Last updated 2026-07-25
TL;DR
A nonprofit or club treasurer oversees the organization's money: reporting financial health to the board, safeguarding funds with basic controls, making sure required filings (like Form 990 or 990-N) get done, and helping the board understand what the numbers mean. The treasurer usually isn't the only one keeping the books, but is the one accountable for the financial story.
what does a treasurer do?
A treasurer is the board member (or club officer) accountable for the organization's financial health, even if someone else does the day-to-day bookkeeping. That distinction matters more than most new treasurers realize. You can hire a bookkeeper or use QuickBooks and still be the treasurer, because the job is oversight and reporting, not data entry. BoardSource, the main nonprofit governance research group, frames the treasurer's core duty around making sure appropriate financial reports reach the board on a timely basis and helping the board understand what those reports mean [1]. That's the job in one sentence: get the numbers, understand the numbers, explain the numbers to people who didn't major in accounting. In a small booster club or PTO with no paid staff, the treasurer often does both jobs: bookkeeper and overseer. That's normal for tiny nonprofits. But it means you should build in a second set of eyes anyway. A co-signer on checks. A board member who reviews bank statements. One person controlling both the books and the oversight is exactly the setup that invites problems, intentional or not. A treasurer's responsibilities generally break down into four buckets: keeping accurate records (or supervising whoever does), reporting to the board regularly, protecting the money with basic internal controls, and making sure the organization files what it legally has to file, including tax forms and state registrations.
what is a treasurer, exactly?
A treasurer is an officer of the organization, usually named in the bylaws, who holds legal and practical responsibility for financial oversight. Depending on your state's nonprofit corporation law, the treasurer might be a required officer position or an optional one your bylaws create. Most state nonprofit corporation statutes require at least a president and secretary, and many also require or allow a treasurer role; check your specific state's nonprofit corporation act for the exact requirement, since this varies. What doesn't vary much is the informal definition: the treasurer is the board's finance point person, distinct from any paid finance staff. BoardSource describes typical treasurer duties as including work with the audit or finance committee, making sure the board approves policies for financial management, and reviewing the annual Form 990 before it's filed [1]. That last part surprises a lot of new volunteer treasurers: yes, you (or the board) should actually read the 990 before it goes out, more than sign where indicated. In small clubs without a formal committee structure, the treasurer often functions as a one-person finance committee. That's fine as a stopgap, but if your budget or membership grows past roughly the level where you're handling five figures a year, it's worth recruiting a second person just to review bank statements and receipts each month.
what do treasurers do day to day, month to month, and year to year?
| Weekly/as needed | Deposit checks and cash, pay bills, record transactions | |
|---|---|---|
| Monthly | Reconcile bank statement, prepare board financial report | |
| Quarterly | Review budget-to-actual, check on any state filing deadlines | |
| Annually | Prepare/support annual budget, oversee Form 990 or 990-N filing, renew state charitable registration if required | |
| As triggered | Handle treasurer handoff documentation, respond to any IRS notice, manage raffle or gaming license renewal | One thing that trips up new treasurers: reconciling the bank statement isn't the same as reviewing it. Reconciling just makes sure your books match the bank. Reviewing means actually looking at each transaction and asking whether it makes sense. Both matter, but they're different tasks, and a treasurer who only does the first one is missing the point of the job. For a deeper look at what changes when someone new steps into this role, see how a proper treasurer handoff should work, since a huge share of nonprofit financial messes trace back to a bad or missing handoff, not fraud. |
Day to day, a treasurer (or the bookkeeper working under them) records deposits and expenses, keeps receipts organized, and reconciles the bank account. Month to month, the treasurer prepares a report for the board: cash on hand, income and expenses since the last meeting, and anything unusual. Year to year, the treasurer builds or reviews the annual budget, oversees any audit or financial review, and makes sure required filings go out on time. Here's a rough breakdown by frequency: | Frequency | Typical treasurer task |
what does a treasurer do in a club, PTO, or booster organization?
A club treasurer does the same core job as a nonprofit board treasurer, just at a smaller scale and usually without paid staff to lean on. That means the club treasurer often personally writes checks, deposits concession stand cash, tracks fundraiser income, and reports to the parent group or membership at meetings. The stakes are lower per-transaction but the exposure is often higher, because small volunteer-run clubs frequently have weak controls: one person with the checkbook, no receipts required for reimbursement, cash boxes that don't get counted by two people. The Association of Certified Fraud Examiners' 2022 Report to the Nations found that organizations with fewer than 100 employees, a category that covers essentially every booster club and PTO, had a median fraud loss of $150,000, and that lack of internal controls was a factor cited across a large share of small-organization cases [2]. Small organizations aren't safer just because the dollar amounts are smaller; they're often more exposed because nobody's watching. A club treasurer's job list usually includes: collecting dues or fundraiser proceeds, paying vendors (uniforms, venue fees, tournament entries), keeping a simple ledger, presenting a financial summary at each meeting, and filing whatever the IRS requires for the club's tax-exempt status (more on that below). If the club runs a raffle or bingo night, the treasurer is also usually the one tracking down the state gaming or charitable gambling license, since that's a financial-compliance task even though it feels like an event-planning one.
what is Form 990?
