Treasurer Basics

Note: PTAs in Virginia have a fiscal year of July 1 to June 30.

As Treasurer, you make possible your PTA’s mission: engaging and empowering families and communities to advocate for all children. Remember that this is the real goal—not spending or making money, and certainly not doing paperwork for its own sake. If you do your job well, you will establish a foundation of stability and security so that your officers and members do not have to worry about resources and can fully focus on your mission.

As you get started as Treasurer, first familiarize yourself with the Uniform Bylaws that apply to PTAs and PTSAs (hereafter called “PTAs”). Article 8, Section 4, of the Uniform Bylaws outlines the duties of the treasurer. ​Next, follow the guidance below to set up and maintain a good recordkeeping system. Putting proper procedures in place at the start of the school year provides transparency for your members, helps protect your PTA from theft and fraud, and prepares you for a quick and painless end-of-year Financial Review. Remember that as an elected officer of your PTA, you have a fiduciary duty to act in the best interests of your PTA and a legal responsibility to adhere to PTA bylaws as well as federal and state law.

Keeping Your Nonprofit Status: Virginia PTA’s Standards of Affiliation

Frequently, a PTA’s Treasurer is the officer in charge of keeping up with the Virginia PTA’s Standards of Affiliation (SOA), a set of reporting requirements. Meeting the Standards of Affiliation are required for your unit to maintain your federal 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status and participate in various PTA grant and award programs.

All SOA materials are due annually by August 1.

• Learn more about Virginia PTA’s Standards of Affiliation

Starting the New Fiscal Year

When you start the new fiscal year on July 1 as the treasurer, you should immediately make sure that: (1) your PTA is set up on Givebacks, the system that VAPTA uses to manage compliance for PTAs; (2) you are listed officially as the Treasurer for your PTA on Givebacks; and (3) you have administrator access to your PTA’s Givebacks pages. (If your PTA has not used Givebacks previously, you can request access here.)

As a new Treasurer, you should decide how you want to organize your PTA’s financial records (“books”). Traditionally, a PTA will have a three-ring binder for each fiscal year (July 1–June 30) that contains all the records pertaining to that year. If—and only if—your PTA uses a managed workspace like Google Workspace or Microsoft 365, you may choose to store all your records in the cloud. (A managed workspace is owned by the organization, rather than an individual, which makes it more secure and easier to maintain after a PTA’s officers change.) You don’t necessarily have to follow the recordkeeping approach that your PTA has used before, but you do want to make sure the system you decide upon is transparent, convenient, and easy to understand—especially for those people who will be reviewing your books during the Financial Review at the end of the fiscal year.

We have created a Microsoft Excel template called Sample PTA Books, which you can download here. This spreadsheet includes tabs for the Budget, Transaction Register, Treasurer Reports, and Annual Budget Report, all of which you will need to fill out over the course of the year (as described below). You can download the Excel file by selecting File > Create a Copy > Download a Copy. If you are using digital records, you can upload this file to a cloud service like OneDrive/SharePoint (Microsoft) or Google Drive and then share it with your Executive Board or General Membership. (If you are using Google Drive, you can easily convert the Sample PTA Books Excel file into an editable Google Sheet by uploading the file to drive.google.com, editing the file there, and selecting File > Save as Google Sheets.) To customize this spreadsheet, start by editing the date range at the top of the first Budget tab and then edit the budget categories and line items as you see fit. The fields on all the other tabs will automatically be updated. Make sure that you are only replacing the text on the Budget tab rather than deleting or moving any rows or columns; otherwise, you might mess up the formatting on those other tabs. 

Regardless of whether you are using paper or digital records, we recommend the following organization for your folders (if you are using digital records) or your dividers (if you are using a three-ring binder with a bunch of dividers to categorize your papers). As shown below, there are 13 folders/dividers that contain general organizational information, followed by 12 folders/dividers (one for each month) that contain the transaction records that occurred in that month. You’ll see the wisdom of this approach when the Financial Review comes around!

This form summarizes the organization scheme. If you are using paper records, you might want to print out the form and put it at the beginning of your binder to remind you of how everything is organized. Note that the National PTA has a records retention policy that you should follow, which calls for keeping invoices and receipts for at least seven years and storing most other records permanently.

