Last updated 2026-07-25
TL;DR
A nonprofit treasurer tracks money in and out, keeps the books current, files the right IRS form (990-N, 990-EZ, or 990) each year, reports finances to the board, and keeps cash controls tight enough to survive an audit or leadership handoff. In a small club, that's usually 3-6 hours a month, more around tax deadlines and big fundraisers.
what does a treasurer do?
A treasurer is the person in a nonprofit or club who owns the money side: recording income and expenses, reconciling the bank account, paying bills, filing the annual IRS return, and telling the board (in plain numbers) whether the organization can afford what it wants to do. That's the whole job in one sentence. Everything else is detail. The treasurer isn't an accountant by default and doesn't need a CPA license. Most booster club and PTO treasurers are parents or volunteers who inherited a shoebox of receipts and a login to an online bank account. The job is administrative and organizational more than technical: keep clean records, follow the bylaws, hit deadlines, and don't let one person control money without anyone else checking. Some organizations split the job into treasurer plus a bookkeeper or finance committee. Smaller booster clubs usually just have one treasurer doing everything, which is exactly why cash controls (a second signer on checks, someone else reviewing bank statements) matter so much. One person with total control over the books, with nobody else looking, is how honest mistakes and dishonest ones both go unnoticed for years.
what is a treasurer?
A treasurer is an elected or appointed officer responsible for an organization's financial records and reporting. The title shows up in bylaws right alongside president, vice president, and secretary, and most state nonprofit corporation laws either require or assume some version of this role exists. Legally, the treasurer is usually the officer named on the bank signature card and the one whose signature (or countersignature) appears on the IRS filing. Practically, the treasurer is the person everyone else in the club calls when they need to know how much money is left for the spring trip. In a formal 501(c)(3), the treasurer sits on the board or reports directly to it, and carries fiduciary responsibility, meaning legal and ethical duty to handle the organization's money in its interest, not anyone's personal interest. That duty doesn't disappear because the group is small or all-volunteer.
what do treasurers do day to day, month to month, year to year?
| Weekly/as needed | Deposit funds, pay bills, log receipts | |
|---|---|---|
| Monthly | Reconcile bank statement, prepare board financial report | |
| Quarterly | Review budget vs. actual, check reserve/fundraising goals | |
| Annually | File IRS return (990-N/EZ/full 990), prepare for external review or audit, update budget for new fiscal year | |
| At leadership change | Hand off records, bank access, and passwords to incoming treasurer | Most small booster or PTO treasurers land somewhere between 3 and 8 hours a month in a quiet stretch, spiking hard around big fundraisers, the start of the school year, and the annual filing deadline. |
Day to day, a treasurer deposits checks and cash, pays approved invoices, and logs every transaction somewhere (spreadsheet, QuickBooks, Wave, whatever the group uses). Month to month, the treasurer reconciles the bank statement against the books and gives the board a written report: cash on hand, money in, money out, and anything unusual. Year to year, the treasurer builds or updates the budget, helps with the annual audit or financial review, and files the required IRS return by the deadline. Here's a rough breakdown of the recurring tasks: | Frequency | Task |
what does a treasurer do in a club or booster organization specifically?
In a school booster club or youth sports league, the treasurer's job looks a little different from a big nonprofit's CFO-lite role, mostly because the money moves fast and in cash. Concession stand cash, raffle ticket sales, car wash proceeds, spirit wear orders, and parent dues all hit the books within a few weeks of each other, often in physical cash and checks rather than card payments. So a club treasurer does the standard stuff (bookkeeping, bank reconciliation, board reports, tax filing) plus some booster-specific things: managing a cash box and count sheet for events, making sure two people count concession stand money before it's deposited, tracking which fundraiser dollars are restricted to which team or activity, and possibly applying for a state raffle license before the group runs a raffle at all (rules vary heavily by state; confirm with your state's charity regulator or attorney general's office before running one). Because booster clubs often operate as a chapter under a parent PTA/PTO or as their own small 501(c)(3), the treasurer also needs to know which entity actually files the tax return and holds the EIN. Filing under the wrong entity, or not filing at all because everyone assumed someone else was doing it, is one of the most common ways small booster clubs end up on the IRS auto-revocation list.
what does a treasurer of a club do that's different from a corporate finance role?
