Quick tasks for treasurers during the Covid-19 pandemic

We know that some small groups are finding it hard to keep up with their accounts at the moment: keeping the books may be low on the list of priorities when you’re adapting to meet the changing needs of your members and you may not be able to follow your group’s normal finance rules when you’re unable to meet each other in person.

Don’t worry! A few quick tasks done as you go along will give you the information you need when you have time to sort out your books later:

Keep all your bank statements

  • If you have paper bank statements sent to you, you might want to make some notes on them to remind you what things are e.g. ‘income from crowd funder’, ‘grant from the council for food bank’, ‘transport costs for Joe Blogs’.

Keep receipts for money spent – ask volunteers to keep receipts too

  • Try to make notes on receipts to remind you what they were for, ask volunteers to do the same.
  • If they are able to, ask volunteers to take photos of their receipts send the photos to you.
  • If you refund them by bank transfer, cash or cheque, make a note on the receipts that you’ve done this.

Fill in your cheque stubs

  • If you make a payment by cheque, make sure you write on the stub to say who the cheque was made out to, what it was for and for how much. Write ‘to cash’ on the stub if you withdraw cash over the counter using a cheque.

Keep all financial documents in one place

  • Organise your records by month if you can, for example keep an envelope for each month. This makes it easier to find a specific thing if you need it later.
  • Keep any letters and emails from funders as well.

 

Page updated: 26/3/21 RL