Last updated 2026-07-24
TL;DR
A nonprofit treasurer tracks money in and out, keeps books straight, files the right IRS Form 990 variant every year, and hands over clean records at the next election. For a small booster club or PTO, that mostly means a checkbook register, receipts, and a Form 990-N (or 990-EZ) filed on time so the group doesn't lose its tax-exempt status.
what does a treasurer do?
A treasurer is the person who watches the money for a club, PTO, or booster organization. That's the one-sentence version. In practice it means four ongoing jobs: recording every dollar that comes in and goes out, reconciling the bank account against those records every month, presenting a clear financial picture to the board or members, and filing whatever the IRS and your state require each year. Nobody hands you a manual when you take this job. Most treasurers inherit a shoebox, a spreadsheet nobody's updated since March, or a login to a bank account they've never seen before. That's normal. The job is learnable in a weekend if someone shows you where the numbers live. The scope changes with the size of the group. A 12-family swim team booster club treasurer might spend two hours a month on this. A district-wide PTO council treasurer moving $80,000 a year through concessions, spirit wear, and a spring gala is running something closer to a small business's books, minus the payroll usually. What doesn't change: you're the one person who can say, with a straight face, exactly how much money the organization has and where it came from. If you can't say that, you're not doing the job yet, and that's fixable.
what is a treasurer, exactly?
A treasurer is an officer position, usually defined in your organization's bylaws, responsible for custody of funds and financial recordkeeping. It's not a legal title with a nationwide definition. State nonprofit corporation law generally requires a corporation to have a treasurer or an officer performing treasurer duties, but the specifics of the role come from your own bylaws. Most booster clubs and PTOs are incorporated as nonprofit corporations at the state level, then separately apply for federal tax exemption under IRS Code Section 501(c)(3) or, for some booster and civic groups, 501(c)(4). The corporate treasurer role and the tax-exempt reporting obligations are two different layers. You can be treasurer of a state nonprofit corporation that never applied for 501(c)(3) status, and you can also be the financial officer of an unincorporated association that still has 501(c)(3) status. Confirm your group's actual structure with your state's corporation filing office and the IRS Tax Exempt Organization Search before assuming anything. Day to day, though, 'treasurer' means the same thing almost everywhere: the person with the checkbook, the bank login, and the job of explaining the numbers to everyone else at the meeting.
what do treasurers do on a typical month?
A working month looks like this, roughly in order: 1. Deposit any cash or checks collected since the last deposit, ideally within a few days of receiving them, never held at home. 2. Enter every transaction into your ledger (spreadsheet, QuickBooks, or dedicated nonprofit software) with a date, amount, category, and description. 3. Reconcile the bank statement against your ledger. The two should match to the penny. If they don't, find out why before you move on. 4. Prepare a short financial report for the board or membership meeting: cash on hand, money in since last meeting, money out, and anything unusual. 5. Pay any bills or reimbursements, with a receipt or invoice attached to each one. 6. File away paperwork so the next person (or an auditor, or the IRS) can follow the trail without asking you questions. That's the routine. Once a year you add the bigger jobs: filing your Form 990 variant, renewing any state charitable solicitation registration, and updating your reserve or budget plan for the next school year or season. If your group runs raffles or bingo nights, add state gaming license renewals to that annual list too, since those are separate from your federal filing.
what is form 990?
