5.9.4.2. Responsibilities & Role Essentials Treasurers

The volunteer treasurer demonstrates strong financial management skills, attention to detail, and a thorough understanding of the association’s financial processes. This includes the following responsibilities:

• Oversees the financial affairs of the association, including managing funds and monitoring income and expenses.
• Maintains accurate financial records and ensures they are organised and up to date.
• Prepares financial statements and reports, including the annual financial report, as required by the Act.
• Ensures compliance with financial regulations and accounting principles.
• Contributes to the development and monitoring of the association’s budget.
• Helps establish and maintain internal financial controls to safeguard assets and ensure accurate financial reporting.
• Provides financial information and reports to the committee, members, and other relevant parties as required.
• Completes all banking (depositing cash & cheques), pays the bills & tracks the income and expenditure of the association.
• Adding the Business Activity Statement lodgement with the ATO
  All the above will go into more detail further in this document & please ensure to read your specific clubs by-laws for any further responsibilities not outlined above.
  For more information, please refer to the SLSQ Governance Manual for more specific treasurer tasks & definitions.
  

Financial Administration
In most cases, treasurers who are part of an SLS association aren’t employed and volunteer their time to undertake the financial administration. This means, said person, must:

• Clubs should have a committee/panel to support the treasurer in key financial decisions.
• Protect the organisation against fraud and theft, ensuring safe custody of money, and prompt banking.
• Make sure the board understands its financial obligations.
• Make sure the organisation complies with tax regulations, such as GST, payroll tax and fringe benefits tax.
• Review all internal processes and reporting methods at least annually.
  

Review procedures and financial reporting
You will need policies and procedures to protect the organisation and its people. These will include:

1. Controls on expenditure, such as who can authorise spending, upper limits before board approval are needed, and who can sign cheques.
2. Controls on income generation, including appropriate and inappropriate ways of raising money.
3. Systems for ensuring cash and chequebooks are kept securely.
   

Financial Accountability, Budgeting and Reporting for Treasurers
There is more to managing the finances than just good bookkeeping. You need to prepare reports for members, management and sponsors outlining the current financial situation, looking at possibilities for the future and drawing people’s attention to tax implications, and potential risks or opportunities.
Financial accountability includes planning and budgeting. The budget will fall out of the strategic plan, so ideally a treasurer would work with the board to develop strategy and help set goals.
On the basis of the treasurer’s reports (that you’ll prepare and present monthly to the committee), the board may have to modify the budget. Unfortunately, a blow-out in expenses is more common than an unexpected expansion in income.
If you have made an unexpected profit, you may wish to put it aside as a reserve to protect yourself against potential cash-flow problems or use the money to strengthen your current operations or programs.

Advising on fundraising
As treasurer you may be asked to prepare funding proposals for one-off grants, grants for special projects and sponsorship.
The best contact for anything grants applications, invoicing and acquittal related is the Grant Seeking Unit. Companies like Canva allow an access to free funding proposal templates to help any associations new to the process, which benefits any non-for-profit organisations. The ICDA also has a helpful book that can assist any associations applying for grant funding; which can be found HERE.

Finance Committees
Many organisations appoint finance committees, or sub-committees, to help the treasurer. The advantage of having a finance committee is that a group of interested and financially knowledgeable people can share the load.
Some boards also appoint an audit committee whose role is to liaise with external auditors, ensure the control systems are adequate, and examine any financial irregularities (if there’s no audit committee, these duties fall to the treasurer).

Record Keeping & Archiving Documents
Record keeping is the practice of creating, managing, and maintaining documents and records that provide evidence of an organization’s activities, transactions, decisions, and compliance with legal and regulatory requirements. Effective record keeping is essential for efficient operations, legal compliance, and historical documentation. In reference to volunteer treasurers, financial records and annual financial records are common documents that associations need to complete and keep.
If the association needs to archive documents, it is important to ensure they are stored securely to maintain their integrity and protect sensitive information. Consider using appropriate storage methods, preferably online like electronic document management systems. It is advisable to consult specific legislation, regulatory bodies, and seek professional advice or legal counsel to determine the exact requirements and recommendations for archiving documents applicable to your circumstances.
For more information on this, follow the link HERE.

Financial Planning
A financial plan is a comprehensive and strategic roadmap that outlines an individual’s or an organisation’s financial goals, objectives, and strategies needed to achieve them. It serves as a blueprint to guide financial decision-making, resource allocation, and wealth management over a specific period, often spanning several year. Financial plans consist of:

1. Financial Goals & Objectives
2. Income and Expense Analysis
3. Budgeting
4. Risk Management
5. Strategy
6. Debt Management
7. Tax Planning
8. Continuously Monitoring
   

The treasurer’s duties will vary according to the organisation’s size and culture, but financial management is a team responsibility. The treasurer, the chair, other members of the governing body and staff must work together to develop a budget and monitor and evaluate financial progress.

Risk Management
If you are coming into this role with a finance background, you would know that the risk of anything going wrong or sideways is vast and consequences can be unpredictable. The people within your association are your greatest strength and the risks include:

• Lack of financial skills: People often volunteer or work for not-for-profit organisations because they feel strongly about the organisation’s mission and want to be of service. They may not have strong financial skills. You can support these members by having clear processes and procedures for all financial transactions and training staff and volunteers to follow them.
• Introducing too much change too quickly: Some treasurers come in with a new broom approach and want to make major changes. While often these changes will be for the better, you need to remember that volunteers and staff who have been with the organisation for many years may resent these changes. Consulting with your Board and, if formed, Finance Committee and providing training will go a long way.
• Theft and fraud: While theft and fraud only happen occasionally, there are plenty of cautionary tales about employees or volunteers who’ve stolen money or taken the laptop when they’ve left. SLSQ stands with SLSA in saying “SLSA maintains a zero-tolerance attitude towards corruption and fraud. If you suspect fraud, report the allegation or concern immediately, with the below details, to the associations legal team:
  • Name(s) of parties involved
  • Name of activity
  • Brief details of detected/suspected fraud or corruption.
  • Any other relevant information
• Conflicts of interest: Conflicts of interest can occur when people stand to gain financially, or they (or their families) are involved in an organisation with competing or contradicting objectives.
  

Meetings & Financials
When an associations committee or board are apprehensive when discussing financials, as a treasurer it is best to ask yourself and then the committee/board these questions:

1. What risks would prevent us meeting our objectives or carrying out our operations?
2. What controls could we adopt to minimise risks to an acceptable level?
3. Is the strategy realistic and achievable?
4. Could a failure in operations prevent us from achieving the associations objectives?
5. Is the association losing money or not maximising your financial returns?
6. Is the association failing to meet your regulatory or taxation obligations?
   

For more information, follow the link HERE.

Strategic Planning
Strategic planning comes before budgeting. The treasurer should be involved in the overall business planning, which involves defining or clarifying future directions and setting medium and long-term goals.

• It is easy to become driven by your budget, rather than your budget serving your organisation’s mission.
• SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities & Threats) – planning/analysis which reviews where the association currently stands & what the organisation may face (predict/foresee).
  

For more information, follow the link HERE.