Responsibilities
The ASURA Bylaws (Article V.D.5) establishes this position along with its duties. The Executive Board nominates a Board Member for this position and the nomination is ratified by the ASURA Board
The Treasurer and Financial Operations Manager work closely together. At the current time the financial records are all maintained by the Financial Operations Manager who prepares monthly statements of the Association’s financial transactions. These statements are reviewed by the Treasurer who presents them to the Board during the monthly Board meetings.
In September the Treasurer requests the Finance Committee to perform the annual review of the Association’s expenses.
All money collected by ASURA is banked with the ASU Foundation. There is a separate University account that can be used for acceptable expenses. See "Financial accounts" for information about these accounts. Note, as Treasurer, you have access to the page so if you see Access denied contact the Technology manager to get permission.
Since members can donate to any of four different areas, operations, Adopt-A-Family, Video History, and the Scholaship Endowment, the Foundation requires that each area be its own gift account. The following information is similar to what is contained on the Financial accounts page but is more geared for helping to create the budget.
- Operations - this account as the name implies is the account used to pay the various bills. All collected dues and additional member donations to Operations are deposited in the account. The biggest single expense is for the Scholarship followed closely by license fees.
- Adopt-A-Family – this account is used to fund the purchases made by the Adopt-A-Family Committee. The account receives direct gifts from members and transfers from the Operations account. The annual Budget sets the spending level, which has been at $2,000/year for a number of years.
- Video History – this account is used to fund the operation of the Video History Project. In the early stages of the project, a golf tournament was held to raise money. Today the income is from member donations and the book sales with the Friends of Pheonix Public Library,
- The Scholarship Endowment Fund - this fund has two parts
- Endowment Principal - this is the fund that is invested by the Foundation to grow in worth over time. ;Money put in the endowment cannot be spent. Money can be added to the endowment from Operations and by member donations. Projects that raise money for the scholarship may be added to the endowment provided the raised funds do not involve selling something.
- Endowment Spending. - this is money, taken from the endowment by the foundation once a year, that can be spent to fund the Scholarship or be reinvested back into the endowment. ASURA has no control over how much money is moved into the Spending account. Project money earmarked for the Scholarship that makes money by selling something can be deposited in this account.
- University allocation - This is a local account within HR that ASURA can used for expenses. Currently the annual allocation is $7,000 / year. This account is typically used to pay for printing and mailing of Prime Times, various license fees, Office supplies, room fees, etc. The budget should show this account expended since, if it is not spent, ASU sweeps it up.
The ASU Foundation acts as the Association’s banker and all Association money passes into and out of the Foundation. All of these transactions are conducted using Workday. Once a transaction is submitted it must be approved by someone other than the person submitting it before it is executed. Workday has a variety of manager titles that have a varietyof permissions; ASURA has two manager types to handle its transactions, a Gift Manager (the ASURA Treasurer) and a set of Gift Approvers.
Gift Manager
The Gift Manager is the owner of the gift accounts. There can be only one owner and hence only a Gift Manager. The Bylaws (Article V, Officers) state that the following shall have signature authority on all ASURA financial accounts: President, Vice-President, Treasurer, and Immediate Past President. Of this set the Treasurer is the logical ASURA Officer to be the Gift Manager.
The Gift Manager has permission among other things to submit transactions, review past transactions, and approve transactions they did not create. Gift Manager also have approval authority for new Gift Approvers.
Gift Approver
One step down from a Gift Manager is a Gift Approver. Gift Approvers can submit transactions and approve transactions provided they did not initiate the transaction. They also have access to reports of past transactions. There can be more than one Gift Approver.
ASURA Financial Transaction Process
- All financial transactions are sent to the Financial Operations Manager, who is a Gift Approver.
- The Financial Operations Manager submits the transaction to the Foundation and when the transaction is ready to be approved, alerts one of the Gift Approvers and the Gift Manager (the Treasurer). At the present time there is only one Gift Approver, the Financial Operations Manager, and so the Gift Owner approves all transactions. It is probably wise to have a second Gift Approver to step in if the Treasurer is not available.
- Once approved the Financial Operations Manager sends the approved transaction to be executed by the Foundation.
- At least once a month the Financial Operations Manager reviews the expenditures and at the end of the month prepares a Financial Report for the Treasurer.
During the summer the Treasurer creates a budget that is presented to the Board at the September meeting for review, updating, and approval. There is material in the right column that presents a process for developing a budget.
During the September Board meeting, the Treasurer presents the following two documents for discussion and review.
Previous fiscal year's final financial report
Presenting the report closes the books on the previous year's expenses. The report shows how ASURA spent its money during the previous fiscal year. The Treasurer may have a few comments about items in the report, e.g., the performance of the Scholarship Endowment, and should be prepared to answer questions that might arise. If this is the Treasurer's first year, they may wish to defer some of the questions to the Financial Operations Manager.
