NASUWT Finance

Imprest Claims during the Year

1. One of the key roles of the treasurer is to ensure that members are reimbursed promptly and properly for any expenditure they incur whilst carrying out Union activities. It is also essential for them to ensure that there are sufficient funds in the Local Association bank account to meet these payments. In order to do this, the Treasurer will need to submit an Imprest claim form to restore the working capital at regular intervals. All items of income and expenditure should be declared on the Imprest claim form, including bank interest and charges and also any Direct Debits or Standing Orders.

2.  The task will be made easier by taking a methodical approach and completing Imprest claim forms on a frequent basis.  The frequency will depend on the volume of transactions incurred by the Local Association, but as a rule of thumb, for many Local Associations, claims should be submitted to the Finance Team on a monthly basis after the bank statements have been received.  If claims are made at this time, then all the items taken directly out of the bank account can be included in that claim.

3. It should be noted that any cancelled cheques will obviously need to be deducted from the next claim since these will no longer be reducing the bank balance as previously indicated.

4. Receipts or supporting documents should be sent with the Imprest claim which should be paid by the Finance Team within two working days of receipt to the bank account of the Local Association.

5. Confirmation of payment will take the form of an-up-to date Imprest statement recording the transaction. The details of the bank account into which the money was sent is shown on the bottom of this statement.

6. Naturally receipts will not be available for all items of expenditure. However, where official receipts are not available the Treasurer should provide some sort of supporting document indicating to whom the payment was made and the reason for the expenditure. The Treasurer should sign the document as having approved the payment and if appropriate (e.g. where payment is made to a Treasurer himself) have it countersigned by a fellow official.

7. Care must be taken to ensure the correct amount of postage is put on the envelope when making a claim, since this will delay the claim from reaching Rednal – sometimes by as much as a week.

Please Keep the Bottom Copy of the Claim Form for Your Records

8  In order to assist in the preparation of the Imprest claim, there have been a number of forms created for use and guidance prepared on the categorisation of items included on the claim forms. These are:

1. notes on how to classify the expenditure under the headings used on the Imprest claim form; (see below)
2. a suggested form for officers to claim back their expenses.  This is a double-sided form; one side detailing the journeys undertaken and hence providing evidence of the mileage travelled; the other side of the form is a summary across the categories of expenditure which may be incurred enabling the treasurer to compile the Imprest Claim form more easily. (see above)
3. a spreadsheet which can be used to help build up the figures from the cheques and bank payments and receipts to be entered onto the actual claim form; (see above)

The cheques should be listed in sequential order on the summary spreadsheet when raised and NOT entered as they are processed through the bank account. 

Direct debits and bank charges should be entered below the cheques. 

The value of the cheque/direct payment should be entered in the ‘payment amount’ column and then analysed out according to what the expenditure was incurred for.  The total of the expenditure columns should equal the total in the ‘payment amount’ column.

How to classify expenditure

Officers’ travelling and expenses (code 0109)

Reimbursed mileage claims, taxi & train fares, parking, subsistence

Telephone (code 0117)

Reimbursed home phone bills, mobile phone bills, internet connections, broadband

Postage (code 0118)

Purchase of stamps, sending of parcels

Printing (code 0126)

Photocopying, printing of newsletters and magazines, letterheads

Stationery (code 0127)

Paper, general office supplies, ink cartridges, publications

Cost of meetings (code 0136)

Room hire, refreshments, travel to meetings by members, seminars and conferences organised by the federation/local association

Annual Conference (code 0145)

Travel, hotels, meals whilst at National Conference

Social functions (code 0163)

Functions of a purely social nature carried out to further the Association’s business

Recruitment expenses (code 0172)

Recruitment meetings, purchases of recruitment items for distribution, recruitment prizes and competitions

Affiliation fees (code 0181)

Regional TUC, trade councils

Officers’ allowances (code 0101)

Honoraria – only if claimed using the correct forms after tax has been deducted.

Subscriptions to NASUWT paid on behalf of officers, providing tax relief is not also claimed personally by the recipient.

Donations (code 0185)

Includes retirement gifts, flowers and cards

Any other expenditure (code 0190)

Includes bank interest/charges*, software, computer leads 

* This should never happen!

Capital expenditure (code 0197)

Actual physical hardware. e.g. Fax, filing cabinet, computer, copier

Other income

Includes bank interest received, any other refund for expenses noted in the expenditure section of the form, capital equipment advances.

NB Although unlikely, if there is any income it should relate to the areas of the Imprest categories above.  So therefore, the code used for income should match that used for expenditure. E.g. A cancelled telephone line returning income would be coded 0117.