Somebody proposed your name, nobody objected, and you are now the festival treasurer. You are probably not an accountant. That is fine — almost none of them are. What follows is the short version of what actually matters, in the order it matters.
Your real job is evidence, not arithmetic
The arithmetic is easy: money in minus money out. What makes a treasurer’s year difficult is being unable to prove any given number six months later. Everything below is about making evidence a by-product of doing the work, rather than a project you take on in March.
Week one: know your numbers
Before any money moves, find out four things. If the previous committee cannot tell you, that itself is the most important thing you have learnt this week.
- What was collected last year, and from how many units
- What was spent, by category
- What balance was carried forward, and where it physically is
- Which vendors are owed anything from last year
The four rules that prevent almost every problem
Everything else is detail. These are not.
- Record at the moment of collection, never “later”
- Every rupee in gets a numbered receipt, from one sequence
- Every rupee out gets a bill, photographed and attached
- Count the cash against the record at the end of every day
Do not be the only one who can answer
The instinct of a conscientious new treasurer is to hold everything personally — the cash, the register, the answers. It feels responsible. It is actually the riskiest structure available, because it makes you both the single point of failure and the only possible suspect. Let volunteers collect. Keep the record central and visible. Give the auditors read access from day one.
Publish before anyone asks
The treasurers who have a hard AGM are not the careless ones — they are the ones who waited to be asked. Publish the accounts the week the festival ends, itemised, unprompted. You will never have a difficult meeting again, and next year somebody else will propose your name for a reason.