Pack Treasurer

[MarinesWife 10]

I like Scout Accounts. It rewards parents for helping their boys sell more popcorn.

 

So far this year we have had 22 boys out of 32 sell. Pretty good for our pack, especially with 13 new boys. We give 25% AFTER $600 has been sold, including their share from store sales. Out of those 22 boys, so far, 18 have gone over $600, and are increasing their accounts rapidly.

 

Our sales are out of this world compared to last year, and all I did was add the 25%. Bottom line money to the troop is still higher. I look forward to the end of the month to see where we end up.

 

 

[Melgamatic 16]

I get around 85-90% of my ~50 cub scouts selling popcorn, almost all hitting at least the $200 of sales I set as a goal. I don't have scout accounts; all the funds raised go into the pack. But I still get great buy-in from the parents.

 

How?

 

We keep our annual fee to $50, and all the rest of the money it costs to run the pack (probably $100 a boy, plus other expenses like leader training, parade floats, blue and gold banquet for the whole family for free etc) comes from the popcorn.

 

I explain this in a detailed sheet to the parents; they seem to get it and we have great buy in. We also push the prizes, ensure that anyone who sells even one $15 box of microwave gets a small prize, and push the big prizes (fill up a sheet, you get the marshmallow bow and arrow as well as throwing a cream pie at my face). We had three boys earn very nice telescopes last year, which was an eye-opener for the rest of the boys.

 

I just wanted to emphasize that scout accounts are not necessarily required for popcorn pushing.

 

[rrelaljrksw 10]

This is our 2nd year as a pack. We do the training and online orders for popcorn so we get the extra 2% added on to6 the 30%. We are hoping to increase our sales to earn another extra 2% So our goal is 34% commission. Of this 30% goes to the boys individual accounts. This can be used for dues ($100), camp, uniform, other scout expenses. We require a receipt from parents before issuing a check. Anything from the scout store is automatically considered a scout expense even if it's say a rubiks cube. Things not purchased at the scout store must be for an achievement, elective, or pack activity. An example is hiking boots for pack hike or hammer for a building achievement. The pack runs on $100 dues and the extra 2-4%. It seems to be working so far. We modeled it off the system that our boy scout troop uses. Any boy that does not sell popcorn must opt out by paying 4% of the goal set for the boys, This year's goal was $350, and of course they pay for their dues and other expenses out of pocket.

As far as record keeping. Our last treasurer borrowed from the boys individual monies for summer expenses. To stop this I maintain several spreadsheets. One is the actual amount in the bank account. Another one is the amount in all the boys accounts. Each boy also has their own page with all their deposits and withdrawals. I keep separate ones so I can print them for parents or show them only their son's account. Another is the left over money for the pack. This one is more complicated. Our dues have been split into categories like recharter, b&g, derby. Each one has so much money allotted for it. So my pack money sheet has these amounts take out and in their own column. That way I know exactly how much I have for awards, supplies, etc..

It's working okay for now, but if anyone has a better way to do this please share. Also I'm not good with the formulas so any math other than adding or subtracting I do by hand. If anyone has a similar system would they be willing to send me a sample spreadsheet or their formulas? I'm also the advancement person and wife of cub master, so taking on treasurer was the last thing I wanted to do, but necessary because of the borrowing against the boys issue.

[mommainwa 10]

I have found that the CubTrax spreadsheets work nicely with a few tweaks here and there.

Here is the link to their Moneytrax spreadsheet: http://trax.boy-scouts.net/othertrax.htm

They also have many other tracking sheets that could be useful.