Form 990 is the annual information return that most tax-exempt organizations file with the IRS to report income, expenses, and activities. It's not an income tax return in the traditional sense (most exempt orgs owe no tax), but it's how the IRS and the public see what the organization took in and spent. The IRS explains that tax-exempt organizations, nonexempt charitable trusts, and section 527 political organizations file Form 990 to provide the IRS with the information required under Internal Revenue Code section 6033 [3]. Which version you file depends on gross receipts and assets: the full Form 990, the shorter Form 990-EZ, or the electronic postcard Form 990-N for the smallest organizations. For a booster club or PTO with gross receipts normally $50,000 or less, the 990-N (e-postcard) is usually the applicable form, per IRS guidance on annual return filing requirements [4]. Organizations above that threshold generally need the 990-EZ or full 990 depending on gross receipts and total assets; confirm current thresholds with the IRS since they can be adjusted. Missing the filing isn't a paperwork inconvenience. The IRS states that automatic revocation of exemption for non-filing happens when an organization fails to file required returns for three consecutive years [5]. If that's already happened to your organization, our guide to [990](/articles/treasurer-basics/990) walks through recovery steps, and the irs form 990 overview covers which version applies to organizations your size.
what is a 990 tax form, in plain language?
Think of the 990 tax form as the public financial diary the IRS requires from tax-exempt groups. It answers basic questions: how much money came in, where it came from, how much went out, what it went to, who's on the board, and whether anyone connected to the organization got paid unusual amounts. Because most 990s are public record, anyone (a parent considering donating to your booster club, a grant funder, a journalist) can look up your filing on the IRS's Tax Exempt Organization Search tool or on sites like ProPublica's Nonprofit Explorer. That transparency is the whole point of the form: tax exemption is a public benefit, so the IRS requires public accountability in return. The practical version for a small club treasurer: you're not filling out a form because you owe tax, you're filling it out because the law requires exempt organizations to report on themselves every year, no matter how small the amount of money involved. Skipping it because "we're too small to matter" is the single most common reason small nonprofits lose their exempt status. See our 990 tax form explainer for the line-by-line basics if you're filling one out for the first time.
what is the 990, and which version does my organization file?
| 990-N (e-postcard) | Gross receipts normally $50,000 or less [4] | Eight basic pieces of info, filed online, no financial detail required | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 990-EZ | Gross receipts under $200,000 and total assets under $500,000 (thresholds per IRS instructions) | Shorter form with summarized financial detail | |
| Form 990 (full) | Gross receipts $200,000 or more, or total assets $500,000 or more | Full financial statements, program service accomplishments, governance detail | A private foundation files Form 990-PF regardless of size, a separate category most booster clubs and PTOs won't fall into. One wrinkle new treasurers miss: the 990-N can only be filed for the organization if it's never filed a 990-EZ or full 990 in a way that established a different filing pattern, and once you're required to file the bigger form (because you crossed the receipts threshold), you generally can't drop back down to 990-N just because a slow year brought receipts back under $50,000, until the IRS's averaging rules allow it. Our form 990 and form-990-n guides go through the qualification rules and how to check what your organization filed last year. |
"The 990" is shorthand for whichever version of Form 990 applies to your organization's size: 990-N, 990-EZ, or the full 990. All three exist to satisfy the same legal filing requirement under Internal Revenue Code section 6033, they just scale with organization size. Here's the rough breakdown, though you should confirm current thresholds directly with the IRS since they get adjusted periodically: | Form | Typical organization size | What it involves |
what does a treasurer of a club do that a regular member doesn't?
The core difference is legal and practical accountability. A regular club member can ask questions about spending; the treasurer is the one who has to answer them, sign checks, and stand behind the numbers if the IRS or a state charity office ever asks. Practically, that means the treasurer of a club typically has bank account signing authority (sometimes shared with a president or another officer as a control measure), keeps or supervises the ledger, prepares the budget for board or membership approval, and is the point of contact if a vendor, sponsor, or parent has a billing question. It also means the treasurer carries reputational risk that other members don't. If the books are a mess when handed off, or a required filing gets missed, it's the treasurer's name that's most associated with the problem, fairly or not. That's exactly why documentation matters so much in this role: keep records of every decision, every reimbursement approval, every board vote on spending, because that paper trail is what protects you if questions come up later. Building that habit early, even in a $10,000-a-year booster club, saves enormous pain down the road.
how does the treasurer role fit with the rest of the board?