Draft budget approval form
The draft budget approval form, see information in the right-hand column to learn how to create this form, is a modified version of the Financial Report. The first column has the categories, the seond column has the proposed budget values for the current fiscal year and the third column shows the activity for each item from the previous fiscal year. The third column allows a comparison between the budgeted current fiscal year expenditures and the actual expenditures from the previous fiscal year.
The Treasurer may have specific items in the proposed budget they want to point out and discuss, e.g., the Scholarship payment from the Operations account, etc. The Treasure should be prepared to explain any of the proposed budget items and values.
The discussion may generate some suggested changes to the budget which the Treasurer will make and present at the October Board meeting for final budget approval. The Treasurer should ask the Board for tentative approval, pending any modifications agreed. If there are no changes or only some "minor" changes, the Treasurer can ask for full approval of the budget.
During each Board meeting the Treasurer presents the most recent Financial Report, prepared by the Financial Operations Manager. The report shows the budgeted amount for an item along with the year-to-date activity for the item. The report is divided into six sections: ASURA Operations, General University Allocation (HR), Special Projects, Adopt-A-Family, Video History, and Scholarship Endowment Fund.
The Treasures may want to highlight some items in the report and there may be questions from the Board but for the most part there is little discussion of the Financial Report. While there is really no reason to ask for Board approval of the report, historically this has often been done.
While most of the budget items in the Financial Report are self-explanatory some are not and the following material gives insight to what the items are.
ASURA Operations - Income
Donations, including membership donations - this item combines the money received from membership renewal with any additional donations made by members to support ASURA's operation.
ASURA Operations - Expenses
- Printing and Mailing Costs - The largest printing and mailing costs are those associated with Prime Times and membership renewal. For the most part these expenses are paid out of the General University Allocation (HR) but there may be some cost sharing showing up in the budget.
- Event Costs - The "Paid Events - net" item reflects the difference between the money collected for a paid event and the money sent to the event provider. The ASURA policy states that event prices should match event costs as close as possible, i.e., the net should be close to zero. The Financial Report includes an accounting of the money collected and money spent for each ASURA paid event.
- Other Operations Costs (Scholarship) - Money for the ASURA scholarship comes from two accounts, ASURA Operations and the Scholarship Endowment Spending account. The amount from Operations depends on how much money is available in the Scholarship Endowment Spending account. The Scholarship Endowment Spending account has two sources of income: a) money from the sale of books collected by ASURA and sold by the Friends of the Phoenix Public Library and b) an allocation in February from the endowment principal.
General University Allocation (HR)
ASURA gets $7,000/yr that it can spend on operations. The goal is to reduce the account down to zero each fiscal year.
Special Projects
The account was used to deposit money from the book sales (and other fundraising projects before then being transferred to the Video History and/or the Scholarship Endowment Spending account. This account was closed in fiscal year 2023 since fundraising money can be split and deposited directly into the correct accounts. Special Projects will no longer be shown in the ASURA Financial Report starting fiscal year 2024.
Adopt-A-Family and Video History
The income and expenses for these two accounts are self-explanatory.
Scholarship Endowment Fund
Scholarship Endowment Principal - The "Payout to Endowment Spending" is done in February and is based on a formula that includes the current endowment principal as well as the investment history. This payout is not available until the next fiscal year.
How to
- Go to the ASU Microsoft Services site and click on the "Faculty/Staff/Student worker" button. You may want to bookmark this URL in your browser.
- At sign in use your ASURITE UserID and password. Note: The link may come up with an ASURITE UserID other than yours; just type yours over it. Since ASU uses two-factor authentication you will next need to supply your second piece of identification.
- Once logged in you should be in Workday, with a “Welcome, Your Name” message.
- At the bottom left is an Inbox. If you have a transaction to approve it should show up there. Click on the inbox, and then the transaction will show up in the “Actions” column on the left. Click on it to see details. If everything is fine ,there is an “approve” button at the bottom of the screen.
- You can see past transactions you have acted on by clicking on “Archive” in the Inbox,
- Be sure to logout.
The Treasurer works with the ASURA Financial Operations Manager and perhaps the President to develop the budget. The first step is to update the budget form for the current fiscal year. The budget form need not change from year to year but often does with the addition of new expenditures and the deletion of expenditures no longer done.
The budget form is an Excel file with four columns: a column for the item description, e.g., Membership Drive, a column for the agreed budget value for each of the items, a column for the year-to-date activity for each of the items, and a column for comments. Following is a possible approach to updating the budget form for the current fiscal year.
- Ask the Financial Operations Manager to send you the Excel file, for the previous fiscal year's end of year Financial Report. Save the report and then save the documents as FYXX_Budget_Form.xlxs where XX is the last two digits of the new budget's fiscal year. Open the FYXX_Budget_Form file.
- Review all the items in the form. There is some explanation of the items in the "Budget items explanations" accordion in the left-hand column on this page.
- Once you are satisfied that you understand what the items are, in consultation with the Financial Operations Manager, you can insert or delete rows to this form to match the anticipated ASURA activity in the upcoming year. As you populate this form you may want to add new rows or need to delet some rows. Thus the modification of the form is not complete until you have completed collecting all the budget expenditures.