First Section: Organizational Folders/Dividers

You will gradually add materials to the following folders throughout the year. If you are using digital records, you might label them with letters or numbers so that they appear in the same order by default (e.g., A – Contact Info, B – Financial Review, C – Insurance, etc.):

1. Board Contact Info: the names, titles, addresses, emails, and phone numbers for the current year’s Board of Directors (at a minimum, the President, Treasurer, and Secretary of the PTA). This information can be printed out directly from the corresponding Givebacks page for your PTA.
2. Last Financial Review: the completed and signed Financial Review for the previous fiscal year, plus any interim Financial Reviews that are conducted during the current year, if applicable (e.g., if a Treasurer leaves before their term has ended).
3. Insurance: proof of your required insurance coverage for the current year. This is typically a one-page certificate included in your insurance policy document that lists the amounts of coverage and the effective dates. You should include any certificates pertaining to the current July 1–June 30 fiscal year (e.g., if your insurance is renewed on December 11 every year, include one certificate covering July 1 to December 10, and another covering December 11 to June 30).
4. Bylaws: the Organizational Structure Form pertaining to the current year (i.e., the last one that your PTA’s general membership approved), plus any standing rules, if applicable.
5. 501(c)(3) Letter: the 501(c)(3) verification letter (aka IRS determination letter or SOA letter) provided to you by the Virginia PTA for the current year after you complete the Standards of Affiliation requirements (i.e., submit all of the above materials and also pay your membership dues).
6. Minutes: minutes (and, optionally, agendas) for all Executive Board and General Membership meetings held during the current year.
7. Membership List: the membership list for the current year (which you can print out in Givebacks). This only really needs to be added to your formal records after the end of the fiscal year when you are preparing for the Financial Review, but remember to remit membership dues to the Virginia PTA every month to stay in compliance.
8. Budget: the approved budget and any approved amended budgets for the current year. Note that if you are using digital records, put your Budget, Transaction Register, Treasurer Reports, and Annual Budget Report in a single spreadsheet file—as is the case with our Sample PTA Books template. In that case, you can just save the file in a single folder called Books and avoid having separate folders for each item.
9. Transaction Register: a running balance of every credit and debit from your PTA’s financial accounts.
10. Annual Budget Report: an end-of-year report that lists all your PTA’s Budget categories and compares the budgeted and actual totals for each line item for the July 1–June 30 fiscal year. If you already include the budgeted amounts for each line item in your monthly Treasurer Reports (which is a good idea), this will just be your Treasurer Report for June! Again, if you have your Budget, Transaction Register, Treasurer Reports, and Annual Budget Report in a single spreadsheet file—as is the case with our Sample PTA Books template—then you can just save the file in a single folder called Books and avoid having separate folders for each item.
11. IRS Filing: a full copy of your submitted IRS Form 990, 990-EZ or 990-N, which you will submit to the IRS and add to your records after the current fiscal year ends on June 30. If (and only if) your PTA is filing the Form 990-EZ, you should also include the confirmation page indicating the “Accepted” status of your filing, which is what you should actually submit to the Virginia PTA for Standards of Affiliation purposes (i.e., not the IRS Form 990-N itself).
12. Bank Signatory Paperwork: the paperwork you received from your bank when you last changed the authorized check-signers for your account. This is not required for the Financial Review, but you should keep it in your records to be transparent about who the authorized check-signers are for the current fiscal year; those individuals cannot be on the Financial Review Committee for your end-of-year Financial Review.
13. Sales Tax Exemption (optional): a copy of the letter confirming any Virginia Sales Tax Exemption that your PTA has received for the current year, if applicable. This is not required for the Financial Review, but you should keep it handy in your records if you do have such an exemption (which is not required of PTAs).

Second Section: Monthly Folders/Dividers

You should also include folders/dividers for every month. If you are using digital records, you can label them numerically so that they appear in chronological order (e.g., 2025-01 for January, 2025-02 for February, etc.). Each monthly folder/divider should contain the following materials:

1. That month’s Treasurer Report. Note that if you are using digital records and have your Budget, Transaction Register, Treasurer Reports, and Annual Budget Report in a single spreadsheet file—as is the case with our Sample PTA Books template—then you can just save the file in a main folder called Budget, Transaction Register, Treasurer Reports, and Annual Budget Report (or just Books) and avoid storing your Treasurer Reports in these monthly folders.
2. That month’s bank statement.
3. Any statements for other financial accounts (e.g., investment accounts, PayPal or Venmo accounts) covering that month.
4. All Deposit Record Forms (including those for cash deposits) for that month, along with their receipts/confirmations (to simplify the recordkeeping, you may want to create separate subfolders for each form/transaction and then put all the related receipts in that subfolder).
5. All Check Request Forms (including those for debit card or electronic payments) for that month, along with their receipts/invoices (to simplify the recordkeeping, you may want to create separate subfolders for each form/transaction and then put all the related receipts in that subfolder).

