You said yes at the coffee morning
Somebody needed a treasurer, you had offered to help with the Christmas fair, and now there is a bank card in a drawer, a cash tin nobody has counted since September, and a folder from the last treasurer that runs to forty pages of half-finished sums. You are not an accountant, and the job does not need one. What it needs is a single record that anyone on the committee can read, kept up a little at a time.
This page is about that record. It is the simplest version a parent teacher association (PTA) can keep, and it is designed for a routine you can manage in a lunch break.
The one page
Your cash book needs five columns and nothing more:
- Date the money moved, not the date you wrote it down.
- What it was for, in words a committee member would understand, such as "Book fair float" or "Class 4 cake sale".
- Money in, with the amount received.
- Money out, with the amount paid.
- Which pot it belongs to, such as general funds, the playground appeal or the events account.
At the top of the page, write the opening balance. At the bottom, the closing balance. Every line in between should move the running total by exactly the amount in the money in or money out column. If it does not, you have a line missing or a line in the wrong column, and it is easier to find that today than in March.
If you prefer a spreadsheet, that is fine. The point is the layout, not the software.
Where the money comes from
In most PTA years, the money arrives through a handful of routes:
- events, such as the summer fair, quiz nights and the Christmas market
- class collections, such as tuck shop, uniform sales or cake sales
- donations from parents and local businesses
- payments for trips or activities that the PTA has agreed to collect for
Each of these needs a line in the cash book, and each line needs a note of where the money came from. The detailed routines for summer fair close-down, event cash and the termly cycle are covered in the existing PTA guides on this site, so this page does not repeat them. Use those when your first event arrives.
Three small habits
The cash book only works if it stays current. Three habits keep it that way without taking an evening.
Log it within a week. Money handled at a school gate on Tuesday is far easier to explain on Friday than at the end of term. Ten minutes at lunch is enough for a week of receipts if you do it regularly.
Keep the receipt or a photo. Pin the receipt to a sheet, or take a photo on your phone with the date and the purpose written next to it. When the next treasurer asks what the £42 on 14 March was, the answer should be in the folder, not in your memory.
Tick the bank once a month. Check each line in the cash book against your bank statement. If the totals agree, you know the record is right. If they do not, you find out while the event is still fresh in everyone's mind.
What to show at the next PTA meeting
You do not need a long report. At each meeting, show the committee five figures:
- the opening balance for the period
- the money in
- the money out
- the closing balance
- any money set aside for a named purpose, such as the new playground equipment or the library fund
That last line matters. A committee can see at a glance how much of the closing balance is free to spend and how much is already promised to something. Keep the named purpose wording the same each month so the figures are easy to follow.
Free to start, Standard later
Vasker's Free plan (£0) gives you a starter cash book with one fund. For many PTAs in their first year, one fund is enough to see where the money is going, and the one-page layout above works without anything extra.
You might want the Standard plan (£59 a year) when your PTA starts running several funds at once, or when the committee asks for fuller reports. Standard also adds members, subscriptions, reports and grant matching. You do not need to decide that now.
If you want to try the cash book, Start free: create the organisation from Sign up in a few minutes. There is no sales call and no setup fee.
It needs a connection
Vasker is a web app. It has an App Store and Google Play client, and it can be installed as a progressive web app (PWA) from your browser. The cash book needs a connection to work, so it is not for offline use. If you are going to be at a fair with no signal, take the paper float and the receipts with you, and enter them when you are back online.
Gift Aid, only if your PTA is eligible
Gift Aid can add 25p to every eligible pound donated by a UK taxpayer, but only organisations HMRC treats as eligible can claim it. Many PTAs are not charities in their own right, and eligibility depends on how the PTA is constituted and who it is linked to. Do not assume your PTA can claim just because you are collecting donations.
Before you do anything with Gift Aid declarations, check current HMRC guidance for your situation. Paying membership fees does not automatically qualify for Gift Aid either. If your PTA is eligible, HMRC expects the records to be kept for at least six years.
This is general information for volunteer treasurers, not tax or legal advice. Check the current HMRC guidance, and any rules set by your school or the PTA's own constitution, before you make a claim.