| 990-N (e-Postcard) | Gross receipts normally ≤ $50,000 | Filed online, 8 questions [1] | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 990-EZ | Gross receipts < $200,000 and total assets < $500,000 | Short form | |
| 990 (full) | Gross receipts ≥ $200,000 or total assets ≥ $500,000 | Full form | |
| 990-PF | Private foundations | Regardless of size | The IRS states the 990-N gross receipts threshold directly: organizations with gross receipts normally $50,000 or less may file the e-Postcard [1]. Most small booster clubs and PTOs fall into that first row. If you're not sure which form applies to your group, the form-990 overview walks through the decision in more detail, and the 990-tax-form explainer covers what's actually reported on each version. Miss the filing three years running and the consequence isn't a fine. It's automatic loss of tax-exempt status, which is a much bigger problem. |
Form 990 is the annual information return that most tax-exempt organizations file with the IRS. It's not an income tax return in the way an individual's Form 1040 is. It reports revenue, expenses, assets, and governance information so the IRS (and the public, since 990s are public record) can see how a tax-exempt organization is spending its money. There are four versions, sized to the organization: | Form | Who files it | Threshold |
what does a treasurer do in a club? (the booster club / PTO version)
For a school booster club or PTO, the treasurer job compresses down to a few concrete tasks most months of the year, plus a couple of bigger pushes. Weekly or event-based: collecting cash from concession stands, spirit wear sales, or car washes, counting it with a second person present, and depositing it promptly. Two-person cash counts aren't bureaucratic overkill. They protect the person handling the money as much as the organization; if a count is ever questioned, you have a witness, more than your word. Monthly: the reconciliation and report cycle described above. Most PTO and booster treasurers present a one-page summary at each meeting: starting balance, income, expenses, ending balance. Keep it simple. Nobody at a booster meeting wants a 12-tab spreadsheet walked through line by line. Annually: filing the correct Form 990 variant, renewing any required state charitable solicitation registration (many states require this above a small revenue threshold, and rules vary a lot state to state, so confirm with your state's charity office or attorney general), and if your group runs a raffle, renewing that raffle license separately. Booster clubs in particular sometimes also need to track individual player or student accounts if fundraising ties to specific kids, which raises private benefit questions the IRS cares about; the 990n and form-990-n pages cover the e-Postcard filing mechanics if that's your group's size.
what does a club treasurer do differently from a corporate treasurer?
A corporate treasurer at a Fortune 500 company manages investment portfolios, debt issuance, and currency risk. A club treasurer manages a checking account, maybe a savings account, and sometimes a CD for reserves. The title's the same. The job is not. What carries over: fiduciary duty. Both are legally and ethically responsible for handling other people's money honestly and accurately, and both can be personally liable if they're negligent or self-dealing (though for small volunteer nonprofits, many states offer some liability protection to uncompensated volunteer officers acting in good faith; check your state's volunteer protection statute). What doesn't carry over: complexity of instruments. A club treasurer almost never deals with bonds, hedging, or multi-entity consolidation. The real skill for a club treasurer is discipline with the boring stuff: depositing on time, categorizing correctly, keeping receipts, and not letting three months of transactions pile up unrecorded. That discipline is 90% of the job description no matter how small the organization is.
what is a 990 tax form? is it actually a tax return?
Calling it a 'tax form' is a little misleading, and it's worth clearing up because the phrase gets used constantly. Form 990 is an information return, not an income tax return. Most 501(c)(3) organizations don't owe federal income tax on money raised for their exempt purpose, so there's usually no tax bill attached to filing it. What it does do is disclose. The IRS explains that Form 990 is used to "provide the IRS with the information required by section 6033" and that it is "the source of information for the Exempt Organizations Business Master File" [2]. Members of the public, journalists, donors, and watchdog groups can all pull your organization's 990 through sites like the IRS's own Tax Exempt Organization Search or through nonprofit database sites, because 990s are public record once filed. That public visibility is actually a reason to file carefully. A sloppy 990 that misreports your budget doesn't just risk an IRS problem, it's the document a skeptical parent or a local reporter would pull first if they ever question how the booster club is spending money.
what is the 990, and which version do I file?
Confirm two numbers before you touch a form: your organization's gross receipts for the year, and its total assets at year end. Those two numbers decide which 990 variant you file. Under $50,000 in gross receipts, normally, and you're eligible for the 990-N e-Postcard, an eight-question online form with no attachments and no paper option [1]. Between $50,000 and $200,000 in gross receipts, with assets under $500,000, you generally file the 990-EZ. At or above $200,000 in gross receipts, or $500,000 in assets, you file the full Form 990. Private foundations file the 990-PF regardless of size. The deadline for all versions is the 15th day of the 5th month after your fiscal year ends. For a calendar-year organization (year ending December 31), that's May 15 [3]. If your booster club's fiscal year runs July through June, matching the school year, your 990 deadline is November 15. One detail that trips people up every year: 'gross receipts' means everything that came in, before expenses. Run a $10,000 fun fair where you spent $6,000 on the venue and prizes and netted $4,000? Your gross receipts for the 990-N threshold are $10,000, not $4,000. This is where booster clubs sometimes get bumped into 990-EZ territory without realizing it. The [990](/articles/treasurer-basics/990) and irs-form-990 pages go through the gross receipts calculation in more detail if your group is close to a threshold.
what happens if a treasurer misses a 990 filing?