A club treasurer usually has no paid staff, no accounting software budget, and no professional backup, which means the job is equal parts bookkeeping and babysitting the process so nothing slips. There's no controller checking your work. There's no audit committee unless your bylaws require one and someone actually schedules it. That makes documentation the treasurer's best friend. Every deposit needs a source (which fundraiser, which event). Every check needs a receipt or invoice attached. Every cash count needs two signatures. This isn't bureaucracy for its own sake; it's what lets a treasurer prove, six months later when a parent asks, exactly where the $4,200 concession stand total went. It's also what makes handoff to next year's treasurer survivable instead of a nightmare. A club treasurer who keeps clean, dated files (digital or paper) hands over a binder or a shared drive folder, not a fog of memory.
what is Form 990, and does my group need to file it?
| Form 990-N (e-Postcard) | Small orgs | Gross receipts normally ≤ $50,000 [2] | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Form 990-EZ | Mid-size orgs | Gross receipts < $200,000 AND total assets < $500,000 [3] | |
| Form 990 (full) | Larger orgs | Gross receipts ≥ $200,000 OR total assets ≥ $500,000 [3] | The IRS is direct about who has to file something: "Most tax-exempt organizations are required to file an annual return" and "Organizations eligible to file Form 990-N can choose to file a full return" [2]. There is no dollar-based exemption from filing altogether; even the smallest booster club filing a 990-N still has to file something every year. For the deeper mechanics of each version, see form 990, [990](/articles/treasurer-basics/990), and 990 tax form. |
Form 990 is the annual information return the IRS requires most tax-exempt organizations to file, reporting income, expenses, assets, and activities for the year [1]. It's not an income tax return in the traditional sense (exempt orgs generally don't owe income tax on program activities), but it's how the IRS and the public see what a nonprofit did with its money. Which version you file depends on gross receipts and assets: | Filing | Who files it | Threshold (roughly) |
what is a 990 tax form used for?
The 990 tax form is a public disclosure document as much as a tax filing. It tells the IRS, and anyone else who looks it up on sites like the IRS Tax Exempt Organization Search, what the group brought in, spent, and holds in assets, plus who's on the board and whether there are any conflicts of interest or unusual transactions. Parents, donors, school administrators, and even future board members use it to sanity-check a booster club before writing a check or volunteering. Banks sometimes ask for it (or the confirmation letter tied to it) before opening or maintaining an account. Grant-making foundations almost always check it before funding anything. Filing it late or not at all has a specific, ugly consequence: three consecutive years of missed 990 filings triggers automatic revocation of tax-exempt status, no warning letter required beyond the standard reminder notices [4]. Recovering from that (retroactive reinstatement, refiling, sometimes a user fee to the IRS) is its own project; see irs form 990 for filing mechanics and 990n or form 990-n for the small-org e-Postcard version specifically.
what is the 990, in plain terms, for someone who's never filed one?
Think of the 990 as your club's annual report card to the IRS: money in, money out, what's left, who's in charge. If your group's gross receipts are normally $50,000 or less, you almost certainly qualify for the simplest version, Form 990-N, which is filed online and asks for basic information like your EIN, legal name, address, and confirmation that receipts are under the threshold [2]. Cross that $50,000 threshold and you move to Form 990-EZ or the full Form 990, both of which ask for actual financial statements: a statement of revenue, a statement of functional expenses, and a balance sheet. This is where a lot of volunteer treasurers get nervous, understandably, because these forms start to look like real tax documents. They are real tax documents. But the IRS instructions for each form walk through every line, and if your books are already organized by category (dues, fundraising, event costs, supplies), filling in the form is mostly transcription, not invention. The filing deadline for all versions is the 15th day of the 5th month after your fiscal year ends. For a calendar-year organization, that's May 15 [5].
what happens if the treasurer misses a 990 filing deadline?
One missed year usually isn't fatal. The bigger problem is three years in a row. "Federal law requires the IRS to revoke the tax-exempt status of any organization that fails to file required returns or notices for three consecutive years," per the IRS's own explanation of automatic revocation [4]. Once that happens, the revocation takes effect on the original filing due date of the third missed year, and it applies whether the missed forms were 990-N, 990-EZ, or full 990. A revoked organization loses its exempt status, which usually means donations stop being tax-deductible to donors, and depending on the state, the group may owe state income or franchise tax it never had to pay before. Reinstatement is possible (there's a streamlined process for small orgs that qualified for 990-N, described in Revenue Procedure 2014-11, and a more involved process with a user fee for larger orgs), but it takes real paperwork and time, and the IRS doesn't guarantee any particular outcome or timeline for reinstatement [6]. The fix is boring but effective: put the filing deadline on a shared calendar the board can see, more than the treasurer's personal reminders, and confirm every single year that a filing actually went in, more than that someone meant to do it.
what financial controls should a treasurer set up from day one?
