Treasurer Position

[John-in-KC 311]

My opinion:

 

Advancement items should be automatic. Now, if we are talking Eagle, the Troop in advance should set a standard on what it will buy (silk necker and sterling silver, or cotton necker and silver-filled?). That way, the person doing the buying and the Treasurer know what right looks like.

 

Recharter should be automatic. X Scouts @15 +12 for BL, Y Scouters @15, plus rechartering fee.

 

Camp down payment should be automatic, once the preliminary count is in (contingent on funds on hand).

 

Camp progress payments should be automatic.

 

There are probably a few more, but these are the ones where the CC, the SM, and the Treasurer put their heads together and do the done deal.

[sbemis1 14]

I'm not treasurer for my son's troop.

I'd check out Troopledger (or equiv) and buy it myself just to save the headaches.

[Vicki 11]

Surprised no one has mentioned this yet - sign up for online access to your bank account. That will let you pull statements for at least the last six months, which is probably all the activity you'll really need.

 

If you haven't done a budget before as a troop and your records aren't that good I would lay back for a little bit and just keep track of it until you feel like you have a handle on expenses and income. The troop has gone this long without a budget, right? Track each outing separately (to the extent you can) for awhile. Some folks will tell you that the first thing to do is create a budget but a reasonable budget requires decent records, otherwise you're just setting yourself up for failure. My opinion, your mileage may vary. Not what I'd recommend to a business client, but then this is a scout troop and the mindset is different.

 

If you decide not to use TROOPLEDGER (I'd never heard of that before and will look into it), learn how to sum in Excel and how to create a workbook. When I served a troop that had scout accounts, along with several collection efforts for various things going at the same time I had a spreadsheet for each effort (Philmont, Northern Tier, spring trip) which fed into the main bank account spreadsheet.

 

The current troop is much simpler - smaller and no scout accounts.

 

Vicki