Kappa Alpha Order

Chapter Finance Supplement

Updated Excel Budgeting Template

Revised: Summer 2005

Budget Instructions and Explanations

Welcome to the 2005 edition of the Kappa Alpha Order budgeting document. This is a tool the National office is excited to offer. This tool should help the Number IV as well as the chapter feel more comfortable about its financial situation. In these pages, you will find explanations on how to use the Excel based document. Every chapter is different and will therefore need to alter the program to make it fit their needs. This process will be explained as well.

Step 1The first step will be familiarizing yourself with Microsoft Excel, the program used to create the budget system. Explore the Help feature offered for Excel.

Step 2Familiarize yourself with your chapter’s budget, financial needs, and past financial history. Ensure that you have a starting point for your budget. Again, not every chapter is the same, so make sure that you understand your chapter’s financial capabilities and limitations.

Step 3Once you have a grasp on how to use Excel and your chapter’s finances then proceed to use this guide to understand the preset features of the budget document. Be sure that before you begin using the program that you save an original copy of the program that is blank; if you make mistakes they will not create the hassle of having to start over. The document has been protected to prevent disruption of programmed features. Do not unprotect the document unless you are extremely familiar with Excel.

Step 4Begin to enter your chapter’s data for the year to come. The budget system is designed to help you see if your chapter’s income exceeds expense. If this is not the case you will need to reduce your chapter’s expenses or raise your chapter’s income to balance your budget. Allow for more income due to unexpected expenses or possible omissions in the budgeting process. Save your budget often and on either a disk or CD-ROM so your financial records will remain safe.

Step 5Make the additions and subtractions of line items that your chapter needs. Also take this time to change the titles and headings to fit your chapter and make the budget your own.

Step 6Go over the budget with your Number I and Prudential Committee, there may be something you have forgotten and their input is valuable. Once you are in agreement, present the budget to the chapter for approval.

Step 7It is critical that you stay on top of the budget as money comes in and goes out. You will need to record payments received and enter the transactions in the proper categories. The best budget in the world is useless if it is designed, adopted, and then abandoned. You may need to make adjustments during the year, but the basic blueprint (budget) should remain in tact. Look over the budget from time to time to see if you are on pace.

Step 8Give members a print out monthly or bimonthly so they know where the chapter stands financially.

Step 9Review the system with the new Number VI during transition and answer his questions. Also keep a paper and computer file of the budget for the year that will continue to accumulate budgets from years past. Keeping five years of budgets on file would be advisable.

Personalizing the Budgeting Program

  1. Open file entitled “Chapter Budget”
  2. Familiarize yourself with the “Budget” worksheet (see picture below)
  3. Throughout this explanation guide pictures and callout boxes will point to specific features or direct you to input information. Feature boxes are denoted with “***”.

Entering Initial Information

  1. Insert the number of active members that are listed on Report 1. By doing this the program will automatically multiply the number of members by the amount each active member will be charged for National Dues/Insurance ($245).

  1. You will notice that this in turn also changes the number of members in the matching Expenses column. This balancing of Income and Expense ensures that the chapter does not budget to spend money collected that will be paid to a third party (i.e. National Office, IFC, Housing Corporation).

  1. The next step is to enter the number of New Member into the Induction Fee line. The number entered above has been automatically added to the Induction Fee expense line as well. Notice it did not go into the Initiation Fee and Spring Dues/Insurance; these will need to be added as the New Member becomes eligible for both.

  1. Enter the number of New Members (pledges) that you initiated into the Initiation Fee line. The number entered above has been automatically added to the Initiation Fee expense.
  2. Enter the number members that owe Spring Dues/Insurance to the National Office. Note that there can be members who return to school or from overseas that will need to pay Spring Dues/Insurance. Again this has been transferred automatically to expenses.
  3. Chapter Dues Active:
  4. First, enter the number of Active Members that are required to pay Chapter Dues.
  5. Second, enter the amount each Active Member will be charged for semester/quarter dues. This will be automatically multiplied by the number of members to give you income from Active Members.

  1. 5 % for Uncollectable Dues
  2. You will notice that something has been occurring in the 5 % for Uncollectable Dues. This is an automatic running total of the amount of dues that will most likely not be collected from members. The amount is calculated by taking the total expected Income and multiplying it by 5%.
  3. By allowing for this from the beginning, the chapter does not expect to receive it, therefore you will not include it the in expense budget. Thus, when members do not pay, the chapter will not come up short. The 5% is the figure developed from years of looking at uncollected chapter dues.
  1. Like with Active Dues, we will now need to repeat the two steps for New Member Chapter Dues.
  2. First, enter the number of members that are required to pay New Member Dues.
  3. Second, enter the amount charged per New Member. (This number should not be equal to or higher than the Chapter Dues for Actives. With Induction, Initiation, Spring Dues/Insurance, the New Members have a large financial burden. The New Members are not there to provide all the income for the chapter.)
  4. Now that Income on the National and Chapter levels has been entered, we must enter the IFC portion.
  5. First, enter the number of members required to pay IFC dues.
  6. Second, enter the amount charged per member. (If the IFC charges a flat fee for the chapter, the number of members can be one and the amount charged to each chapter can be the flat rate.)
  7. This, as mentioned before, is an account that must be paid to the IFC. Therefore, the Income and Expense cancel each other out. These funds are not the property of the chapter as with National Dues, Induction Fees, and Initiation Fees.

