Accurate recording keeping is essential.
The treasurer and secretary should work together to ensure your PTA has updated and accurate records.
Current Year Files
Each treasurer should set up and maintain a current year’s financial file or binder. This file should contain the following items:
- Copy of current bylaws
- Copies of prior year information
- Year-end financial statement
- AFR (Annual Financial Reconciliation) report
- IRS filing
- Minutes of meetings
- Budget information
- Copies of Utah PTA paperwork
- “Basic Fiscal Management Procedures”
- “Ethics/Conflict of Interest Policy”
- Treasurer’s reports
- Bank statements with related reconciliation reports
- General ledger and check register
- Organized by budget categories (and subcategories, as appropriate)
- Maintained manually or using computer software
- Used to track detail of transactions and to facilitate preparation of treasurer’s reports
- Supporting documents for all financial transactions
- Receipts, organized chronologically
- Disbursements, organized chronologically—in check number order
- Membership records
- Sales tax refund request forms
- Grant agreements, if applicable
Ten Year Files
It is important that certain records be kept beyond the current year. It is strongly recommended that the treasurer establish a record retention policy and maintain a ten-year file and a permanent file that could be kept at the school, with the permission of the principal. Here are some items that should be retained. Each treasurer should review the files annually and shred those records no longer needed.
In the Ten Years File:
- Budgets
- Treasurer reports
- Cash receipts records, including funds received forms
- Bank statements
- Disbursement records, including check request forms with invoices, receipts, etc. with sales tax information
- Contracts and leases (expired)
- Grant award letters of agreement
- Sales tax refund request forms
Permanent Files
Permanent mean forever so everything listed below should be kept from the beginning of your incorporation. In the Permanent File:
- AFR (Annual Financial Reconciliation) reports and related year-end financial statements
- Bylaws, including all amendments
- Contracts and leases still in effect
- Legal correspondence
- Insurance records, accident reports, claims, policies, certificates
- National PTA unit identification number
- Minutes of board and committee meetings
- Standing rules (current)
- Tax-exempt status documents
- Letter from IRS assigning EIN
- Determination letter
- Form 990EZ and related schedules, if required, or Form 990N
- Form 990T, if applicable, for unrelated business income
- Correspondence with IRS