The treasurer isn't a solo act. BoardSource's model describes the treasurer working alongside the finance or audit committee, the executive director or staff lead (if there is one), and the full board, which retains ultimate fiduciary responsibility even though the treasurer does the heavy lifting on finances [1]. The board as a whole is legally responsible for the organization's finances under the fiduciary duties of care, loyalty, and obedience that apply to nonprofit directors generally. The treasurer's job is to make sure the rest of the board can actually exercise that responsibility, by giving them understandable reports instead of a shoebox of receipts at year end. In practice, for a small booster club, this might just mean a five-minute financial summary at each meeting: money in, money out, balance, anything unusual. For a larger nonprofit with a finance committee, it means monthly financial statement review, an annual budget process, and periodic engagement with an outside accountant for a review or audit. Scale the formality to the size of the organization, but never skip reporting entirely just because the group is small and informal.
what financial controls should every treasurer set up on day one?
Set up separation of duties, a receipt requirement, and monthly reconciliation before you do anything else. These three habits catch the vast majority of small-organization financial problems, whether they're honest mistakes or something worse. Separation of duties means the person who deposits money isn't the only person who reconciles the account and isn't the only one who can move money. Even in a two-person volunteer club, having a second signer on checks over a set dollar threshold (say, $250 or $500, whatever fits your budget) is a cheap, effective control. A receipt requirement means nobody gets reimbursed without a receipt or invoice, no exceptions, including the treasurer. It sounds harsh for a small club, but it's the single easiest thing to enforce and the thing that protects the treasurer personally if anyone ever questions a specific expense. Monthly reconciliation, done promptly (not saved up for tax season), catches errors and discrepancies while they're still fixable and while people still remember what a weird transaction was for. Our guide to financial controls for volunteer-run organizations covers a fuller checklist, including cash-handling rules for fundraisers and concession stands, which is where most small-club cash actually goes missing (not through fraud, usually, just through sloppy counting).
what happens if the treasurer misses a required filing?
The consequences range from a late-filing penalty to full loss of tax-exempt status, depending on what got missed and for how long. The IRS states that failing to file required returns for three consecutive years results in automatic revocation, and organizations "will be listed on the Auto-Revocation List" [5]. Once revoked, the organization owes income tax on revenue it previously treated as exempt, loses eligibility for many grants and matching-gift programs, and has to apply for reinstatement, which can involve back-filing returns and paying a user fee. Reinstatement is possible (the IRS has a streamlined retroactive process for small organizations that file the appropriate application within 15 months of revocation), but it takes real paperwork and time, and until the IRS approves it, the exemption is not back in force. For state-level obligations, missing a required charitable solicitation registration renewal can trigger separate penalties from your state attorney general's office or state charity regulator, on top of anything the IRS does. These rules vary significantly by state, so confirm current requirements and deadlines with your state's charity registration office directly rather than assuming last year's rules still apply.
where do state raffle and gaming rules fit into a treasurer's job?
If your club runs a raffle, bingo night, or similar game of chance as a fundraiser, that usually requires a separate state gaming or charitable gambling license, on top of any IRS or charity registration paperwork. This is a piece of compliance a lot of new treasurers don't see coming, because it feels like an event logistics issue, not a financial one, until you realize the license, the recordkeeping, and the reporting all land on the treasurer's desk. Requirements vary enormously by state: some states cap prize amounts for small games of chance, some require a specific percentage of proceeds go to charitable purposes, some require the license to be tied to a specific nonprofit registration number, and some exempt very small one-time raffles from licensing entirely. Because these rules genuinely differ state by state and change periodically, confirm the current requirements with your specific state's gaming control board, secretary of state, or attorney general's charity division before running any raffle. Our raffles-by-state hub tracks the general landscape, but always verify against your state's current statute before you sell a single ticket.
the honest bottom line for a new treasurer
If you just took over as treasurer of a booster club, PTO, or small nonprofit board, the job is bigger than "keep the checkbook" but smaller than "become an accountant." You need to understand what money came in and out, make sure someone (you or a professional) files what's legally required, and set up enough basic controls that no single person, including you, has unchecked access to the funds. Don't try to build every policy from scratch. Borrow BoardSource's framework for the treasurer's oversight role [1], follow the IRS's actual filing thresholds instead of guessing [4], and confirm your state's specific charity registration and raffle licensing rules directly with your state's regulator, since generic advice (including this article) can't substitute for your state's current statute. If you want the state-specific version of all this already assembled, including the correct 990 variant for your size, current state charity registration steps, and a raffle license checklist for your specific state, that's exactly what the $99 one-time State-Personalized Treasurer Kit is built for. It won't file anything for you and it's not legal or tax advice, but it saves you the hours of cross-referencing IRS pages against your state's charity office site. Whatever tools you use, the actual job doesn't change: report honestly, file on time, keep receipts, and make sure two people, not one, always have eyes on the money.
