Class Reunion Planning: How to Keep Financial Records

As soon as you have any class reunion money in your hands, you should consider opening a bank account. While it's possible to use your personal checking account for class reunion deposits and expenditures, it is better to open a separate account for at least a couple of reasons.

One, you don't want your classmates to question where their hard-earned money is going. If you have an account in the name of your class reunion, classmates can make out their checks to "XHS Class of 2001 Reunion" rather than to "Priscilla President."

And two, it will be much easier for you to keep the money straight. If you deposit it into your own account, you will have to be extremely diligent about record keeping. And while you should keep good records even if the money is in a separate account, if it is, you can simply take one look at the account balance to know how much money your class reunion has to spend.

Find a Free Checking Account

You don't want to spend precious class reunion money on monthly bank account fees, so shop around for a free bank account that offers free checks. They are out there.

You'll need to put your name on the account, but you can also include a DBA (doing business as). Your DBA should be the name of your class reunion; this will be the entity to which classmates will make their payments.

It's also a good idea to add a couple of other reunion committee members' names to the account. You don't have to make it so that you need two or more signatures to write checks on the account, unless that is how your committee wants it done; just be sure that someone else has access to the money if something happens to you. Provide those people with all the information they would need to access the account if you get hit by a bus.

Keep Records of Expenditures

When you are in charge of handling other people's money, it is important that you keep excellent records. No one will probably ever question your handling of the class reunion money, but it's always better to have a record of each receipt and expenditure just in case.