Keeping Accounts
There are two main areas to be concerned with. These are:
- Expenditure - all the payments you make
- Income - all the money that you receive.
Expenditure
Expenses should be for a genuine purpose and therefore all expenses need to be authorised by two people. This means that the bottle of wine really was for a guest speaker and not for someone’s party. To authorise at least two people should sign the receipt that you get from the supplier.
To ensure that the expense is genuine you should always get a receipt even, if it is only a till receipt from the supplier. Try to make a note at the time on the reverse of the till receipt of what the expense was for if it is not clear from the receipt itself. Then sign and date it and get another executive from your local Medsin committee to authorise the expense. Keep all the receipts in a safe place until you need to reimburse the amounts that have been paid out.
At the end of the month, or when you reimburse the amounts you have paid out, you will need to write up a cash payments sheet. A suggested sheet is attached and you can use this in Microsoft Excel to assist in keeping a record of the expenses. The total of the expense lines will equal the value of the cheque that will be drawn by the treasurer.
When drawing the cheque the treasurer should ensure that there are receipts for totalling the value of the cheque and that they are for genuine expenses. The cheque should then be counter signed by a second executive who will double-check the treasurer’s work. You may find that if you have a society bank account through your student union or local bank that there is a pre-requisite for two signatories for cheques.
Each month the treasurer should ensure that all withdrawals from the bank are included in the Cash Payments sheet.
Income
Income will generally come in the form of cheques from other organisations. Cheques should be banked on the day they are received but if that is difficult then do it as soon as possible. You will fill in a bank deposit slip. A copy of the stub should be kept.
A cash receipts sheet should be kept to record the amounts received and if necessary the special purpose of the receipt if that is applicable. Your benefactor may want proof that the money they sent for pizzas/raffle prizes/printing of tickets was used for that purpose, so keep a record of when the associated expense was incurred.
In some instances you may be collecting cash for another charity. If that is the case then bank the cash as a separate amount on a separate bank deposit slip. When drawing the cheque to the relevant charity cross-reference the cheque payment to the cash deposit.
Each month, the treasurer should ensure that all deposits into the bank are included in the Cash Receipts sheet. Advice on the role of the treasurer can be sought by contacting the Medsin National Treasurer.
Last updated on Monday 08 September 2008 at 19:27.