In addition to the Standards of Affiliation requirements, you will need to take care of two things once your term as Treasurer begins: (1) updating your PTA’s financial accounts, which includes adding yourself and two other officers as authorized signers on your PTA’s bank account; and (2) preparing a Budget, which needs to be approved first by the Executive Board and then by the General Membership. These tasks are described below.

Updating Your PTA’s Financial Accounts

Deadline: by the start of the fiscal year in July.

Next, you should update your PTA’s bank account as soon as possible to reflect the new leadership. Your checking account should have three authorized signers: the Treasurer, the President, and a third officer, usually the Secretary. (For fiduciary purposes, the three check signers should be elected officers; if that is not possible, you may need to get by with just two check signers, despite the issue that this causes with writing checks to reimburse oneself.) The authorized signers should not be married or otherwise related to each other. To add these incoming officers to the account, you will need to contact your bank and schedule a meeting at a local branch. Normally, all the individuals who are going to be added or retained as authorized signers on the bank account will need to attend the same meeting (e.g., the incoming President, Treasurer, and Secretary), while those who are being removed from the account need not attend. You will each need to bring a driver’s license or other photo identification, and you typically need to bring meeting minutes or some other documentation that the three of you were elected to the Executive Board of your PTA (ask your bank what, if anything, they require, as some banks are stricter than others). The process can be lengthy, taking 30 minutes per signatory. Remember to ask about transferring online access as well; otherwise, the incoming officers may not be able to use the bank’s online services. As described above, keep the bank signatory paperwork that the bank provides in your PTA’s records so that it is transparent who had check-signing privileges during the fiscal year.

Per the Uniform Bylaws, all paper checks must have two signatures—ideally, the Treasurer, with the President as cosigner. This is a proven security measure that reduces the risk of fraud. You should arrange with your bank that two signatures are required for each paper check. (Note that even if there is just a single signature line on your checks, you can place two signatures side by side on that same line; you do not need to buy special checks with two signature lines.) None of the authorized signers should write checks to themselves or to “Cash.” If the Treasurer or President needs to be reimbursed, the other two signers on the account should write them a check. All three authorized signers should have access to online bank statements and whatever check/transaction register you are using. (If needed, you may establish read-only access accounts in financial software like MoneyMinder or in Excel spreadsheets.)

For all payments, including electronic payments (e.g., through platforms like PayPal, Stripe, or Venmo, or through your bank’s Bill Pay feature), you need two of your three authorized signers to provide their authorization on a Check Request Form (or all-in-one Treasurer Request Form). These officers are allowed to digitally sign the forms or even email their approval so long as a record of that approval is stored somewhere and available during the Financial Review. (Note that Virginia PTA dues may be remitted on Givebacks by just the President or the Treasurer.) Each Check Request Form must also be accompanied by a receipt or invoice.

New Treasurers should also obtain access to any electronic payment accounts that your PTA has set up. Givebacks uses Stripe, a processing system for credit card payments. PTAs are not required to set up Stripe, and it is not needed to remit monthly dues to the Virginia PTA. That said, Stripe allows your PTA’s Givebacks store to sell memberships, spirit wear, event tickets, and other items. If your PTA is using its Givebacks store, you should log into Givebacks, take over management of your PTA’s Stripe account, and make sure that it is transferring any store revenue directly to your PTA’s bank account. Note that you will need to provide your Social Security number to obtain access to your PTA’s Stripe account, just as you would for a bank account; federal laws require financial institutions to verify the identities of their customers.

Preparing a Budget

Virginia Sales Tax Exemption

Virginia sales tax exemption is not connected with the IRS or with your PTA’s federal income tax exemption. The Virginia Department of Taxation, which administers the sales tax exemption, can exempt your local PTA from paying sales tax on your purchases. Having a sales tax exemption is not required for your PTA, though it can save you money, and some sponsors may request to see the letter confirming your Virginia sales tax exemption. (Learn more here about applying for a Virginia Sales Tax Exemption and whether it is a good fit for your PTA’s spending practices.) If your PTA has a sales tax exemption, it typically needs to be renewed directly with the Virginia Department of Taxation every five years.

SAMPLE SUMMER PLANNING CALENDAR (Full Treasurer Monthly Checklist)