Controls are the boring stuff that keeps an honest treasurer honest and catches an incompetent one before real damage happens. None of this is optional in spirit, even if your bylaws don't spell it out. Minimum controls for a small nonprofit or club: - Two signers required on any check above a set dollar threshold (many small nonprofits set this at $250-$500, though your bylaws or board should pick the number).
- Someone other than the treasurer reviews the monthly bank statement, even briefly.
- Cash from events (concessions, raffles, car washes) gets counted by two people before deposit, with both signing a count sheet.
- A written budget approved by the board before the year starts, so spending has a reference point.
- Receipts or invoices attached to every expense, filed by month or by event.
- A backup person (not the treasurer) who knows the bank login exists and where records live. None of this requires expensive software. A shared spreadsheet, a locked cash box, and a habit of never letting one person both collect and deposit cash alone will stop the majority of the small-dollar problems that sink volunteer treasurers.
what should a treasurer job description include when a club writes one?
If your booster club, PTO, or league is writing this down for the first time, keep it specific and short enough that a busy volunteer will actually read it. A workable job description covers: 1. Core duties: bookkeeping, bank reconciliation, bill payment, board reporting. 2. Filing responsibility: which IRS form the group files, and by what date each year. 3. Budget role: draft the annual budget, track actual spending against it, flag variances. 4. Cash handling rules: who counts event cash, how it's deposited, how often. 5. Reporting cadence: monthly written report to the board, at minimum. 6. State compliance: charitable registration renewal, raffle license renewal if applicable (confirm requirements with your state charity office or attorney general). 7. Handoff requirements: what records, logins, and files get passed to the next treasurer, and when. 8. Term length and eligibility, per your bylaws. Writing it down does two things: it protects the treasurer (clear expectations, less blame for things outside the role) and it protects the organization (the job doesn't disappear when one person burns out or moves away). A one-page written job description, reviewed every year at the annual meeting, solves more handoff problems than any software purchase.
how much time does the treasurer job actually take?
There's no official government study measuring hours for volunteer booster club treasurers specifically, so take this as informed estimate rather than cited statistic: most small club treasurers report somewhere between 2 and 6 hours in a quiet month, and 10-15 hours in a month with a major fundraiser, the annual filing deadline, or a leadership transition. A new treasurer inheriting messy books, or one running a group with a raffle license, event insurance, and a formal state charitable registration, should expect the first few months to run heavier while records get cleaned up and organized. After that, the job settles into a predictable monthly rhythm: reconcile, report, repeat, with a spike each spring around the 990 deadline. If your organization is starting from an actual mess (missing bank statements, no prior 990 filings, an inherited EIN nobody recognizes), building a State-Personalized Treasurer Kit for your specific state's rules can shortcut a lot of the research a new treasurer would otherwise spend weeks doing alone.
who does the treasurer report to, and who checks the treasurer's work?
The treasurer reports to the board of directors (or the club's executive committee, depending on your bylaws), typically with a written financial report at every regular board meeting. In many nonprofits, the treasurer also works alongside or reports informally to the board president, but the accountability line runs to the full board, not to any single officer. Who checks the treasurer's work depends on the organization's size. Very small clubs often rely on the board itself reviewing bank statements and the annual budget together. Larger nonprofits, or ones required to by state law above certain revenue thresholds, bring in an independent financial review or audit, sometimes by an outside CPA. Either way, nobody, including a trusted longtime treasurer, should be the only person who ever looks at the bank statement. That single habit prevents most of the fraud and most of the honest bookkeeping errors that quietly compound for years.
Frequently asked questions
What does a treasurer do?
A treasurer tracks all money coming in and going out of an organization, reconciles bank statements, pays approved bills, reports finances to the board regularly, and files the required annual IRS return (990-N, 990-EZ, or full 990) on time. In clubs, the treasurer often also manages event cash handling and raffle license compliance.
What is a treasurer?
