Fundraisers

User Guide Manage
1

What You Can Do

TroopTrack let's you create fundraisers to track the sales of your products, and to track how much each girl sells. Users with the Manage Fundraisers privilege can create and edit fundraisers.

How to Get There

You can get to the fundraisers page by clicking "Manage", "money", and then clicking "fundraisers".  

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Creating a Fundraiser

On the fundraisers page, click the Create a Fundraiser link, and the following page will pop up:

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Name: Give your Fundraiser an identifying name to remember it by.

Starts on: Enter the starting date.

Ends on: Enter the ending date.

Goal: Enter a goal for your troop to work towards.

Adding Products

Every fundraiser needs products for selling. Once you click the Add product link, the following fields show up.

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Name: Give the product a descriptive name. If you're selling many types of cookies, for example, you might consider using names like "Peanut Butter Jumbos, Large Box." If your only selling one type of cookies, you could just enter "Cookies."

Your price: The price You pay for each unit of the product. If you buy 50 candles for $25, enter $2 here.

Retail price: The price you charge for each unit of the product. If you sell 3 candles for $7, enter $2.33 here.

Entering Sales

Congratulations! Your fundraiser is up and running. Now you just need to keep track of the sales as they come rolling in. Or, alternatively, you can record the total sales after the fundraiser is over. That's up to you.

To enter sales for a fundraiser, click the "Actions" button then click the "record sales" link next the fundraiser. In the box that opens up, click the Add Sale link, and something like the following will appear:

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Sold on: The date of the sale. Or, if you're entering all the sales at once, a date that represents the sale.

Sold by: The member who made the sale. Can be any adult or youth.

Fundraiser product: The product that was sold.

Quantity: How many units of the product were sold.

And You're Done

After entering the information and clicking the Update Fundraiser button, TroopTrack will calculate your total sales. This is displayed in the Results column of the fundraisers page:

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2

It would be great if we could have a text field that goes with the fundraiser so we could enter contacts and description of fundraiser

1 Like
3

I’ve always had questions about fundraisers, so here it goes :):):slight_smile:

How do fundraisers work if there is no troop goal? I’m thinking about using this for scout fundraisers such as popcorn or Christmas Wreath sales. There is no troop goal for these fundraisers.

What happens to the money? Is the profit automatically added to the scout’s account or is that handled through a different method?

Thanks!

Scott

4

I agree Scott we are doing a spaghetti dinner and I would like to be able to run a report of the sales for each boy. I also think it would be great to find out what happens to that money. I don’t see it being added to the boys accounts and didn’t see a way to actually put it in there.

What we did was just set a goal, just a random number based off past events to get an idea of how we did vs other events.

Dan

5

Thanks @DanUrban5,

You answered my question. You also confirmed my assumption :):):slight_smile:

Thanks again Dan,

Scott

6

It’s illegal for a non-profit to put fundraiser money into individual accounts or credits.

1 Like
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@CorriGross,

How does your unit handle fundraisers, dues and collection for events?

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The Treasurer records all money collected from troop members into the money accounts in troop track as both a credit with a corresponding offsetting debit. Therefore, we still have records of all amounts collected, but individuals do not receive financial “credit” based on fundraisers because that is illegal. We, of course, still offer incentives/badges/etc, but we just can’t have individual money credits based on their fundraiser sales. That is the quickest way for a non-profit to lose non-profit status.

9

That’s what I was told as well. Scout accounts, with funds designated for use by a specific scout for their activities, are not ok with the IRS. The funds need to benefit the troop as a whole, not a specific scout.

It puts the tax-exempt status of the CO at risk.

You could consider giving scouts prizes based on their popcorn sales, e.g., $25 off summer camp fee for each $X00 dollars of popcorn sold.

10

I’m just really confused about the fundraiser and individual scout accounts. Giving the boys “prizes” is nothing more than participation trophies. The boys need to learn money management, responsibility and pride that they earned their way. Without putting the money within TT as a tracking effort there is no way to know how much is in each account. Now we only have two accounts at the bank, one checking and one savings so each boy doesn’t have an account at the bank, just in TT.

I’m wondering if the IRS like me didn’t understand the question at first, I understand that they boys can’t have an individual account at the bank but why can’t we separate it in TT? I have a program that helps track personal funds, when I get paid I move a portion into a separate account in that tracking program but it stays in the same account at the bank. How is that different?

I’m just trying to understand.
Thanks
Dan

11

Dan, I’m with you and am a bit confused. There is a good article over at Scouting Magazine that speaks to this issue: https://blog.scoutingmagazine.org/2014/12/03/individual-scout-accounts/

I will say that we use TT to track “Cub Bucks” that scouts earn as prizes/rewards based upon how much fundraising they do. These Cub Bucks are credits that can be used towards summer camp, scout shop merchandise, annual dues, etc. The amount of their reward is based upon a percentage of their total amount of fundraising. They cannot cash these out and must use them towards scouting-related costs. Since the vast majority of funds raised benefits the entire pack, our previous treasurer indicated we were covered… although I will admit I’m going to ask our committee to look further into this… hopefully someone else on here can help clarify!

1 Like
12

Dan and PJ, check out the Cub Cast podcast mentioned in the Scouting Magazine article. It’s very informative. The other definitive policy source on scout accounts is the Product Sales Guide Aug. 2014 (see p9). As long as your unit maintains control of the funds brought in from unit fundraisers and you aren’t just giving scouts the money they raise directly, then you really don’t have much to worry about in regard to private benefit issues. Scout accounts are a great way to help the kids learn to pay their own way and save toward the activities they want to do. Controlling funds means just that - the unit controls the funds and decides when they are added or subtracted to a scout’s individual money account on TT. Hope that helps you.

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Hi Corri, check out the Product Sales Guide Aug 2014 (p9). Another good resources is the Cub Cast podcast Dec 2014 on how to handle fundraising dollars.

14

Is there a way I can add a New Member fee through Troop Track and they be able to pay through PayPal? The same thing like adding items shirts, water bottles, etc and they pay through PayPal. I would like to be able to also invoice this to our new scouts.

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Not yet. I expect to add that over the summer.

16

Thank you Dave. We are fairly new to TroopTrack, how would we be notified when this feature is available?

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I will announce it in product updates.

Thanks!

Dave