The AFL Financial Management Information booklet can be found HERE
It is important for clubs to prepare a budget each year, maintain an up to date cash flow plan, bank account ledger, and financial report.
Budget
Budgets are a summary of the expected income and expenses for the year. They should be built up from first principals (i.e outlining the individual expense items then estimating their frequency).
Cash Flow Plan
A sometimes underutilized financial planning tool is cash flow management. A club’s Treasurer may be able to get the Budget to balance on an annual basis but what if all the expenses are incurred at the beginning of the year and income only received at the end? Putting a time stamp on when and how much the income/expenses are going to incur is important to ensure your bank account stays in surplus. It is recommended that the planned events get entered into a cash flow management tool and updated with actual closer to the event. Plans change so the cash flow plan should be updated accordingly, generally on a monthly basis. In addition to that the cash flow plan should extend past the current budgeting period especially if a large expenditure is to be incurred.
Ledger
A ledger gives clubs and their members the ability to audit their financial transactions and also group together information for the Financial Report. We would recommend for the larger clubs using a software package such as QuickBooks to store the information however an excel spreadsheet for smaller clubs would be more than adequate.
Financial Report
To ensure your club is transparent to their members a financial report should be completed at the end of the financial year. The report should
General
All funds should go through the clubs bank account in a timely manner and documented in the Ledger appropriately. It is imperative that when dealing with other peoples money from fundraising efforts or membership dues that you have an audit of it and are accountable for it.