Treasurers can sometimes be hard to recruit.
The role can be seen as undesirable, time-consuming, or something that requires a particular set of financial skills that are hard to find.
We don’t necessarily agree with all of that. A good treasurer doesn’t need to be an accountant, and the role shouldn’t have to become a huge unpaid job.
But it does raise a fair question:
Should you pay your treasurer?
There isn’t one right answer.
Over the years, we’ve seen almost every possible arrangement. Small organisations with entirely volunteer treasurers. Large organisations with volunteer treasurers. Volunteer treasurers supported by paid bookkeepers or accountants. Treasurers who receive a small honorarium. And organisations where all board or committee members receive some form of payment for their contribution.
A better place to start might be with a slightly different question:
What finance work needs to be done, and is it reasonable to expect someone to do all of it voluntarily?
In this guide:
The treasurer is a governance role. They help the board or committee understand the organisation’s money and maintain oversight of it.
It helps to separate the treasurer role from the actual finance tasks that need doing.
Bookkeeping is the day-to-day work of keeping financial records up to date.
Accounting might include preparing year-end reports, dealing with more complicated financial questions, or providing specialist advice.
Sometimes one person does all three. But they don’t have to.
For example, you might have a volunteer treasurer who oversees a paid bookkeeper. Or the treasurer might be paid to do the bookkeeping but participate in board meetings as an unpaid board member.
Separating those things can open up more options than simply deciding that the treasurer is either “paid” or “unpaid”.
These are also slightly different things.
An honorarium is generally a small regular payment that acknowledges someone’s contribution to the organisation. It isn’t usually calculated directly from the number of hours worked or specific pieces of work completed.
Payment for services is more closely linked to the work itself — for example, paying someone an hourly rate to do the bookkeeping, or paying a fixed amount to prepare a particular piece of work.
An organisation might choose either approach, depending on what it is actually trying to recognise or pay for.
There isn’t a particular size at which an organisation suddenly needs paid financial support.
The amount of money moving through the organisation is only part of the picture.
A relatively small organisation might have hundreds of membership subscriptions, lots of small payments, volunteer reimbursements and several different activities to track. Keeping on top of that can take real time.
A much larger organisation might receive a handful of grants and make only a few predictable payments each month.
So rather than asking whether your organisation is “big enough” to pay for bookkeeping or accounting, look at the actual work involved.
How many transactions are there? How complicated are they? How much time does it take to keep the records up to date? And how difficult is the work for the people currently doing it?
There is also an equity question.
It is much easier to give substantial amounts of time to a volunteer role if you have secure income, flexible work, spare time and relatively few competing demands.
Other people may have exactly the skills and experience your organisation needs, but simply cannot afford to contribute several hours every week for free.
A small honorarium or some payment for particular work may make it possible for a wider range of people to participate.
There is no automatic answer here. Paying one board member and not others can also create questions about fairness within the organisation.
The important thing is to think about it deliberately rather than assuming that unpaid is always more virtuous, or that paid is always more professional.
It is also worth looking at what you expect from board or committee members generally.
In some organisations, governance is fairly light-touch and most of the operational work is done by staff.
In others, the board is the organisation. Board members run events, manage volunteers, apply for grants, deliver programmes and deal with administration as well as attending meetings.
If everyone is contributing significant amounts of practical work, singling out the treasurer for payment may feel strange.
On the other hand, if the treasurer is expected to do several hours of bookkeeping every week in addition to their governance role, it may be quite reasonable to treat that work differently.
Again, the important distinction is between being a treasurer and doing a substantial amount of operational finance work.
Another useful question is:
Would this still work if your current treasurer left?
Some organisations have financial systems that work mainly because one very committed person has quietly absorbed an enormous amount of work.
That can look fine for years.
Then the treasurer leaves and nobody else wants the role.
If that sounds familiar, the problem may not be that volunteer treasurers are impossible to find. It may be that the role has become too big.
Paying for some bookkeeping or accounting support can sometimes make the treasurer role much more realistic for a volunteer.
Maybe. But probably not by itself.
If you are struggling to find someone willing to become treasurer, a small honorarium is unlikely to suddenly uncover a magical person with accounting knowledge, bookkeeping skills, governance experience and endless spare time.
It may be more useful to ask why people don’t want the role.
Is the bookkeeping a mess?
Are the systems difficult to use?
Does everyone expect the treasurer to deal with every money-related question?
Is there no handover, training or support?
Is the role much larger than it needs to be?
Sometimes the best way to make a volunteer treasurer role sustainable isn’t to pay the treasurer.
It’s to stop expecting the treasurer to do everything.
That might mean paying a bookkeeper for a few hours each month, getting an accountant to help at year-end, providing training, simplifying your processes, or using tools that make the day-to-day work easier.
Tools such as the Good Numbers app can help reduce some of the bookkeeping and reporting workload, but the broader principle matters more: make the role manageable.
Maybe.
You might have an entirely volunteer treasurer.
You might pay for bookkeeping or accounting while keeping the treasurer role voluntary.
You might pay the treasurer for particular finance work but not for participating on the board.
You might offer an honorarium to the treasurer, or to all board members.
All of those models can work.
What is right for your organisation will depend on the work involved, the people available, what you can afford, and what feels fair and sustainable.
The important thing is not whether your organisation looks like the organisation next door.
It is whether the money work gets done well, the board understands what is happening, and the people involved can keep doing their roles without one person quietly carrying an unreasonable load.
Ask Duncan anything — big or small. He’ll get back to you ASAP, and your questions will help improve the information here for everyone.
