Last updated 2026-07-24
TL;DR
A treasurer tracks every dollar in and out, keeps bank and cash records straight, reports finances to the board, and handles required filings (like Form 990 or 990-N with the IRS, plus state renewals). In a small club, that's usually one person doing bookkeeper, controller, and reporter duties all at once, unpaid.
what does a treasurer do?
A treasurer is the person responsible for tracking, safeguarding, and reporting an organization's money. That's the one-sentence version. In practice, it breaks into four buckets: recordkeeping (every transaction gets logged), controls (money doesn't move without a second set of eyes), reporting (the board and members see numbers on a regular schedule), and compliance (whatever the IRS and your state require actually gets filed, on time). For a booster club, PTO, or youth sports league, the treasurer is almost always a volunteer, not an accountant. Nobody is quizzing you on GAAP. What matters is that money in matches money out, receipts exist for both, and someone other than you can look at the books and understand them in ten minutes. If you just inherited this job with a shoebox of receipts and a login you're not sure works, you're not alone. Most small nonprofit treasurers start exactly there.
what is a treasurer, exactly?
A treasurer is an elected or appointed officer of an organization (a nonprofit, club, PTO, or association) who is legally and practically responsible for its finances. Most state nonprofit corporation statutes don't dictate a job description in detail; they leave that to the bylaws. What they usually do require is that the corporation keep accurate financial records and make them available to members or the board. The treasurer isn't the owner of the money. The organization owns it. The treasurer is the steward, the custodian, the person whose name is on the check register and who answers when someone asks, 'where did the concession stand cash go?' In a lot of small orgs the treasurer is also the only person who actually understands the books, which is a real risk. One of the most common findings in nonprofit financial control reviews is that a single person has both custody of assets and the recordkeeping duty, with nobody double-checking. That's not a treasurer problem exactly, it's a structure problem, and fixing it is also part of the job (see the section on controls below).
what do treasurers do day to day, month to month, year to year?
Break it down by frequency, because 'manage the finances' is too vague to actually do. Daily or as-it-happens: deposit checks and cash promptly (don't let a shoebox of concession-stand cash sit in your trunk for three weeks), log every transaction as it comes in, keep receipts attached to every expense reimbursement, and never let one person both approve and pay an expense without a second signature on anything above a set threshold. Monthly: reconcile the bank statement against your books, line by line. Prepare a simple income-and-expense report for the board meeting. Flag anything that looks off before it becomes a mystery six months later. Quarterly or seasonally: check in on budget-to-actual for the season (this matters a lot for booster clubs with a short, intense fundraising window like a fall sports season). Confirm any state charitable solicitation or raffle license renewals aren't sneaking up on you. Annually: prepare or hand off records for the org's tax filing (Form 990-series, see below), file any state annual report or charity registration renewal, and help with a transition packet if you're rotating out. This is also when you sanity-check whether the org's gross receipts have crossed a threshold that changes which 990 form applies [1].
what does a club treasurer do differently from a corporate one?
A corporate treasurer manages investment portfolios, debt, and cash flow forecasting for a company with a finance department behind them. A club treasurer, PTO treasurer, or booster club treasurer is running something much smaller and much more exposed: usually one bank account, a handful of fundraisers, some dues or concession income, and a board of parents or members who want a plain-English report, not a spreadsheet full of pivot tables. The core duties overlap (track money, report it, keep it safe), but the club version adds a few things a corporate treasurer never deals with: running a 50/50 raffle within your state's raffle license rules, tracking cash from a bake sale where nobody wrote receipts, and explaining to a room of volunteers why the checking account balance doesn't match what everyone assumed was 'left over' from last year. A club treasurer's job is also usually a one-year or two-year volunteer term, which means recordkeeping has to be clean enough that a total stranger can pick it up next season. That's the single biggest difference: corporate treasurers build institutional memory. Club treasurers have to build a handoff packet, because the person who has all the passwords is about to graduate their kid out of the program and disappear.
what is form 990 and why does the treasurer care?
