The Club Treasurer's Job: Handling Money in a Volunteer-Run Group Without Relying on Luck

The Charity Commission's guidance on internal financial controls (CC8) makes one point more than any other: no single person should be able to control an organisation's money on their own. In most small clubs, one person collects the subs, banks them, pays the bills and writes up the figures. This guide is about changing that without making the job any bigger.

What does a club treasurer actually have to do?

Five things, and they are worth writing down because most handover notes do not.

• Collect what members owe: subs, session fees, trip deposits, kit.
• Bank it, promptly and in full.
• Pay the club's bills: hall hire, affiliation fees, insurance, coaching courses.
• Record every payment in and out, with a receipt or bank reference behind each line.
• Report the figures to the committee during the year and to members at the AGM.

None of this needs an accountancy qualification. It needs a routine, and it needs a second pair of eyes.

Why should no one person handle the money alone?

Partly to protect the club and partly to protect the treasurer. When a balance does not add up and only one person ever touched the money, that person has no way to show it was a mistake rather than something worse. Treasurers we speak to often say something like: "I wasn't worried anyone would accuse me of anything, until the cash tin was £60 light after the summer fete and I was the only one who'd counted it."

CC8 is written for charities, but its controls fit any club. The ones that matter most for a volunteer committee are simple. The person who collects income should not be the only person who reconciles it. Bank payments should need approval from two people; most online business accounts let you set a second approver instead of two signatures on a cheque. And a second committee member, usually the chair, should look at the monthly reconciliation and initial it.

That last one costs ten minutes a month. It is the control that catches the most.

Should a club still take cash?

For subs and fees, no. We would take a firm line here even though it costs a few members some convenience.

Cash subs are the hardest money to trace, the easiest to lose between the hall and the bank, and the most awkward to chase, because nobody can prove whether the £20 in the envelope was this month's or last month's. Ask members to pay by bank transfer with their own name as the reference, and the bank statement becomes the register of who has paid. For families who cannot pay that way, record the cash on the spot with a receipt and bank it with the next deposit.

Keep cash for the things that genuinely need it: a raffle, a tuck shop, tickets on the door. When you do, two people count it together, write the total on a count sheet, both sign it, and the money is banked within a week. CC8 adds a point worth copying for raffles and shows: number the tickets, record who had which book, and reconcile the money against the tickets sold.

What does a worked example look like?

Take Millbrook Wheelers, a fictional cycling club in Swindon with 92 members, £38 annual subs and £4 for each coached session. In its last season on cash, the treasurer took 23 cash payments in a typical month, kept them in a tin between rides and banked them every few weeks. At year end the cash book and the bank were £147 apart, and nobody could say where the gap came from.

The next season the committee made three changes. Subs moved to bank transfer with the member's name as the reference, session fees went on a monthly request each rider could mark as paid, and the chair was added as second approver on the bank account. Cash dropped to the post-ride café fund, counted by two people. The year-end difference was £0, and the AGM accounts took one evening instead of a weekend.

What records does the treasurer need to keep?

One cash book, in a spreadsheet or an accounting tool, with a line for every payment in and out: the date, who, what for, the amount and the evidence. Evidence is a receipt, an invoice or a bank reference. A volunteer who buys cones for £18.50 claims it with the receipt attached, and the payment goes out by bank transfer, never from cash takings.

Keep the cash book, bank statements, receipts and any Gift Aid declarations for six years. Store them where the committee can reach them if the treasurer steps down; a shared drive the chair can open is fine, a personal laptop is not. Our guide to chasing unpaid subs covers the other side of the record: knowing who still owes.

When does a club need to register or file accounts?

That depends on what the club is. Many sports clubs and hobby groups are unincorporated associations and not charities at all, and some register with HMRC as community amateur sports clubs instead. If your club is a charity based in England or Wales, gov.uk is clear that you must register with the Charity Commission once income is at least £5,000 a year.

Registered charities then submit an annual return within 10 months of the end of the financial year. Above £10,000 of income the return asks questions about the charity, and above £25,000 the accounts need an independent examination. Check your constitution too: it may ask for an examiner whatever your income.

What should the treasurer report at the AGM?

One page members can read in two minutes: income by type, spending by type, the opening and closing bank balance, and how much the club holds in reserve compared with its running costs. A reserve of three months' costs is a sensible target for most clubs, enough to survive a hall closure or a lost sponsor. Our guide to running a club AGM shows where the accounts fit on the agenda.

How does Bitir help?

Bitir does not move money, and that is deliberate: members still pay the club's own bank account. What the Payment widget does is keep the record of who owes what. The treasurer sends subs or session fees as requests from a template, each member sees their own request and marks it paid with a screenshot of the transfer, and the treasurer confirms or rejects the claim. Cash taken at a session is recorded on the spot, and a receipt with its own reference number can go to the member automatically.

Payment rights are a role, so a treasurer and an assistant can see and confirm payments while coaches never see who is behind. At year end the CSV export gives a line per payment to match against the bank statement.

Related reading: how a Bedford amateur theatre society closed a £236 gap in its show takings, and how a Barnsley brass band rebuilt 11 years of records after its secretary left.