One missed year, generally, nothing dramatic happens beyond a late notice, assuming you catch up. Three consecutive missed years is the real cliff edge. Federal law is explicit here: an organization that fails to file the required return or notice for three consecutive years automatically loses its tax-exempt status, with no appeal for the automatic revocation itself [4]. The IRS publishes an Auto-Revocation List of organizations that have lost exemption this way, and it's a long list, heavily populated by small clubs, PTOs, and booster organizations whose volunteer treasurer changed hands two or three times without anyone flagging the filing. Getting reinstated means filing IRS Form 1023 or 1023-EZ for reinstatement. Revenue Procedure 2014-11 lays out the streamlined retroactive reinstatement process for smaller organizations that apply within 15 months of revocation, with a separate process and user fee for organizations outside that window; the IRS describes the required steps in its Form 1023 instructions and in Rev. Proc. 2014-11 itself [5]. It also usually means back-filing any missed 990s and, depending on your state, re-registering for state tax exemption or charitable solicitation registration too. It's a real headache, it costs real filing fees, and it's completely avoidable with a calendar reminder.
how does a treasurer hand off the job to the next person?
This is where a lot of small nonprofits quietly fall apart, not through fraud, just through disorganization compounding year over year. A treasurer who leaves without a clean handoff sets the next person up to inherit confusion, and confusion is what leads to missed 990 filings and lapsed state registrations. A reasonable handoff includes: bank account access transferred (more than a shared password scrawled on a sticky note, an actual signature card update at the bank), the current year's ledger and reconciliation, copies of the last three years' 990 filings, the EIN and any state registration numbers, and a written summary of any recurring obligations (raffle license renewal date, state charity registration renewal date, insurance policy renewal date). Do this handoff at a real meeting, with both the outgoing and incoming treasurer present, and get board sign-off on the final financial report before the outgoing treasurer walks away. That sign-off protects both people: the outgoing treasurer has documented that their books were accepted as accurate, and the incoming treasurer has a clean starting point instead of an unexplained balance.
what basic controls should every treasurer set up on day one?
You don't need an accountant to set up decent controls. You need a few habits, applied consistently. Separate the money-handling from the money-recording where you can. If one person collects cash at events and a different person enters it into the books, errors and temptation both go down. In a small club where you're the only volunteer, at minimum get a second signature or witness on every cash count. Use a dedicated bank account for the organization, never a personal account, and never commingle personal and club funds even temporarily. Require two signatures on checks above a set dollar amount, something like $250 or $500 depending on your budget size. Keep receipts for every expense and require a reimbursement form, more than a verbal request. Reconcile monthly, not quarterly, so problems surface while you can still remember the context. And put your annual filing deadlines (990, state registration, raffle license) on a shared calendar the whole board can see, more than in your own head. A lot of new treasurers try to build all of this from scratch, which eats a weekend and still leaves gaps because you don't know what you don't know yet. That's the whole reason we built the $99 State-Personalized Treasurer Kit: it gives you the ledger template, the deadline calendar for your specific state, and the cash-handling forms already built, so day one is setup instead of research.
what should a treasurer's annual report to the board include?
At minimum: a statement of income and expenses for the year, a statement of the organization's assets (cash on hand, bank balances, any reserves) at year end, a comparison against the approved budget if you have one, and confirmation that the required IRS filing (990-N, 990-EZ, or full 990) was completed with the date it was filed. Many bylaws also require or recommend an independent review, not necessarily a full paid audit, but at least a walk-through by a board member who isn't the treasurer, comparing bank statements to the reported numbers before the annual meeting. This isn't about distrust. It's the same reason pilots use checklists even after 10,000 flight hours: a second look catches transposed digits and forgotten transactions that the person closest to the work stops seeing. If your organization is large enough to require a state-level charitable solicitation registration, some states also require a copy of your 990 or a financial statement to be filed with that registration annually, separate from the IRS filing. Confirm your specific state's requirement with your state's charity registration office or attorney general, since these rules vary widely and change periodically.
Frequently asked questions
What does a treasurer do?
A treasurer tracks all money coming into and out of an organization, keeps the books reconciled against bank statements, reports financial status to the board regularly, and files required annual paperwork like the IRS Form 990 variant. For small nonprofits, it's mostly disciplined recordkeeping, not complex finance.