| Very small (gross receipts normally ≤ $50,000) | Form 990-N (e-postcard) | Under $50,000 [3] | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Small to mid-size | Form 990-EZ | Gross receipts under $200,000 and total assets under $500,000 [1] | |
| Larger organizations | Form 990 (full) | Gross receipts ≥ $200,000 or total assets ≥ $500,000 [1] | |
| Private foundations | Form 990-PF | Regardless of size [1] | The treasurer's job here isn't necessarily to prepare the form personally (plenty of small orgs use a volunteer accountant or a cheap preparer), but to make sure it gets filed, on time, every single year, using numbers that tie back to the actual books. Learn more about Form 990 and the specific 990 tax form thresholds that apply to your org's size. |
Form 990 is the annual information return that most tax-exempt organizations file with the IRS to report income, expenses, and activities. It is not an income tax return in the way an individual's Form 1040 is; it's a public disclosure document. The IRS instructions describe the form as covering an organization's mission, programs, and finances for the year [2]. Which version you file depends on gross receipts and total assets. Here's the general breakdown, though you should confirm current thresholds with the IRS because they get adjusted: | Organization size | Typical form | Rough threshold |
what is the 990-N and who has to file it?
The 990-N, sometimes called the e-Postcard, is the shortest version of the annual filing, built for organizations whose gross receipts are normally $50,000 or less [3]. It's filed electronically directly through the IRS site, and it only asks for a handful of items: your EIN, tax year, legal name and address, confirmation your gross receipts are still under the threshold, and a statement that the organization hasn't terminated [3]. The part treasurers get burned on: missing three years in a row. The IRS is explicit that organizations failing to file required Form 990-series returns for three consecutive years will automatically lose their tax-exempt status [4]. This isn't a warning letter situation. It's automatic, and it's the single most common way small booster clubs and PTOs end up needing to reapply for exemption from scratch. If you're not sure whether your predecessor filed anything for the last few years, checking the IRS Tax Exempt Organization Search tool is step one, before you assume everything's fine. Read more on 990-N filing and what counts as the 'gross receipts normally $50,000 or less' test, since 'normally' is calculated as a rolling average, not a single-year snapshot [3].
what is a 990 tax form used for, beyond the IRS filing itself?
The 990 isn't just a compliance checkbox. It's a public document. Anyone (a donor, a parent considering whether to trust the booster club with their kid's fundraising money, a journalist, a rival PTO) can request or look up an organization's recent 990 filings. Federal tax law requires exempt organizations to make their three most recent annual returns available for public inspection upon request, under the disclosure rules in Internal Revenue Code Section 6104(d) [5]. Sites like the IRS's own Tax Exempt Organization Search and third-party databases pull directly from these filings, so a sloppy or late 990 doesn't just risk IRS penalties, it makes the organization look disorganized to anyone who checks. For a booster club trying to convince parents to trust it with raffle proceeds or concession cash, that matters more than most treasurers realize. The treasurer's practical job with the 990 is threefold: keep books clean enough that the numbers on the form are actually correct, make sure whoever signs it (usually the president or an authorized officer) understands what they're signing, and keep a copy in whatever handoff file the next treasurer inherits. Read more on the irs form 990 and how it functions as both a filing and a disclosure document.
what does a treasurer do in a nonprofit board meeting?
At a board meeting, the treasurer's job is to translate the books into something the board can actually make decisions with. That means a short written report (income vs. expenses for the period, current bank balance, anything unusual), not a raw export of every transaction. Good practice: bring the reconciled bank statement, a one-page income/expense summary compared against budget, and a heads-up on anything coming due (an insurance renewal, a raffle license expiration, a 990 deadline). Bad practice: showing up and saying 'we have some money, I think we're fine.' The treasurer should also be ready to answer specific questions: how much cash is on hand from the last fundraiser, whether reimbursements are current, whether any check has bounced or any card has been declined. Boards that trust their treasurer usually trust them because the numbers are consistent, on time, and boring. Boring is the goal.
what financial controls should a treasurer put in place?
