Security and trust
You are holding other people’s money. We take that seriously.
A PTO treasurer is a volunteer with a fiduciary duty over tens of thousands of dollars raised from families at the school. Here is exactly what we do, what we refuse to do, and where our responsibility ends and yours begins.
We never see your banking password
Bank feeds run through Plaid Link, and the sign-in happens inside Plaid's own window — not in a PTO HQ form. We request the transactions product only: not transfers, not investments, not liabilities. We cannot move a dollar out of your account, because we never ask for the ability to. You can revoke the connection from your own bank at any time, and the transactions already imported stay in your books.
File import is the fallback, always
CSV, OFX, QFX, and QBO import with a column mapper is included and is not an upsell. A treasurer whose bank is not supported — or who simply does not want to connect one — can run complete books on it indefinitely. A feed is a convenience, never a requirement.
Two people on money out
A reimbursement needs a receipt to submit, and the person who submitted it can never be one of the two approvers. Disbursements entered directly on the register keep a two-person authorization record. The rule is enforced by the software, not by a form somebody might not read.
The reviewer cannot be a signer
The monthly statement review is assigned to someone with no check-signing authority, and the system will not let a signer take it. The same rule applies to the annual review committee.
An append-only audit log
Categorizing, recategorizing, locking a reconciliation, approving or paying a reimbursement, importing, exporting, and linking a bank all write a line that cannot be edited or deleted. Next year's treasurer can see what happened, not just what the balance is today.
Being straight with you
What PTO HQ does not do.
It does not satisfy your bond's statement-review condition by itself
AIM requires a non-signer to physically receive the bank statement before the treasurer does, and states that financial software does not meet that requirement. PTO HQ assigns the review, supplies the red-flag checklist, and records the signature and date — but a person still has to read the actual statement. Confirm your own carrier's conditions.
It does not file your 990
We compute the deadline from your fiscal year end, track how many consecutive years you have on record, and warn you long before the third missed filing that revokes your status automatically. The filing itself happens at the IRS.
It is not legal, tax, or insurance advice
The EIN field, the deadline clock, the retention rules, and the review checklists are product features built from published handbooks. Your state PTA, your insurer, and your CPA are the authorities on your situation — and state rules genuinely differ.
It does not hold your data hostage
Export the full register, a three-column bank CSV, a print-ready treasurer's report, and the year-end audit packet whenever you want, with no request and no wait. A product whose whole argument is about surviving handoffs would be a strange one to get locked into.
Open the books for Maple Ridge Elementary.
A full seeded school year — carnival cash, a lumped processor deposit, a restricted playground fund, a dual-control reimbursement, and an open September reconciliation. No signup, no card.