What are the responsibilities of a treasurer

Last updated 2026-07-24

what does a treasurer do?

A treasurer is the person a nonprofit board (or a booster club, PTO, or youth sports league) puts in charge of the money. Not the fundraising ideas. Not the banquet planning. Just the money: where it comes from, where it goes, and whether the numbers add up at the end of the month. At the core, the job has four parts. Recordkeeping (tracking every dollar in and out). Reporting (telling the board and members what the finances actually look like). Compliance (filing whatever the IRS and your state require, on time). And controls (making sure no single person, including the treasurer, can move money without a second set of eyes). The IRS requires exempt organizations to keep books and records sufficient to show whether they owe tax and to support the information reported on their annual returns. That's not optional paperwork. It's the legal backbone of the whole nonprofit structure. Most booster clubs and PTOs are run entirely by volunteers who rotate every year or two. That means the treasurer role often gets handed off with a shoebox of receipts and a login nobody wrote down. That's the real-world version of the job, and it's why the recordkeeping and handoff parts matter as much as the accounting.

what is a treasurer?

A treasurer is an elected or appointed officer of an organization, usually named in the bylaws, responsible for the group's financial affairs. In a corporation or nonprofit, the treasurer is typically one of the required officer positions alongside president and secretary, though exact requirements depend on state nonprofit law. Most state nonprofit corporation statutes don't mandate the title "treasurer" by name, but they do require the corporation to have officers who handle finances, and bylaws almost always create a treasurer role specifically. Check your state's nonprofit corporation act and your own bylaws first; they control what the treasurer is actually required to do in your group. In small volunteer organizations, the treasurer is often the only person who really understands the finances. That's a liability, not a badge of honor. If the treasurer disappears (job change, family move, burnout), the whole organization can lose track of its bank balance, its tax filing history, and its state registration status all at once.

what do treasurers do day to day?

Day to day, a treasurer's work is mostly small and repetitive: deposit checks, log transactions, reconcile the bank statement, pay invoices, and answer the board's questions about money. It's less exciting than it sounds and more important than it sounds. A typical monthly cycle looks like this: - Collect and deposit cash and checks from fundraisers, dues, and concession sales

• Record every transaction in a ledger or accounting software, categorized by fund or program
• Reconcile the bank statement against the ledger (every month, not "eventually")
• Pay approved bills, ideally with two signatures or a second approver on anything over a set dollar threshold
• Prepare a simple financial report (income, expenses, bank balance) for the board meeting
• Keep receipts and backup documentation filed and organized, not loose in a bag Annually, the list gets longer: file the IRS information return, renew the state charity registration if required, prepare or support an outside financial review, and hand off complete records to the next treasurer if the term is ending. One thing new treasurers underestimate: cash handling controls. If your group runs concession stands, raffles, or car washes, you're dealing in cash, and cash is the easiest thing to lose track of (or have go missing) without a count sheet, a deposit log, and two people present at every count. Build that habit early.

what is form 990?

990-N (e-Postcard)	Smallest orgs	Gross receipts normally $50,000 or less [2]
990-EZ	Small/mid orgs	Gross receipts under $200,000 AND total assets under $500,000 [3]
990 (full form)	Larger orgs	Gross receipts $200,000+ or assets $500,000+ [3]
990-PF	Private foundations	All private foundations, regardless of size	Most small booster clubs, PTOs, and youth sports leagues fall into the 990-N bucket. Don't guess your own threshold, though; confirm the current numbers and your specific filing category with the IRS or a qualified preparer, since thresholds and forms can shift. For deeper detail, see our guides on form 990, irs form 990, and the 990 tax form generally.

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 traditional sense, since exempt organizations generally don't owe income tax, but it reports revenue, expenses, assets, and governance practices to the IRS and to the public. The IRS describes it directly: "Form 990 is used by tax-exempt organizations, nonexempt charitable trusts, and section 527 political organizations to provide the IRS with the information required by section 6033" ^[1]. Which version you file depends on your group's gross receipts and assets. | Form | Who files it | Threshold (approx.) |

what is the 990-n and who has to file it?

