Ensuring that your school’s PTO or PTA has the necessary budgeting tools should be a primary focus when volunteering for the board. However, volunteers often underestimate the details of the budgeting and accounting process. Discover how Breezy Caldwell, PTO president at Independence Elementary in Aurora, CO, selected Finance Manager as the ideal solution for efficiently managing her group’s finances.

How/where did you first hear about Finance Manager?

Breezy Caldwell: Last year, our group received the notification that Finance Manager was available via our PTO Today email distribution. We get so many good parent group tips from these emails!

Were there specific features or benefits that stood out to you?

BC: Yes, definitely. Ease of use, transaction tracking, and reconciliation of bank statements were the main components that we were looking for in our accounting software. Luckily for us, Finance Manager checked all the boxes!

Were there any specific needs or challenges you were looking to address?

BC: Historically, we had an accountant-by-day-job treasurer who handled everything from budgets to transactions to taxes using complex and amazing Excel spreadsheets. When that individual moved to middle school, our new treasurer was unable to pick up the old methods. We tried transitioning to a simple spreadsheet budget, but that did not allow for adequate budget tracking and visibility into the organization’s financial picture.

How has the product met or exceeded your expectations?

BC: Finance Manager has overwhelmingly exceeded our expectations. It makes an intimidating process simple and doable for non-accountants like us!

Did you consider other products before choosing ours? If so, what made you ultimately choose Finance Manager?

BC: We did some research beforehand. We considered QuickBooks, which as a nonprofit, we can get at a slightly lower cost than Finance Manager, but we moved towards the PTO Today product as it was built explicitly for our type of organization. It has allowed us to easily input our data, reconcile and find out where we are at any given moment. It will also allow for easy treasurer transitions in the future.

Were there any unique selling points that set our product apart from others in the market?

BC: Definitely! Finance Manager is unique in its detailed reports and tailoring for the PTO organization versus being used for any non-profit organization.

Would you recommend our product to others? Why or why not?

BC: I absolutely would. I consistently talk about the benefits and offer to show other leaders how simple this is to share and manage versus trying to do it alone.

Is there anything you would like to see improved or added to the product?

BC: I would love to see if there could be an API to connect to our accounts so that the reconciliation process could be improved. If there was a mobile app to be able to add transactions on the fly, that would be extremely convenient, too!

How do you feel about the level of customer support or assistance you received during the buying process?

BC: They’ve been great. When I had a tech question that I was hoping to get answered promptly, the leader support team at PTO Today was phenomenal in assisting me right away.

For more information on how your parent group can start using Finance Manager, go to PTOtoday.com/finance-manager.