Prior to the end of the school year- preferrably the last membership meeting- your org. should be passing a budget for the upcoming year. It should contain line items for every expense and every income that are expected for the next year.
The incoming board members should be involved in its creation because they are the ones that have to abide by it.
The budget will undoubtedly have to be tweeked/amended during the school year because things change and stuff happens.
Some org.s put together a budget that will allow them to just get through the summer but still it is approved by the membership prior to the end of school. Then, during the summer months they have the new board's input in creating one that's "fleshed out" and that one's presented to the membership at the first membership meeting as an amendment to the summer one.
The important thing is to approve one before school ends otherwise you'll need to have a membership meeting in the summer when quorum is often hard to find!
Our bylaws, like many I downloaded on this site and reviewed, show a fiscal year Aug 1-July 31. And annual budget's set in September.
For expenses, etc that occur after Aug 1st but before a Sept general meeting approval of annual budget, how should that realistically be handled?
To date, I think the PTO has always just done what it had to do during those months, and then budget including those items was presented/approved in September.
But it seems flawed, and there could be an instance where the general membership doesn't approve something paid for during that time (lets say a school assembly the first week of school was controvertial and not well received). Not that it would happen, but could.