Form 990-N, often called the e-Postcard, is the simplest IRS filing, built for organizations with gross receipts normally $50,000 or less ^[2]. It's filed entirely online through the IRS's Form 990-N submission system, not on paper, and it asks for basic identifying information rather than a full financial statement. The IRS states that "most small tax-exempt organizations whose gross receipts are normally $50,000 or less" are eligible to file the 990-N instead of the full 990 or 990-EZ ^[2]. That's the vast majority of parent-run booster clubs and PTOs, which is good news: the 990-N takes maybe 10 minutes once you have your EIN and login set up. The filing needs: your organization's legal name, EIN, tax year, mailing address, a principal officer's name, and confirmation of gross receipts under the threshold. It has no financial detail line items, unlike the 990-EZ or full 990. Miss it for three years running, though, and the consequence is severe: automatic revocation of tax-exempt status. The IRS is explicit: "Organizations that fail to file required Form 990-series returns for three consecutive years will automatically lose their tax-exempt status" ^[4]. This is the single most common crisis new booster club treasurers inherit: a predecessor stopped filing, nobody noticed, and now the EIN shows up on the IRS Auto-Revocation List. See our dedicated pages on 990n and form 990-n for the filing steps and revocation recovery process.

what does a treasurer do in a club (booster club, PTO, or youth sports league)?

In a school booster club, PTO, or youth sports league, the treasurer is doing the same core job as any nonprofit treasurer, just at a smaller scale and usually with zero paid staff to back them up. That combination (real fiduciary duty, no professional support) is exactly why these roles need clear, written procedures. Specific to booster clubs and PTOs, the treasurer typically handles: - Tracking fundraiser proceeds separately by event or team, so parents can see exactly what a specific fundraiser raised

• Managing a checking account that requires two signatures above a set dollar amount
• Filing the group's IRS return (usually the 990-N) every year, on the group's fiscal year schedule
• Registering with the state charity office if the group solicits donations above the state's registration threshold
• Applying for a raffle or gaming license before running a raffle, since most states regulate charitable gaming separately from general nonprofit status
• Keeping W-9s and issuing 1099s for any paid coaches, referees, or vendors over the IRS threshold
• Preparing a budget-to-actual report for board meetings so parents and the school can see spending against plan A lot of booster clubs also operate as a "support organization" for a school, which means the district may require its own financial reporting on top of whatever the IRS and state require. Ask your school's activities office or business office directly what they expect; it's usually a short annual report, but skipping it can jeopardize the group's ability to use school facilities.

what does a club treasurer do differently from a corporate treasurer?

A corporate treasurer manages cash flow, debt, and investment strategy for a business, often with a finance team underneath. A club treasurer, by contrast, is almost always a volunteer managing a small checking account, a handful of fundraisers, and a compliance calendar, with no staff and often no accounting background. The stakes look different too. A corporate treasurer worries about interest rate risk and credit lines. A club treasurer worries about whether the concession stand cash box balanced after Friday's football game, and whether the 990-N got filed before the deadline. What doesn't change: the legal duty. Officers and directors of a nonprofit, including the treasurer, generally owe a fiduciary duty of care to the organization, meaning they have to act with the same reasonable care a prudent person would use over their own affairs. That standard shows up across state nonprofit corporation law, and it applies whether the organization has a $10 million endowment or a $4,000 checking account.

why does the treasurer role matter so much for tax-exempt status?

The treasurer role matters because the IRS puts the compliance burden squarely on the organization, not on any one volunteer, but in practice, the treasurer is usually the only person tracking filing deadlines. Miss three years of required 990-series filings and the exemption is gone automatically, no warning letter required beyond what the IRS already sends ^[4]. Recovering from auto-revocation means filing IRS Form 1023 or 1023-EZ again (reapplying for exempt status), possibly paying a filing fee, and in some cases requesting retroactive reinstatement if you can show reasonable cause for the lapse. The IRS lays out the reinstatement procedures, including streamlined retroactive reinstatement for organizations that were eligible to file the 990-N or 990-EZ, in Revenue Procedure 2014-11 ^[5]. It's a real process, it takes real time, and it's avoidable with one calendar reminder a year. This is also where state-level requirements pile on. Many states require separate registration with the state charity regulator (often the attorney general's office or secretary of state) before a nonprofit solicits donations, and this is entirely separate from IRS status. Confirm your specific state's threshold and registration form with your state charity office, since requirements and dollar thresholds vary widely by state.

what are the treasurer's responsibilities around raffles and fundraising?

