BeeKeeper vs. a spreadsheet
The short version
What follows is what changes when a group grows past one account and thirty transactions a year: a second account, a hundred transactions, four people who need the numbers between meetings, and an audit committee in June.
Side by side
24 things a school group actually needsFour things a spreadsheet cannot have, however well it is built
Version history tells you a cell changed. It does not tell you the board approved $1,200 for field trips, or that the number was edited three weeks after they did.
A double-entry ledger notices a transaction entered on one side and not the other. A spreadsheet will happily total a column that is missing a row and show you a confident, wrong number.
Ticking off the statement works right up until the difference is $43.17 and you are hunting for it at 11pm with no list of what is still outstanding.
The formulas are in one person's head and the file is in one person's Drive. The next treasurer inherits a workbook she is afraid to touch, and touches it anyway.
PTA accounting that runs itself
Built for school groups. Free for 30 days, no credit card required.
Don't wait for July
The best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago. The second best time is today.
Your spreadsheet is not wasted
- 1
Tidy three columns
Date, amount, description. That is the minimum we need. Keep your category column if you have one and it becomes your chart of accounts.
- 2
Import it as CSV or Excel
Transactions, your budget, and your vendor list each import from a spreadsheet. The work you have already done comes with you.
- 3
Set balances and reconcile once
Enter each account's balance as of the day you start, then reconcile that first month against the statement. When the difference hits zero, the sheet becomes history instead of homework.