Financial Cluster
Contents
General Financial Responsibilities
All duties are coordinated by the Financial Cluster Coordinator.
Useful Links
Incidental Duties
This is the category that requires the most creativity and responsiveness. The person fulfilling these duties needs ample flexibility to spend BK money and legally sign on behalf of the BK. So this person should be the Treasurer in the corporate sense. The sorts of things that this person does is included in the following list. For more information, see the Financial Cluster Coordinator.
- Being familiar with how the weekly/monthly/yearly jobs work and ensuring that they get done.
- Checking the mail at least weekly and paying the bills.
- Main contact for vendors (i.e., PG&E, Golden Gate Disposal, etc.)
- Sniffing through the Accounting Inbox weekly and writing any reimbursement checks.
- Fixing and developing systems like special order protocol, earmarked fund management, cash money allocation, etc.
- Migrating incidental tasks to the Weekly, Monthly, and Yearly categories as possible.
- Being responsive on email
- Managing PayPal and EventBright ticket money
- Speak up about spending proposals
- Having a solid opinion about the BK financial situation, and promoting that opinion in meetings and on the mailing list.
Daily Duties
Each shift has some financial duties which they must handle. The main daily duties are:
- Pick up the bills and mail and put in the office in-box.
- Get petty cash for urgent, minor purchases.
- Close the register at the end of each shift.
Weekly Duties
Every week, the daily closing reports are reconciled and the weekly deposit is prepared. This incorporates determining how many sales in each category of sales (membership, day use, parts, etc), recording special order payments, recording petty cash spent for Saturday lunch and other items, determining if the register is short and why. It also involves recording all of this in GnuCash and preparing the deposit slip and taking the money to Chase.
Checks written to pay bills, reimbursement checks, and any other transactions are also recorded in GnuCash on a weekly basis.
Monthly Duties
Monthly duties include:
- Reconciling the bank statement
- Entering the monthly QBP order in to GnuCash
- Reconciling EventBright ticket sales with PayPal and entering class sales and EB/PP fees into GnuCash
- Reconciling QBP orders with Special Order payments
- Sales tax is due to the California Franchise Tax Board on a quarterly basis, at the end of the month following the last month of the quarter (EG April 30, July 31, October 31, and January 31)
Yearly Duties
The big one here is reporting to the IRS. This is just the usual bureaucratic game of filling out forms, keeping records, etc. The IRS stuff is due on the 15th day of the 5th month after the end of our fiscal year (December 31 -> May 15 each year). Another task is to prepare the fiscal year end report. There is no document on how we do this stuff, but we're constantly massaging the weekly and monthly tasks in an effort to make the yearly tasks as painless as possible.
Specific Protocols
Receipts
In all cases....
- If you can't tell from the receipt, write down what it was for. Also say what 'department' it's for - shop supplies, fundraising, etc
- If you can't read the dollar amount, write that down too.
If you took cash out of the register....
- Put the receipt and the change in the register. If you took out $20, the change + the receipt amount should = $20.
If you need to get reimbursed....
- Write your name and that you need to get reimbursed on the receipt.
- Put the receipt in the Accounting In Box folder (the first file in the top left drawer in the office).
If you used a BK card....
- Write that you used a BK card on the receipt.
- Put the receipt in the Accounting In Box folder.
For other financial-related information, see the Financial Cluster page.
The Register
Closing the Register
At the end of each shift, please Z-out the register.
- Turn the key to Z
- Hit the "CA/AMT TEND" button
- The tape will print out the Z report. Hit "Feed" a few times and tear off the tape.
- Leave $100 in small bills in the register.
- Fill out the register report, noting anything unusual.
- Write your name on the tape and put it in an envelope it with the rest of the cash, any change, and any receipts (if there are any under the change drawer). Drop it in the safe.
For bonus points, look at the total sales for the day on your Z report. Does it match the cash + receipts you took out of the drawer?
ERROR 001: WRONG MODE
On a Casio register, this error message means that an operation in one mode was in progress when the mode was changed. For example, the key was in the "REG" position when you typed in the dollar amount, but then you moved it to "Z" to Z-out the register with out finishing the sale. The solution is to return the register to the mode in question, finish the operation and then leave the mode.
Turn the key back to the position it was in when the error occurred. In the past, we've tried pressing various keys to "complete" the operation and before switching the key to another mode. Ultimately, pressing "SUBTOTAL" did the trick.
If you're not sure that you solved the problem, ring in a $5 parts sales to test it out. Hit "Feed" a few times and cross off the $5 sale (but leave it legible for reconciliation).
What if you make a mistake ringing in a sale?
Easy. Just hit "Feed" a few times and cross off the sale. You need to cross it off neatly so that the error can still be read and taken into account for the reconciliation.
Gift Cards / Certificates
See the Gift Card Protocol page.
Additional Resources
Reports:
