Note · PTA

First, the period is not the calendar month

A monthly treasurer's report covers the span from the last meeting to the day before this one, not the first to the thirty-first. The end date should sit as close to the meeting as you can get it, so the numbers you read aloud are the numbers in the account that night.

Two consequences worth knowing before you build anything:

• September's report is the big one. It picks up everything since the last meeting before summer: dues that came in over the break, deposits that cleared in July, the deposit slip somebody finally handed you in August.
• If your board meets twice, you report twice. Executive board meetings and general association meetings each get their own report for their own period. The two audiences want different detail, and a report that covers the wrong window reads as a mistake.

Four columns, not two

Every income and expense line in the national sample carries four columns: Monthly / YTD / Budget / Variance. The variance column is the reason the report exists. It is the only column a board member can read without doing arithmetic. One line from the sample, in full:

Local Membership Dues: Monthly 300.00, YTD 4,800.00, Budget 5,100.00, Variance (300.00)

Anyone in the room can see that dues are behind. No one has to ask.

The eight lines that belong on the page

• 1. Header. Association name, "Treasurer's Report," the period covered with both dates, and the meeting date. The period line kills the "why isn't the book fair money on here" question before it is asked.
• 2. Balance on hand, opening. One dated line per account: checking, savings, money market, and each payment processor (more on that below).
• 3. Income by category. Membership dues, fundraising projects (one line per project, not one line called "fundraising"), donations, corporate sponsorship, interest. Four columns each.
• 4. Total income. One number, with the same four columns.
• 5. Expenses by category. Group by function: administration and fixed costs (supplies, printing, postage, liability insurance, bonding insurance), leadership education, committees, volunteer recognition, projects. Four columns each.
• 6. Total expenses, then balance on hand, closing. Dated. This is the number people remember, so make it the number that ties to the statement.
• 7. Bank reconciliation. Statement ending balance, minus outstanding checks, plus deposits in transit, equals book balance. Three typed lines, and they are the difference between a claim and a proof.
• 8. Upcoming income and obligations. What is already committed before the next meeting: deposits due, a fundraiser float, checks promised but not cut. This is what stops the emergency vote in October.

Bottom of the page: "Submitted by ______, Treasurer." Some boards vote to accept the report, some file it. Follow your bylaws and get the action into the minutes.

Trap 1: money in the account that is not the association's

Membership dues are collected in full but they are not all yours. Splitting the sample's $11 annual dues: $2.25 national, $2.75 state, $6.00 local. Only the local $6.00 is PTA income. The state and national shares are money you are holding and remitting.

The same is true of teacher gift collections, class funds, book fair proceeds owed to the vendor, and spirit wear taken on behalf of someone else. So the report needs two sections, amounts belonging to the association and amounts NOT belonging to the association, plus a footnote stating the pass-through totals. The national sample does exactly that:

"State and national portions of dues collected and remitted to state: $4,000. Founders Day donations: $300."

Skip the split and two things break. Your income looks thousands of dollars better than it is, and the year-end statement and the audit committee's reconciliation will not tie. If your state PTA publishes a finance guide, that guide is the authority on how your state wants it shown. Read it before your first report, not your first audit.

Trap 2: every payment app is a bank account

Here is the rule that catches first-year treasurers. Any account that money moves through needs a monthly report line. Bank account, obviously. Also PayPal, Square, Stripe, Venmo, and the cash box at the book fair.

Why it matters: if dues landed in PayPal and the PayPal balance is not on the report, your closing balance is wrong, and the board finds out at the worst possible moment. Add the processors as lines on the report from the first month, even when the balance is zero. A zero line takes five seconds. Explaining a missing four hundred dollars takes a meeting.

Build it once in Sheets and the report takes ten minutes

• Tab 1: Transactions. One row per transaction: Date, Account, Type (income/expense), Category, Project, Payee or description, Check number, Amount, and a Belongs-to-PTA Yes/No column. No merged cells, no colors, no blank rows. This tab is the whole system.
• Tab 2: Budget. Category, annual budget, YTD actual (SUMIFS against Tab 1), variance. This is the source of the Variance column.
• Tab 3: Report. The eight lines above, with every figure a SUMIFS or SUMIF keyed on category, account, and period. Only the reconciliation block is typed by hand.
• Print it once and check the page break. Set the print area so the report, including reconciliation and variance, fits one sheet. A two-page treasurer's report gets half-read.
• Keep the workbook at year-end. The annual report and the audit packet are the same data with a different date filter. Done right, they take an afternoon. Done from a shoe box, they take a weekend.

Presenting it in two minutes

• Read the opening balance, the closing balance, and the two largest items. Do not read the ledger.
• Hand copies to the president and the secretary, and have it attached to the minutes. That is what makes it a record rather than a slide.
• Cannot attend? Send it to the president before the meeting so they can present it for you.
• Say the commitments out loud before anyone asks: "the bounce house deposit clears next week, so next month's balance drops about $400." That one sentence prevents most budget arguments.

One budget line to check this month

The national sample budget carries liability insurance and bonding insurance as separate fixed lines, and many state PTAs require the treasurer to be bonded. If you cannot find a bond for the treasurer in your current budget, that is a bylaws question for the next meeting, not a line item to quietly skip. The monthly report is what the bond and the audit committee both lean on, so make it the thing you can hand over without apologizing.

The bottom line

Do not download another two-row form. Write the period as meeting-to-meeting, use four columns with a variance, split what belongs to the PTA from what does not, add a line for every payment app, and let a SUMIFS-driven spreadsheet build the report for you. The report is not the deliverable. The clean year-end and the un-asked question in the meeting are.

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