A treasurer is an officer, usually elected under an organization's bylaws, responsible for financial recordkeeping, bank account oversight, and tax filing compliance. The treasurer typically holds fiduciary duty to manage funds honestly and in the organization's interest, and is often the signer of record on the group's bank account and IRS filings.
What do treasurers do on a monthly basis?
Monthly, a treasurer reconciles the bank statement against the internal books, prepares a written financial report for the board, pays outstanding bills, and files receipts for every transaction. In active fundraising months, they also process and deposit event cash and confirm two-person counts on any cash box.
What is Form 990?
Form 990 is the IRS's annual information return for tax-exempt organizations, reporting revenue, expenses, and assets [1]. Small organizations with gross receipts normally at or below $50,000 file the simplified Form 990-N instead; larger ones file Form 990-EZ or the full Form 990 depending on receipts and assets [2][3].
What does a treasurer do in a club?
A club treasurer handles the same core duties as any nonprofit treasurer (bookkeeping, reporting, filing) plus club-specific tasks: managing concession stand or fundraiser cash, tracking funds restricted to specific teams or activities, and handling state raffle license applications where the club runs raffles.
What does a club treasurer do that's different from other nonprofit treasurers?
A club treasurer usually manages more physical cash (concessions, raffles, car washes) and has no paid finance staff to lean on. That makes documentation, two-person cash counts, and clean handoff files more important than in staffed nonprofits with dedicated bookkeeping departments.
What is a 990 tax form used for?
It's used both as a tax filing and a public disclosure document. Donors, banks, grantmakers, and school administrators can look up an organization's 990 to see its revenue, expenses, and board members before donating, opening accounts, or awarding grants. Missing three straight years of filing triggers automatic IRS revocation of tax-exempt status [4].
What is the 990, exactly, for a first-time treasurer?
It's your organization's annual financial report to the IRS: money in, money out, assets, and leadership. Under $50,000 in gross receipts, most groups file the simple Form 990-N online [2]. Above that, Form 990-EZ or full Form 990 requires actual financial statements, due the 15th day of the 5th month after fiscal year end [5].
What does a treasurer of a club do if the group has never filed taxes before?
First, confirm the organization actually has an EIN and check its status on the IRS Tax Exempt Organization Search. If it's never filed or has missing years, the treasurer should gather what financial records exist and confirm next steps with the IRS directly; reinstatement after revocation has a specific process but no guaranteed outcome or timeline.
Does a nonprofit treasurer need to be a CPA or accountant?
No. Most volunteer treasurer roles in booster clubs, PTOs, and youth sports leagues don't require any accounting credential. The job is mostly organizational: accurate recordkeeping, timely filings, and clear reporting. Larger nonprofits above certain revenue thresholds may be required by state law to have an independent CPA review or audit, but that's separate from who holds the treasurer title.
How often should a treasurer report to the board?
Most bylaws call for a written financial report at every regular board meeting, commonly monthly or quarterly. At minimum, the treasurer should present cash on hand, income and expenses since the last report, and any budget variances, so the board can catch problems early rather than at year-end.
What records does a treasurer need to hand off to the next treasurer?
Bank statements and reconciliations for at least the current and prior year, the general ledger or spreadsheet of all transactions, copies of filed IRS returns, the EIN confirmation letter, current budget, any state charitable or raffle registration documents, and bank account login access transferred formally, more than shared informally.
Sources
- IRS, Form 990 Series Overview: Form 990 is the annual information return most tax-exempt organizations must file, and which version depends on receipts/assets
- IRS, Annual Electronic Filing Requirement for Small Exempt Organizations (Form 990-N): Organizations with gross receipts normally $50,000 or less can file Form 990-N; organizations eligible for 990-N can choose to file a full return instead
- IRS, Form 990-EZ and Its Instructions: Form 990-EZ threshold: gross receipts under $200,000 and total assets under $500,000
- IRS, Automatic Revocation of Exemption: Federal law requires the IRS to automatically revoke tax-exempt status after three consecutive years of failing to file required returns
- IRS, Form 990 Instructions (When to File): The 990 series filing deadline is the 15th day of the 5th month after the organization's fiscal year ends
- IRS, Revenue Procedure 2014-11 (Streamlined Reinstatement Procedures): The IRS provides a streamlined retroactive reinstatement process for small organizations that had their tax-exempt status automatically revoked and were eligible to file Form 990-N or 990-EZ