- Once all the insertion and deletion of rows is complete, send a copy of the form to the Financial Operations Manager. This copy will become the basis for the upcoming fiscal year's Financial Reports.
Once the budget form for the current fiscal year is established the next step is to establish values for all the items listed in the form. Establishing values is a cooperative effort between the Treasurer, the Financial Operations Manager, and a variety of committee chairs and coordinators. Following is some suggested sources and way to generate budget values (comments based on fiscal year 2023's budget form.
Once the form is completed with all the values and additions and subtractions from the form, same the budget form and send a copy to the Financial Operations Manager. The Financial Report will use this budget form. Also send a copy to the chair of the Finance Committee, so they can complete the Financial Health analysis.
Operations income
Income comes from two sources: membership donations (dues) and donations directly to Operations. You can look at the size of the paying members, see the membership report appended to the Board Minutes, and multiply it by the dues amount. The size of the donations to Operations can be found but requires a using Wild Apricot. Historically this value has been set to something a bit more than the previous year's value.
Operations Expenses - Printing and Mailing Costs
These costs are shared with the General University Allocation (HR) and you will need to work with the Financial Operations Manager to determine the split. The actual costs for the services should probably be bumped up a percent or two.
Operations Expenses - Event Costs
You will need to contact the Chair of the Luncheons and Special Events Committee to see what events they are planning and what venue / food costs, if any, will be associated with the events. If you don't hear back it is probably reasonable safe to assume the same events for the upcoming year but you will want to confirm this when the budget is presented to the Board. You might want to get the venue cost and food costs for the previous years events from the Financial Operations Manager. It is safe to assume that the Annual Meeting will require a paid venue and something for food.
Other Operations Costs
There are a variety of other costs, a few of which are shown below
- Scholarship Award for the next fiscal year - Assuming ASURA continues its $10,000 scholarship, the amount from operations is $10,000-the payout from the endowment principal in the Scholarship Endowment Spending account that can be spent during the current fiscal year.
- Newspaper subscriptions for Gov. Liaisons - you will need to check with the Chair of the Government Council
- AROHE/Technology Licenses - check with the Financial Operations Manager for the expected values.
- Business Luncheons & Service Awards (President's Plaque) and Office Equipment - check with the Office Coordinator to see if there are any changes.
- Develop the Budget Numbers – The budget numbers are established in a variety of ways.
- ASURA Office operation values are set in consultation with the Financial Operations Manager and are often based on last year’s experience
- Committees with line items in the budget (Adopt-A-Family, Scholarship, Seminar, Retirees Day, Luncheon & Special Events, and History) are set in consultation with the committee chairs to see what value they would like. If the chairs cannot be reached the previous year’s final Year to Date value is a reasonable value to suggest.
- Note: current practice is to set the Operations expense for the Scholarship to be the amount submitted by the Scholarship chair minus the money in the Endowed Scholarship's spending account.
- Estimated income is probably best determined using the previous year’s values.
Transfers
Transfers are use for moving funds to the Adopt-A-Family account and to correct errors, e.g., money incorrectly deposited in the Operations account. The amount transferred to the Adopt-A-Family account should be enough so that the transfer plus the money still in the account from the previous year and donations sums to $2,200 (approved amount in 2023 budget).
Special Projects
This items was removed from the budget form in the 2024 Budget.
Adopt-A-Family
Check with the chair of the Adopt-A-Family to see if the current allocation is sufficient. If there is a change then the transfer amount shown in the Operations section will need to be adjusted. This account is their money which they can spend as desired without Board or Treasurer approval.
Video History
Check with the chair of the Video History project to see what plans they have for spending. This account is their money which they can spend as desired without Board or Treasurer approval.
Scholarship Endowment Fund
There is not much you can do but make a guess as to what will happen. The only items that ASURA has any say about is the Payout from the Endowment Principal. The payout is made in February but cannot be spent until the next fiscal year. Since ASURA now pays for the Scholarship in May there will be two payouts, one that can be spent during the current fiscal year and one that cannot be used until the next fiscal year.
The document that you present to the September Board meeting, FYXX_Draft_Budget, is a minor modification of the final budget form. The following are instructions on creating the budget approval form.
- Open the completed budget form, FYXX_Budget_Form.xlxs, and then save as FYXX_Draft_Budget_Form.xlxs where XX are the last two digits of the current fiscal year.
- Edit the third column to read "FYZZ Values" where ZZ are the last two digits of the previous fiscal year.
- You now need to populate the third column with the previous fical year's totals for each item.
- If the budget form has not been changed, i.e., there have been no added or deleted rows, then you can copy the values directly from the June 30 Financial Report.
- If the budget form has been modified, for those parts of the budget form that were not modified you can copy in the values directly from the June 30 Financial Report. For those sections of the budget form that have been modified, you may have to manually adjust some of the values; being exactly correct is not necessary since the values are only meant as a quick comparison between the proposed budget value and what happened the previous year.
- Save the draft budget form.
Updated July 16 2023 by BW McNeill