Controls exist to protect the treasurer as much as the organization. If you're the only person who ever touches the money, you're also the only person who gets blamed when something looks wrong, even if it's an honest mistake. Minimum controls for a small club or PTO: require two signatures on checks above a set dollar threshold (many small orgs use $250 or $500, set your own and put it in the bylaws or a finance policy). Never let the same person both count fundraiser cash and deposit it alone; use two counters and have both initial a tally sheet. Reconcile the bank statement monthly against the books, ideally with someone other than the treasurer reviewing it. Require receipts for reimbursements, no exceptions, even for the coach's spouse. One pattern shows up constantly in small-nonprofit fraud cases: a single volunteer with sole signing authority and no oversight over multiple years. It's rarely malicious at the start. It's usually 'nobody else wanted to do it' turning into 'nobody else understands it' turning into a mess nobody can untangle. Splitting duties, even informally between two volunteer parents, closes most of that gap for free.
what does a treasurer of a club do with raffles and fundraisers specifically?
If the club runs a raffle, the treasurer is usually the one who has to confirm the license is current, track ticket sales against tickets printed, and keep a clean paper trail from cash collected to cash deposited. Most states require some kind of raffle or charitable gaming license, administered through the state attorney general's office, secretary of state, or a dedicated gaming commission, and requirements vary a lot: license fees, reporting deadlines, and rules about who can sell tickets all differ by state. Because this varies so much, don't rely on general internet advice for the raffle rules themselves. Confirm with your state's charity office or attorney general before running any raffle, and get any license renewal deadlines onto your calendar the same day you file, not the week before the fundraiser. For cash-heavy fundraisers generally (bake sales, concession stands, car washes), the treasurer's job is to make sure two people count the cash together, both sign a tally sheet, and the deposit happens within a day or two, not whenever someone gets around to it.
what does the treasurer do when they hand off the role?
This is the part most outgoing treasurers skip, and it's the part that causes the most pain for the next person. A clean handoff includes: bank account access transferred (more than 'ask the bank to add the new person', actually verify signing authority is updated), the last twelve months of reconciled statements, a copy of the most recent 990-series filing, any state charity registration or raffle license numbers and renewal dates, and a written note on anything unusual from the past year (a dispute, a bounced check, a state notice). If your organization has drifted out of compliance (missed a 990-N filing, let a state registration lapse), say so explicitly in the handoff instead of hoping the new treasurer figures it out. The IRS's automatic revocation for three years of missed filings [4] doesn't care whose fault it was. It only cares whether the filings got made. A lot of small clubs build a standing 'treasurer binder' or shared drive folder for exactly this reason: bylaws, EIN letter, current 990 status, bank info, and a checklist of what's due when. Building that once and keeping it current is worth more than any single accounting skill.
where do state-specific rules for treasurers apply?
State rules layer on top of the federal picture. Many states require charitable organizations above a certain fundraising threshold to register with a state charity office or attorney general before soliciting donations, separate from the IRS's federal exemption. Raffle and gaming licenses are entirely state-level, with different fee schedules, application windows, and reporting requirements from state to state. Nonprofit corporation annual report filings (usually with the secretary of state, not the IRS) are also a separate deadline treasurers often miss because they're thinking only about the 990. Because every state does this differently, the honest answer is: confirm with the IRS for federal filing questions and with your specific state's charity registration office or attorney general for state-level raffle, gaming, and solicitation registration rules. Don't assume what worked for a booster club in a neighboring state applies to yours. BoosterLedger's $99 one-time State-Personalized Treasurer Kit builds a filing calendar and document checklist matched to your specific state's rules, so you're not guessing which office to call first. You can start one at /treasurer-kit-builder.
what happens if a treasurer doesn't file the required paperwork?
Federally, the consequence is automatic revocation of tax-exempt status after three consecutive years of missing required 990-series filings, with no warning letter required by law [4]. Once revoked, the organization is treated as a taxable entity and donors can no longer be assured their gifts are tax-deductible, and getting reinstated means reapplying for exemption, sometimes retroactively, through a formal IRS process described in Revenue Procedure 2014-11 [4]. At the state level, consequences vary but commonly include late fees, loss of good standing with the secretary of state, or inability to renew a raffle or charitable solicitation license until back filings are cleared up. None of this means panic if you discover a gap. It means: figure out exactly what's missing (check the IRS Tax Exempt Organization Search for your org's filing history), and get current filings done as soon as possible. Reinstatement procedures exist specifically because this happens to small volunteer-run organizations constantly; you are not the first booster club treasurer to find a three-year gap in the paper trail.
