Class Reunion Planning: How to Keep Financial Records

As soon as you have any class reunion money in your hands, you should consider opening a bank account. While it's possible to use your personal checking account for class reunion deposits and expenditures, it is better to open a separate account for at least a couple of reasons.

One, you don't want your classmates to question where their hard-earned money is going. If you have an account in the name of your class reunion, classmates can make out their checks to "XHS Class of 2001 Reunion" rather than to "Priscilla President."

And two, it will be much easier for you to keep the money straight. If you deposit it into your own account, you will have to be extremely diligent about record keeping. And while you should keep good records even if the money is in a separate account, if it is, you can simply take one look at the account balance to know how much money your class reunion has to spend.

Find a Free Checking Account

You don't want to spend precious class reunion money on monthly bank account fees, so shop around for a free bank account that offers free checks. They are out there.

You'll need to put your name on the account, but you can also include a DBA (doing business as). Your DBA should be the name of your class reunion; this will be the entity to which classmates will make their payments.

It's also a good idea to add a couple of other reunion committee members' names to the account. You don't have to make it so that you need two or more signatures to write checks on the account, unless that is how your committee wants it done; just be sure that someone else has access to the money if something happens to you. Provide those people with all the information they would need to access the account if you get hit by a bus.

Keep Records of Expenditures

When you are in charge of handling other people's money, it is important that you keep excellent records. No one will probably ever question your handling of the class reunion money, but it's always better to have a record of each receipt and expenditure just in case.

Figure out a system that works for you, and then stick with it. It's a good idea to use a spreadsheet to log all class reunion expenditures. Your spreadsheet might include the following columns: date of purchase, description of item or service, purpose of item or service, cost, and the name of the person who paid for the item or service if it wasn't paid for with a reunion bank account check (for reimbursement purposes). For example: 02/12/2007, one ream blue paper, for promotional mailing, $4.95, Holly Historian.

Even if you are logging expenditures in a spreadsheet, it's still a good idea to keep paper receipts. You could keep them organized in an accordion file organized by type of expense (food, decorations, etc.) or tape them to sheets of paper in a three-ring binder.

Make sure you get receipts for services as well as for items purchased. If you aren't offered a receipt, ask for one. If other committee members will do some of the purchasing, make sure they provide you with receipts if they want to be reimbursed with class reunion money.

Keep Records of Payments

You should be just as diligent with records of payments as you are with expenditures. You might want a separate spreadsheet for this. It could include the following columns: last (maiden) name of person making the payment, that person's married name (if applicable), that person's first name, the name of any guests for whom this person has purchased a ticket (for name tag purposes), number of tickets this person purchased, and total amount paid. If you have asked classmates to prepay for souvenirs or other items, you can add columns to track those, too.

As with expenditures, it's also smart to keep a paper trail of incoming class reunion money. If you send out a reservation form, you can use that. See also:
Class Reunion Planning: Reunion Committee
Class Reunion Planning: Locating Classmates
Class Reunion Planning: Estimating Expenses