Raffles, bingo, and other games of chance are regulated separately from general nonprofit tax status, usually by a state gaming commission, attorney general, or secretary of state. Before running a raffle, the treasurer (or whoever handles compliance) needs to confirm whether the state requires a specific raffle or charitable gaming license, what the application fee is, and what reporting happens after the event. These rules vary enormously by state. Some states cap prize values. Some require a percentage of proceeds go to the charitable purpose. Some require post-event financial reports listing ticket sales and prize payouts. There's no single national standard, so "confirm with your state charity office or gaming commission" isn't a cop-out, it's the honest answer for every state-specific detail. The treasurer's practical job here: apply for the license early (some states require 30-60 days lead time), keep a ticket log, deposit proceeds intact (don't skim cash for expenses before depositing), and file whatever post-raffle report the state requires. Skipping this step is one of the more common ways small booster clubs run into legal trouble, usually not from bad intent, just from nobody realizing a state license was required in the first place.

what financial controls should a treasurer put in place?

Financial controls are the systems that make it hard for money to go missing, whether through fraud or honest mistakes. For a volunteer treasurer, the basics don't need to be complicated, but they do need to be consistent. At minimum: - Two signers on the bank account, with a second signature required above a set dollar threshold (many small clubs use $250 or $500)

• Monthly bank reconciliation, reviewed by someone other than the treasurer (a board member or the president)
• A written cash-handling procedure for concessions and events: two counters, a count sheet signed by both, deposit within a set number of days
• A simple budget approved by the board before the year starts, with actual spending reported against it
• Receipts kept for every expense, matched to the check or card transaction
• An outside financial review or audit on some regular cycle (annually or every few years, depending on your group's size and bylaws) None of this requires expensive software. A shared spreadsheet with clear rules, reviewed monthly by someone other than the treasurer, beats an unreviewed "system" every time. The goal isn't distrust of the treasurer specifically. It's protecting the treasurer from being the only person who could be blamed if something looks wrong later.

what does a treasurer hand off to the next treasurer?

A clean handoff is the single most useful thing an outgoing treasurer can do for the organization's future. It should include the full bank login and signer information, the current year's ledger and prior three years of records, the IRS EIN and login for the 990-N or 990-EZ filing system, the state charity registration number and renewal date, any raffle or gaming license numbers, and a written list of recurring deadlines with dates. Handoffs fail most often on the compliance calendar, not the bank balance. A new treasurer can usually figure out how much money is in the account. What they can't figure out on their own is whether last year's 990-N actually got filed, or whether the state registration lapsed two years ago. Write it down. Better yet, put it somewhere the next three treasurers can find it too, more than in one person's inbox. This is the exact gap a state-personalized treasurer kit is built to close: a one-time $99 setup that maps out your specific state's filing and raffle requirements alongside the IRS calendar, so the compliance side of the handoff isn't reconstructed from memory every time the role changes hands.

Frequently asked questions

what does a treasurer do?

A treasurer tracks all money coming in and going out of an organization, reconciles the bank account, reports finances to the board, and handles required tax filings like the IRS Form 990-N or 990-EZ. In small nonprofits and clubs, the treasurer is usually also responsible for cash-handling controls and state charity registration.

what is a treasurer?

A treasurer is the officer of an organization, defined in its bylaws, who is responsible for financial recordkeeping, reporting, and compliance. Nonprofit corporation statutes generally require officers to handle finances, and bylaws almost always create a specific treasurer position with defined duties.

what is form 990?

Form 990 is the annual information return the IRS requires from most tax-exempt organizations, reporting revenue, expenses, and governance details under Internal Revenue Code section 6033. Small organizations with gross receipts normally $50,000 or less can file the simpler Form 990-N instead.

what is the 990 tax form?

The "990 tax form" refers to the IRS Form 990 series: 990-N, 990-EZ, 990, or 990-PF, depending on an organization's size. It's an information return, not an income tax bill, since exempt organizations generally don't owe federal income tax on program revenue.

what does a club treasurer do differently from other treasurers?

A club treasurer (booster club, PTO, youth sports league) does the same core job as any nonprofit treasurer, but almost always as an unpaid volunteer with no finance staff. That means tracking fundraiser proceeds by event, filing the IRS 990-N, and often handling state raffle licensing personally, without a bookkeeper backing them up.

what happens if a treasurer misses the 990-N deadline?

Missing one year usually just means a late filing with no penalty for the 990-N itself, since it has no financial penalty attached like the 990-EZ or full 990 can. But missing three consecutive years triggers automatic revocation of tax-exempt status under IRS rules, which then requires reapplying for exemption.

how does an organization recover from IRS auto-revocation?

Recovery means reapplying for tax-exempt status, usually via Form 1023 or 1023-EZ, and in many cases requesting retroactive reinstatement under the IRS's streamlined procedures in Revenue Procedure 2014-11. Confirm current forms, fees, and eligibility for streamlined reinstatement directly with the IRS, since the process depends on your filing history.

does a booster club treasurer need to register with the state?

Many states require charitable organizations to register with a state charity office (often the attorney general) before soliciting donations, separate from IRS tax-exempt status. Thresholds and requirements vary by state, so confirm with your specific state charity registration office.

does a treasurer need a raffle license to run a fundraiser raffle?

In most states, yes, if the fundraiser is a raffle or another game of chance, it's regulated separately from general nonprofit status. Confirm the specific license, fee, and reporting requirements with your state's gaming commission or attorney general's office before selling any tickets.

what records does a treasurer need to keep?

At minimum: bank statements and reconciliations, a full transaction ledger, receipts for every expense, copies of filed IRS returns (990-N confirmation, 990-EZ, etc.), state registration confirmations, board-approved budgets, and any raffle or gaming license documentation. Keep at least three years of records, though many groups keep more.

who is responsible if a treasurer makes a mistake or money goes missing?

The board as a whole generally shares fiduciary responsibility for financial oversight, more than the treasurer alone, which is why controls like two-signer accounts and independent bank reconciliation matter. That said, this is a legal question specific to your bylaws and state law; it isn't legal advice, and a group facing a real shortfall should consult a qualified attorney.

is a treasurer the same as a bookkeeper or accountant?

No. A treasurer is an elected or appointed officer with fiduciary responsibility for oversight and reporting, while a bookkeeper or accountant is often a hired role (or a task the treasurer does personally in a small club) focused on data entry and financial statements. Small organizations frequently combine both jobs into one volunteer role.

how much time does the treasurer role take for a small booster club or PTO?

It varies with fundraising volume, but many volunteer treasurers report a few hours a month for routine bookkeeping, plus concentrated time around major fundraisers and the annual IRS filing. Groups running frequent cash events (concessions, raffles) should expect more time for counting, depositing, and reconciling.

Sources

1. IRS, Publication 4221-PC: Compliance Guide for 501(c)(3) Public Charities: IRS requirement that exempt organizations keep records supporting their exempt status and annual return
2. IRS, About Form 990: Form 990 is used by tax-exempt organizations to provide information required by section 6033
3. IRS, Annual electronic filing requirement for small exempt organizations (Form 990-N): Form 990-N eligibility for organizations with gross receipts normally $50,000 or less
4. IRS, Form 990 series which forms do exempt organizations file: Gross receipts and asset thresholds distinguishing 990-N, 990-EZ, and full Form 990 filers
5. IRS, Automatic revocation of exemption: Organizations that fail to file required Form 990-series returns for three consecutive years automatically lose tax-exempt status
6. IRS, Revenue Procedure 2014-11: Streamlined retroactive reinstatement procedures for organizations that lost exemption due to non-filing