Frequently asked questions
What does a treasurer do?
A treasurer tracks all money coming in and going out of an organization, keeps the books reconciled against the bank statement, reports finances to the board on a regular schedule, and handles required filings like Form 990-series returns with the IRS and any state charity or raffle registrations.
What is a treasurer?
A treasurer is an officer of a club, PTO, or nonprofit responsible for financial recordkeeping, safeguarding funds, and reporting. Duties usually come from the organization's bylaws, and the treasurer is a steward of the money, not its owner.
What do treasurers do that's different from the club president?
The president generally leads meetings and sets direction; the treasurer owns the numbers. In small clubs the roles sometimes blur, but good practice keeps check-signing and cash-handling duties split between at least two people so no one person controls all the money alone.
What is Form 990?
Form 990 is the IRS's annual information return for tax-exempt organizations, reporting income, expenses, and activities publicly. It's not an income tax bill; it's a disclosure form. Which version applies (990-N, 990-EZ, 990, or 990-PF) depends on gross receipts and total assets.
What is Form 990-N and who needs to file it?
Form 990-N, the e-Postcard, is for tax-exempt organizations with gross receipts normally $50,000 or less. It's a short online filing through the IRS covering EIN, tax year, address, and confirmation the org is still under the threshold and hasn't terminated.
What does a club treasurer do that a corporate treasurer doesn't?
A club treasurer usually manages one bank account, cash-heavy fundraisers like bake sales or raffles, and a short seasonal cycle, often as an unpaid volunteer serving one or two years. Corporate treasurers manage investments and cash flow forecasting with a full finance team behind them.
What happens if a nonprofit misses its 990 filing for three years?
The IRS automatically revokes tax-exempt status once required Form 990-series returns go unfiled for three consecutive years, with no separate warning required. Reinstatement means formally reapplying for exemption, which can take time and sometimes retroactive relief requests.
Does a small booster club really need to file anything with the IRS?
Almost always, yes. Even organizations with gross receipts under $50,000 typically must file the short Form 990-N each year to keep their tax-exempt status active. Confirm your organization's specific filing obligation with the IRS, since thresholds and exceptions can change.
What financial records should a treasurer keep?
At minimum: a check register or ledger of every transaction, bank statements and monthly reconciliations, receipts for every reimbursement, cash-count tally sheets signed by two people for fundraisers, and copies of the last several years of tax filings and any state registrations.
Who is legally responsible if a treasurer makes a mistake?
The organization as a whole bears legal responsibility, but a treasurer who acts outside their authority, mishandles funds, or ignores clear duties can face personal consequences depending on state nonprofit law and the org's bylaws. Good controls (two signers, monthly reconciliation) protect the treasurer as much as the group.
Does a treasurer need to be a licensed accountant?
No. Most booster club, PTO, and youth sports treasurers are volunteer parents with no accounting license. What matters is careful recordkeeping, consistent reconciliation, and getting help from a real accountant or the IRS directly when a filing question goes beyond basic bookkeeping.
How does a treasurer hand off the role to the next person?
A clean handoff includes updated bank signing authority, the last twelve months of reconciled statements, copies of recent 990-series filings, current state charity or raffle license numbers with renewal dates, and a written note on any unresolved issues from the past year.
Sources
- IRS, Annual Filing and Forms overview: Gross receipts and total asset thresholds determine which 990-series form (990, 990-EZ, 990-PF) an organization must file
- IRS, About Form 990: Form 990 is used by tax-exempt organizations to report finances and activities to the IRS annually
- IRS, Annual Electronic Filing Requirement for Small Exempt Organizations (Form 990-N): Form 990-N is for organizations with gross receipts normally $50,000 or less and requires basic identifying information
- IRS, Automatic Revocation of Exemption: Organizations that fail to file required Form 990-series returns for three consecutive years automatically lose tax-exempt status
- 26 U.S.C. Section 6104(d), Public inspection of certain annual returns: Exempt organizations must make their three most recent annual returns available for public inspection upon request
- IRS Revenue Procedure 2014-11: Organizations that lose exemption for failing to file three consecutive years of required returns must follow specific IRS procedures to apply for reinstatement, in some cases retroactively