[GNC] Petty Cash (was Re: BotanyBayGardens nonprofit example, and why GnuCash does not suffice)

[Adrien Monteleone]

Will, of course, get official advice, but I can speak to my prior 
experience dealing with Petty Cash and what were taught to me as 'best 
practices'.

1. All receipts of physical cash should be kept separate of Petty Cash 
and deposited in full, coins and all. Ideally, these should be placed in 
sealed, tamper-evident bags, designed for the purpose and placed in a 
'drop safe' that requires two keys to open, usually an armored pick-up 
service is employed that holds one key. That might be overkill for your 
use case, but you'd have to determine that based on cash receipt 
frequency and amount. This helps to match up cash receipt reporting and 
bank deposits for auditing.

2. All disbursements in physical cash come from Petty Cash and must have 
a receipt.

3. It is advisable to record a hand-written tally of Petty Cash 
regularly with an initial or signature, by denomination. (that part is 
important) 'Regularly' will vary with your needs. This could be daily, 
weekly, or in my experience with a restaurant, at each manager's shift 
change. (which was at least 3 times a day, open, mid, and close) At the 
least, the tally should be done both before and after access changes 
hands, one by the person transferring the access and again by the person 
receiving it to verify. (even with that in place, someone can still 
steal, but you have the info to catch them - I did.) Even better, each 
person should count and record in the presence of the other.

4. Petty Cash is *only* replenished with a 'Change Order' from the bank 
to 'par up' to whatever level is needed to be on hand. This level should 
be determined based on past receipts and can be increased or decreased 
seasonally or for special events as needed. You should have enough to 
reasonably meet small expenses and no more. If you have to provide 
change for individual registers, this will be considerably more based on 
their starting 'banks'. There are probably formulas for this somewhere, 
including the denomination breakdown.

There might be other 'best practices' (I'm sure I'm forgetting one or 
two, it has been over 15 years) and of course, seek professional advice.

Regards,
Adrien

On 7/25/20 1:02 PM, will at theprescotts.com wrote:
> As I said earlier, I am not an accountant just a volunteer keeping the books for a couple of groups. Michael comments:
> "and NOT currency sitting around undeposited (of course don't do THAT)."
> 
> I do do that and wonder why it is a bad idea. I frequently get incoming cash, mostly from T-shirt sales. And I occasionally have to pay for minor expenses so I generally have some cash around. I fully account for the income and expenses out of this fund to the penny. If there is a major income or expense in cash, that is handled with a bank withdrawal or deposit with only the change going into the cash box. Generally I have about $1000 to $2000 mxn on hand ( = $50 to $100 usd).
> 
> Should I change my habits.
> 
> Will