for at least six years for Gift Aid, and it is sensible to apply a similar standard to your general receipts.
Keep receipts for anything the club pays out: kit, pitch hire, insurance, room bookings, travel for away matches or tour, and printing for the newsletter. Keep the paperwork for money coming in too: sign-up sheets, ticket stubs, raffle books and tin counts, with a note of who counted and when.
A photo helps in three situations. First, when a receipt is faded or thermal paper will not last. Second, when a supplier needs a copy of a receipt you have already posted. Third, when the original has to go to a committee member or a treasurer handing over during the year. Name the file with the date, the amount and the supplier so you can find it again. Keep the photos in one folder, not scattered across your camera roll.
When you match a receipt to a bank line, write the cash book entry reference or the receipt number on the paper. It takes seconds and it saves an hour of searching in March.
Keeping funds apart
Most clubs have more than one pot of money, even if the bank account is one account. Subscriptions are for running costs. Kit money is for replacing kit. Tour money is collected for one trip and should be spent on that trip. A hut, clubhouse or ground fund is often built up over years for a specific purpose.
Keeping these funds separate in the cash book makes the committee's decisions easier. You can see at a glance whether the tour pot is on track or whether the hut fund has been quietly spent on the bar. It also protects you when someone asks why the balance is lower than expected.
The Free plan gives you a starter cash book with one fund. That is enough to learn the routine and see how money moves. When you need several funds with full books, members and reports for the committee, the Standard plan is £59 a year. Choose the plan when the club needs it, not because the software suggests it.
Two-factor authentication on every account
Every Vasker account uses two-factor authentication. That means a password alone is not enough to get in. The second step matters more than most people expect, because a treasurer's login is often on a personal phone that is also used for family photos, shopping and email.
If that phone is lost, shared or left unlocked, someone could read your club's cash book. Turn on a screen lock. Do not save the club login in a shared browser or on a family tablet. If a phone is replaced, set up two-factor authentication again on the new device before you clear the old one.
What to put in the handover
The next treasurer should not be locked out, and they should not have to guess what you did. A handover pack is the most useful thing you can leave.
Write down who holds the login and how the second factor is set up, without writing the password itself in the handover document. Note which bank accounts exist, who the signatories are and where the bank mandate is kept. List the funds and what each one is for. Include the month-end and year-end routine, with dates, so the next person knows when the bank statement is due and when the AGM figures are needed.
Keep the paper trail together: receipts by year, the photo folder, the notebook from the last event, and any letters from the bank or the regulator. Tell the incoming treasurer where each one is. Then walk through the cash book together once before you hand over the role.
Starting on the Free plan
You do not need a sales call or a setup fee to begin. Create your organisation from Sign up in a few minutes, start on the Free plan with a single fund, and enter the last month of transactions to see how the routine feels. If the club later needs full books, members, subscriptions and reports, Standard is £59 a year.
Start free: create the organisation from Sign up in a few minutes, and keep the paper receipts in the envelope until the evening you have a connection to enter them.