What is a treasurer?
A treasurer is an officer, defined in an organization's bylaws, responsible for custody and recording of the group's money. State nonprofit corporation law typically requires some officer to fill this function, but the specific duties come from your own bylaws, not a universal legal definition.
What do treasurers do day to day versus year to year?
Day to day: deposit funds, log transactions, keep receipts. Monthly: reconcile the bank statement and report to the board. Annually: file the correct Form 990 variant (990-N, 990-EZ, or full 990), renew state charitable registration if required, and renew any raffle or gaming license separately.
What is Form 990?
Form 990 is the annual information return most tax-exempt organizations file with the IRS to report revenue, expenses, and governance details. It's public record. It comes in four sizes (990-N, 990-EZ, 990, 990-PF) based on gross receipts and total assets, per IRS guidance.
What does a treasurer do in a club?
In a booster club or PTO, the treasurer collects and deposits event cash (ideally with a second person present), keeps a monthly ledger, reconciles it against bank statements, reports to the board, and files the group's annual IRS return and any required state registrations on time.
What does a club treasurer do that's different from a corporate treasurer?
Both carry fiduciary duty to handle money honestly and accurately. But a club treasurer manages a checking account and maybe a small reserve, while a corporate treasurer manages debt, investments, and currency risk. The club job is smaller in scope but just as important to get right.
Is Form 990 a tax return?
Not really. It's called an information return by the IRS, disclosing finances and governance rather than calculating tax owed. Most 501(c)(3) organizations owe no federal income tax on funds raised for their exempt purpose, so there's typically no tax bill tied to filing it.
What is the 990, and which one do I file?
It depends on gross receipts and total assets. Under $50,000 gross receipts, file the 990-N e-Postcard. Between $50,000 and $200,000 (assets under $500,000), file the 990-EZ. At or above those thresholds, file the full Form 990. Private foundations file the 990-PF regardless of size.
When is the Form 990 deadline?
The 15th day of the 5th month after your organization's fiscal year ends. For a calendar-year filer (year ending December 31), that's May 15. For a July-to-June fiscal year, common among school-linked booster clubs, the deadline is November 15.
What happens if a booster club misses three years of 990 filings?
The organization's tax-exempt status is automatically revoked by law, with no appeal of the automatic revocation itself. Reinstatement requires filing Form 1023 or 1023-EZ, often under the streamlined retroactive process in Revenue Procedure 2014-11 if applied for within 15 months of revocation.
Does a treasurer need to be a CPA or bookkeeper?
No. Most volunteer treasurers aren't accountants, and the job doesn't require a professional credential. It requires consistency: recording every transaction, reconciling monthly, keeping receipts, and meeting annual filing deadlines. Larger organizations with complex finances may want a CPA's help for the full Form 990, though.
What records should a treasurer keep, and for how long?
Keep bank statements, reconciliations, receipts, invoices, board-approved budgets, and copies of every filed 990 and state registration. A common practical rule is at least three years, matching the IRS auto-revocation window, though many organizations keep seven years of financial records for safety.
Can one person be both treasurer and the only signer on the bank account?
It's legal in most states but not a good control. Requiring two signatures above a set dollar threshold, or at least a second person witnessing cash counts, protects both the organization and the treasurer personally if a transaction is ever questioned later.
Sources
- IRS, Annual Electronic Filing Requirement for Small Exempt Organizations - Form 990-N (e-Postcard): 990-N gross receipts threshold of $50,000 or less and the 8-question online form
- IRS, About Form 990: Form 990 is used to provide information required under section 6033 and feeds the Exempt Organizations Business Master File
- IRS, Annual Exempt Organization Return: Due Date: 990 filing deadline is the 15th day of the 5th month after fiscal year end
- IRS, Automatic Revocation of Exemption: organizations that fail to file for three consecutive years automatically lose tax-exempt status with no appeal of the automatic revocation
- Internal Revenue Bulletin 2014-3, Revenue Procedure 2014-11: streamlined retroactive reinstatement process under Revenue Procedure 2014-11 for organizations applying within 15 months of revocation
- 26 U.S.C. Section 6033(j): statutory basis for automatic revocation after three consecutive years of failing to file the required annual return or notice