The summer fair is over. The tables are stacked in the hall, someone has handed you a carrier bag of notes and a biscuit tin of coins, and nobody has written anything down yet. Most treasurers of a parent teacher association (PTA) start the year guessing at what the fair actually made. This piece sets out a routine you can repeat each term, whoever holds the role next.
Start with the Monday after the summer fair: cash bags, a float, a tin of coins
Count the cash on the day it comes in, not in a week when the bag has moved to someone's kitchen cupboard. Ask a second person to count with you, and both sign the count sheet. Keep the sheet with the bag.
The float needs its own line. The float is the change you put into the tin before the stall opened. Count it out first, then count what is left. The difference is your takings. If the float was £50 and you end with £50 plus £312.40, the event took £312.40 in cash. That is the figure the committee wants, and it is easy to lose if the float is never separated out.
Coins are the usual problem. Sort them into the bags the bank provides, label each bag with its value and the event name, and count the bags before they go in the safe. Write the totals into the cash book the same day. A single line in the cash book saying "Summer fair, cash takings, £312.40, counted by two people" will save you an argument at the next meeting.
Bank the lot in one paying-in slip where you can. Write the event name on the slip's reference line or on the back, and keep a copy with the count sheet.
Record event income separately from regular income
A PTA usually runs several things across the year: the summer fair, a uniform sale, a Christmas disco, a bake sale, a sponsored walk. Regular income is different. It is the termly voluntary contributions, the donations that come in through the year, and any grant the school or a local business pays. If all of it lands on one line called "income", nobody can tell whether the fair was worth the effort or whether the uniform sale quietly lost money on stock.
Give each event its own income and expenditure line in the cash book. Record the sales, the cost of the raffle prizes, the hire of the hall, and the stock you bought for the tombola. The net result is what you report to the committee. A fair that made £1,200 gross but cost £900 to run should be reported as a £300 net gain, with the costs visible.
If your organisation collects donations that might qualify for Gift Aid, keep those separate from event takings. Gift Aid works on individual declarations and on the rules set out in HMRC's guidance, and it is not automatic. This is general information rather than tax advice. Check the current HMRC guidance on Gift Aid and the Gift Aid Small Donations Scheme (GASDS) before you claim anything. Do not assume that a membership fee or a ticket price qualifies just because it was paid to the PTA.
Ticking the bank against the cash book each term
Once a term, sit down with the bank statement and the cash book side by side. Tick each line on the statement against a line in the cash book. This is bank reconciliation, and it is the single job that tells you whether your records match what actually happened.
Work through it in order. Start with the opening balance. Tick the paying-in slips, then the card payments if your school or event used a card reader, then the direct transfers from parents. Tick the payments out: the supplier invoices, the cheques that have been cashed, the cash you withdrew for the next float.
Some lines will not tick. A cheque written in March that has not cleared yet is a timing difference, not an error. Write it on a list of outstanding items with the date and the payee. A paying-in slip that the bank has not yet credited is the same. Once the list is done, the statement balance less the outstanding cheques, plus the paying-in slips not yet credited, should equal the cash book balance.
If it does not balance, do not force it. Look for the transposed figure, the duplicate entry or the cash you took out for the float and forgot to record. Write down the difference you could not explain and tell the committee. An honest small gap with a note is far easier to live with than a balance that has been adjusted to look right.
Restricted funds: money raised for the library or the playground
Some money has a job before it arrives. If parents raise £2,000 for a new reading corner in the library, or the sponsored walk money is for the playground surface, that money is restricted. It should be spent on that purpose and nothing else, and it should be visible as a separate fund.
In the cash book, give each restricted fund its own line and its own running balance. Record every receipt and every payment against the fund it belongs to. When the library has been refurbished, the fund balance should be zero or should show what is still left to spend. If the library money is sitting in the general account, the committee cannot tell what the PTA is holding in trust for the school.
The free plan on Vasker covers a cash book with one fund, which is enough to start with one restricted purpose. If you are tracking the library and the playground separately, check the plans page to see which plan covers more than one fund before you set it up.
What the committee wants to see at each meeting
Committee members rarely want the whole cash book. They want one page that tells them where the money is and what has changed since the last meeting. A simple format works well:
- The bank balance at the statement date, and the date of the last reconciliation.
- The balance of each fund, general and restricted, with any money promised but not yet received.
- Income and expenditure since the last meeting, grouped by event or purpose.
- Each event's net result, for the events that have run since the last meeting.
- Any requests for payment waiting for approval, with the amount and the purpose.
Keep the page to one side of paper. If a committee member asks a question you cannot answer from that page, it usually means something should be added to the page next time, not that the treasurer needs more detail in the meeting itself.
Parent teacher association (PTA) year-end figures, kept simple
At the end of the financial year, the committee and any independent examiner will want the same few things: income and expenditure for the year, the figures for the previous year to compare against, the opening and closing cash and bank balances, and the funds listed separately. You do not need a set of accounts that looks like a company's. You need an income and expenditure statement that a parent can read in five minutes and that agrees to the bank.
Build it from the event lines and the regular income lines you have kept through the year. If the prior-year figures are in a different format, put them into the same headings so the comparison means something. Write a short note under the figures that explains any large movement, such as a year with no uniform sale because the supplier changed. The notes are often what the committee remembers.
What your PTA needs to file, and whether it needs an independent examination, depends on its constitution and the rules that apply to it. Check your organisation's own rules and the relevant guidance for your type of body before you commit to a format. This is general information for volunteer treasurers, not legal or accounting advice.
When your term ends, the handover is a separate piece of work. The treasurer handover guides cover that, so it is not repeated here.
If the cash book, the fund lines and the termly reconciliation are the parts that keep slipping, create your free account and start with one cash book and one fund. You can add the routine above around it without buying anything.