  1. For those chapters that have a house, rent is the next item to deal with. (If your chapter does not have a house, go to item #13.)
  2. First, enter the number of members paying rent.
  3. Second, enter the money charged per member. (Note this budget is for a year. To get the total for the year multiply the monthly rent times the number of months charged. Example, $350 a month x 10 months = $3500.) (Note this should also take into consideration employees salaries related to the house, if the chapter employs.)
  4. The rent expense is automatically filled in from the Rent Income. Any money made charging excess rent should be handled by the Housing Corporation and should create a reserve for repairs, renovations, etc.
  5. Every chapter that has a house should have a reserve account set up through their Housing Corporation. This will allow for repairs, renovations, and emergencies. Without such an account, you are placing yourself in a position for disaster.
  6. Parlor Fees
  7. First, enter the number of members.
  8. Second, enter the amount charged per member. This should be enough to cover the expected expense for the year.
  9. Parlor fees may not be charged by all chapters. This is a fee that can be used by the chapter to take care of such things as utilities, cable, supplies, etc. The theory behind it is that all members will be using the house and should help with certain expenses that arise. The members living in the house can or cannot pay this, that is up to the chapter to decide.

  1. Meal Plans
  2. Note, if your chapter does not have a meal plan, go to step #13.
  3. First, enter the number of members on the meal plan.
  4. Second, enter the amount charged per member for the year.
  5. Note that the income is automatically entered into the Budget Expenses column. This ensures that the income is not taken into consideration as funds that can be used elsewhere.
  6. In the beginning you might have wondered what to do with the money in the bank you had from the previous year. You should enter that into the line entitled “Forwarding Balance (Remaining from previous year)” under the title of Actual.
  7. For example, we will state that the chapter had $2500 in their account. This amount would be placed in the column as shown below.
  1. Another question would be the opposite; What if we owed money at the end of last year? Debt (Remaining from previous year) under the title of Actual.
  2. By doing this you are adding to your expenses the amount of the debt your chapter has accumulated. This will allow you to adjust dues to decrease the debt, or you can simply budget less expense for the coming year. For our sake we will use an amount of $2500 of debt. This amount should be entered as shown below.
  1. Fundraising, Fines, Alumni Donations
  2. These are other sources of Income that will not come from dues. These should be taken into consideration and input as they are accumulated. The chapter should not budget for these funds, but merely add them in as received.
  3. To enter Fundraising profit, Fines, or Donations, click on the corresponding header. See below (example is for Fundraising).
  1. This will take you to the Fundraising Ledger page. Your screen should resemble this:
  1. Enter the appropriate information for the Fundraisers Income (not profit). By adding Expenses to the Chapter Fundraising Expense Ledger, the amount of profit will show in the Difference Between Income and Expenses line at the bottom of the budget. For our example, Check #589 on 6/1/2005 from MDA Phone-a-thon had an income of $1500.
  1. To return to the Main Budgeting page, click the Ledger title. See below.
  1. Repeat same process for Fines and Donations
  1. Balance
  2. This number found at the bottom of the Budget page gives you the total income minus expense.
  3. Once you have this number you know how much you can budget for the rest of the year. This includes all of your Budgeted Expenses. If you find that you wish to budget more, you must raise Active and New Member chapter dues or find another source of income. In our example, we have $10,351.75to budget for expenses.
  4. Note: fees can be charged for an event, but it would be best if all budgeting can be done without charging event fees. An example would be an Old South fee. A good chapter will however budget this from the beginning alleviating the need for excess fees and collections.
  1. Budget remaining items
  2. For the remaining items under the title Budgeted Expenses, you must merely input the amounts for the categories. When doing so, keep in mind the total of all the categories cannot equal more than your Difference Between Income and Expenses.
  1. Navigating Expenses
  2. As with Income Fundraising, Fines, and Alumni Donations, the Expenses are set up to be easily navigated.
  3. Click on the Expense title:
  1. This will take you to the Ledger page for that Expense
  1. Expenses then can be added on this Ledger page.
  1. Click on the header to return to the main Budget page.
  1. The expense entered on the Ledger page then is updated on the main Budget page.
  1. This process can be repeated for all the Budgeted Expense items
  1. Entering Income for Member Dues and Housing Fees (i.e. budget items not under the headers Income and Income Related to House)
  2. Click on the Income tab at the bottom of the excel document.
  1. The main Member Ledger screen should look like this (starting with cell H1):
  1. The Member Ledger Summary is designed for 38 chapters members (labeled Alpha through Alpha Xi). Should more members need to be added, contact Jeffrey R. Raker (419-308-5507) at the Kappa Alpha Order National Administrative Office (during the 2005-2006 year) with the number of members needed. An updated copy of the software will be emailed to you.
  2. To change the names to the chapter roll, hold Ctrl and click the cell to be changed.
  3. Type the name. For example, James Ward Wood has been entered where Alpha used to be.
  1. From there, press the down arrow to enter the next name. For example, Robert E. Lee has been entered into the Beta cell. Repeat until all chapter members (Active and New) have been entered.
  1. Each member has a corresponding Ledger page. As with Income and Expenses, when the chapter member’s name is clicked, the corresponding Ledger page appears. For example, by clicking on James Ward Wood, the following Ledger page appears:
  1. Twenty-one entrees lines have provided for each member. To add additional lines click on an empty line (far left on line number), click Copy, and click Insert Copied Cells. Another line has been added.
  1. The form is designed to allow a member to pay multiple fees in one check. For example, James Ward Wood has paid his dues for one semester.
  1. This information is then updated on the Member Ledger Summary page and main Budget page.
  1. Difference Lines
  2. Each budget line item has a difference to determine how much more money needs to be collected to match Expected Income (Income) and how much more money could be spent to match Expected Expenses (Expenses).
  1. Nevertheless, the Difference Between Income and Expenses must be monitored regularly. A negative amount should never exist in the Actual column, this means that more money has been spent than acquired.