(Last Mod: 04 November 2010 17:56:01 )
The best source for the most up-to-date regulations and information is from the National Headquarters Financial Management website and/or the Colorado Wing website. The following are links to the most relevant pages.
COWG Forms Page (Will require login)
The following are local copies of the most relevant files (and therefore may be out of date) in case the sites above are unavailable.
CAPR 173-1 (11 FEB 07) Financial Procedures for Units Below Wing Level
CAPR 173-4 (12 MAY 08) Fund Raising/Donations
COWG Finance Procedures (21 JAN 10)
COWGF 173AF (NOV 08) Check Request (Fillable)
COWGF 173B (OCT 06) Deposit Advice
COWGF 173BF (OCT 06) Deposit Advice (Fillable)
A receipt must be written for all funds are received by the Unit, whether or not there is an identifiable entity to give the receipt to. Depending on the nature of the funds, the receipt may be written to a specific individual or it may be a consolidated receipt for a pool of monies. The most common case where money is pooled before being brought onto the Unit's books is the sale of supply items. The Supply Officer collects the monies from many people for many purchases and then, periodically, those funds are brought onto the Unit's books via a single receipt indicating something like "Supply Cash Pull" as the source of the funds. Another example would be a cadet activity at which fees are collected from the participants. There is no requirement for the squadron to write individual receipts (although the activity should do so); instead, a single receipt indicating that the funds were received from the activity is sufficient. Similarly, funds received from cadets to pay quarterly dues may be collected and consolidated before being brought onto the Unit's books via a single receipt showing something like "Quarterly Dues" as the source of the funds. However, in this case, it is important that, somewhere, a clear record of which cadets have paid what dues must be retained.
Funds received by the Unit should be deposited into the squadron's account (meaning, under Wing Banker, the Wing Consolidated Unit Funds account) as soon as practical. This is done by preparing a deposit slip, depositing the funds into the account (currently as U.S. Bank), and then forwarding the deposit receipt to Wing Finance along with a completed Deposit Advice (COWGF173B).
Funds can only be spent via Check Requests to the Wing Banker system. This is an extremely important point. Specifically, units are not authorized any form of 'petty cash' transactions. For instance, the Supply Officer cannot use funds received from supply sales to go to Military Clothing Sales and purchase replacement items. They must deposit the funds received in the squadron account and then request that the squadron purchase the items. While frequently inconvenient, such "off-the-book" transactions would not be reflected in the CAP accounting reports and thus an inaccurate picture of the organization's (CAP nationally, not just the individual unit) would result. Not only would such practices reduce the validity of CAP's financial reports, but it could jeopardize CAP's status as a tax-exempt 501c3 organization.
There are multiple ways to request funds from the Wing Banker system, and each has pros and cons. The following are the four acceptable methods, in the general order of preference:
USAFA Football Game Concessions
King Sooper Gift Cards
New Life Church Concessions
El Paso County Elections Support