Frequently asked questions
what does a treasurer do?
A treasurer oversees an organization's finances: reporting to the board, safeguarding funds through basic controls, and making sure required tax and state filings happen on time. The treasurer doesn't have to do every transaction personally, but is accountable for the accuracy and honesty of the financial picture the board relies on.
what is a treasurer?
A treasurer is an officer, usually defined in an organization's bylaws, responsible for financial oversight on behalf of a nonprofit board or club. Some states require the position under nonprofit corporation law; others leave it optional. Check your specific state's statute and your own bylaws for the exact requirement.
what do treasurers do?
Treasurers record or supervise financial transactions, reconcile bank accounts monthly, prepare regular reports for the board or membership, build or review the annual budget, and make sure required IRS and state filings, like Form 990 or 990-N, get filed on time.
what does a treasurer do in a club?
A club treasurer handles dues, fundraiser income, and vendor payments, keeps a simple ledger, reports finances at meetings, and manages the club's tax-exempt filing status. In small clubs the treasurer often does hands-on bookkeeping and board-level oversight at the same time, which makes a second reviewer important.
what does a club treasurer do?
A club treasurer manages incoming money (dues, fundraisers, sponsorships), pays outgoing bills, keeps records, and reports regularly to the group. For clubs with tax-exempt status, the treasurer also usually oversees the annual IRS Form 990-N or 990-EZ filing and any state charitable registration.
what is Form 990?
Form 990 is the annual information return most tax-exempt organizations file with the IRS under Internal Revenue Code section 6033, reporting income, expenses, and governance details. It's public record. Which version applies (990-N, 990-EZ, or full 990) depends on the organization's gross receipts and total assets.
what is a 990 tax form?
A 990 tax form is the public annual report tax-exempt organizations file with the IRS, showing money in, money out, and basic governance information. It's not an income tax return in the traditional sense since most exempt orgs owe no tax, but filing it is mandatory to keep exempt status.
what is the 990?
"The 990" refers to whichever version of IRS Form 990 an organization is required to file based on size: the 990-N e-postcard for organizations with gross receipts normally $50,000 or less, the 990-EZ for mid-size organizations, or the full Form 990 for larger ones. Confirm current thresholds directly with the IRS.
what does a treasurer of a club do differently from other members?
The treasurer holds bank signing authority (often shared), keeps the accounting records, prepares budgets and reports, and answers for the organization's finances if the IRS or a state regulator has questions. That accountability is the core difference from any other member's role.
does a small booster club really need to file anything with the IRS?
Yes. Nearly all tax-exempt organizations, regardless of size, must file some version of Form 990 annually, even the free 990-N e-postcard for organizations with gross receipts normally $50,000 or less. Missing three consecutive years triggers automatic revocation of tax-exempt status, per IRS guidance.
what happens if a nonprofit's tax-exempt status gets automatically revoked?
The IRS lists the organization on its Auto-Revocation List, the organization becomes liable for income tax going forward, and it loses eligibility for many grants until reinstated. Reinstatement requires filing an application (often retroactively) and, in some cases, back returns and a user fee.
who is legally responsible for a nonprofit's finances, the treasurer or the whole board?
The full board holds fiduciary responsibility for the organization's finances under duties of care, loyalty, and obedience. The treasurer carries out the day-to-day oversight and reporting function on the board's behalf, but doesn't relieve other board members of their own responsibility to review and question the numbers.
does every state require a raffle license for a fundraiser?
Most states regulate raffles and games of chance and require some form of license or registration, though thresholds, exemptions for small one-time events, and prize limits vary widely. Always confirm current requirements with your specific state's gaming control board or attorney general's charity division before running one.
Sources
- Association of Certified Fraud Examiners, Report to the Nations 2022 Global Study on Occupational Fraud and Abuse: Median fraud loss and control weaknesses in small organizations
- IRS, About Form 990: Form 990 filing requirement under section 6033 for tax-exempt organizations
- IRS, Annual Electronic Filing Requirement for Small Exempt Organizations (Form 990-N): 990-N eligibility threshold of gross receipts normally $50,000 or less
- IRS, Automatic Revocation of Exemption: Three consecutive years of non-filing triggers automatic revocation of tax-exempt status
- IRS, Applying for Tax Exempt Status Overview / Streamlined Retroactive Reinstatement (Rev. Proc. 2014-11): Streamlined retroactive reinstatement process available for small organizations filing within 15 months of revocation
- IRS, Form 990-EZ and Form 990 filing thresholds, Instructions for Form 990-EZ: Gross receipts and total assets thresholds distinguishing Form 990-EZ from the full Form 990