The chapter treasurer handover checklist

Stage one: close the year, six weeks out

• Reconcile every account through the last full monthTick each bank and payment account against its statement to the last closed month. Good looks like a written reconciliation with the ending balance, the outstanding items listed, and your initials and the date at the bottom.
• Match every dues payment to a named memberWork the deposits until no payment is sitting unattributed. Anything you genuinely cannot identify goes on a short unmatched list with the amount and date, so your successor inherits a known problem rather than a silent one.
• List outstanding checks, unpaid invoices and pending reimbursementsOne page, one line each, with who is owed, how much and why. Chapters most often get caught by a reimbursement promised verbally at a spring event and never written down anywhere.
• Freeze the roster count as of the renewal dateRecord the number of dues paying members, lapsed members and life members on the date your bylaws use. This number feeds quorum, the annual report and next year's dues arithmetic, so it needs to be stated once and not recomputed later.
• Confirm the federal and state filing statusCheck that the 990-N or 990-EZ for the last closed year was accepted and that the state charitable and corporate filings are current. Print the confirmations. If anything is late, say so now rather than letting the next treasurer discover it.

Stage two: assemble the packet

• Export the full dues ledger for the yearOne file with a line per member per payment, showing date, amount, method and the membership year it covers. This is the single document the audit committee will ask for first.
• Write a one page cash position summaryOpening balance, dues received, other income, expenses by category, closing balance, plus what is committed but not yet spent. Aim for something a member with no accounting background can read in two minutes.
• Collect the governing and identity documentsBylaws, EIN letter, any IRS determination or group exemption letter, state registration, and the current insurance certificate. Scan them into one folder and name each file with the year it was issued.
• Inventory every account and who holds accessBank, payment processor, dues system, email, the chapter website and the storage unit. For each one note the account name, who is a signer or admin today, and who must be removed. Never write passwords in this document.
• Gather contracts and receipts into one dated folderVenue agreements, vendor contracts with dates that run past your term, and receipts for anything above the amount your bylaws require documented. Sort by date, not by category, so gaps are visible at a glance.
• Note the recurring calendar for the coming yearRenewal date, filing deadlines, insurance renewal, annual meeting, the audit committee review and any national remittance dates. Put the actual dates on it, not month names.

Stage three: the handover meeting

• Meet in person and open every account on her screenNot yours. She logs in while you sit beside her, so you find out in the room that a code goes to your phone rather than three weeks later when she is alone with a deadline.
• Change the bank signers togetherBook the branch appointment before the meeting and take the minutes recording the officer election, the EIN letter and both IDs. Getting this done the same week is what separates a clean handover from a six month one.
• Transfer ownership of the dues system and payment processorMake her the account owner rather than an added user, then remove yourself. Owner rights are what let her reset access next June without hunting down a past officer.
• Walk the last quarter of the ledger line by lineRead the actual transactions together so she learns what normal looks like in this chapter. Flag the odd ones out loud: the annual insurance debit, the national remittance, the deposit that is always three checks.
• Agree what she does in her first ninety daysUsually the first bank reconciliation, the insurance renewal and the opening of the dues cycle. Write the three items down with dates and send them to her by email so there is a record.

Stage four: verify thirty days later

• Confirm the outgoing treasurer no longer has access anywhereCheck the bank signer list, the payment processor, the dues system and the shared inbox. A former officer with live access is the finding that shows up in every review and is trivially avoidable.
• Check that a deposit has cleared under the new signerOne real transaction proves the bank change actually took effect. Chapters routinely discover in October that the branch never processed the paperwork in June.
• File the minutes recording the change of officersKeep the signed minutes with the governing documents. Banks, insurers and the state all ask for this at some point, and reconstructing it a year later means chasing people for memories.
• Update the mailing address and registered agentIf chapter mail went to the old treasurer, redirect it now and update the state and the IRS as required. Missed notices are the most common route to a lapsed registration.
• Book the annual review with the audit committeePut the date on the calendar while the records are fresh and complete. Good looks like a scheduled meeting, a named committee of members who are not signers, and the packet already in their hands.