How a lodge runs festive-board money on the same night

The Steward should be able to lock a dining count before the caterer is told a number. The Treasurer should be able to open that same meeting and see who dined, who paid, what the raffle took, what named gifts were given, what unnamed cash was counted, and what is still outstanding. Those are records, not impressions. A paying-in total from the following week is not a meeting record.

Two officers should be able to see the same night. A Steward who holds the diner list on a phone, a Charity Steward who holds the tin, and a Treasurer who holds a bank login have built three private versions of the truth. Committee will hear a number that cannot be shown. The next Treasurer will inherit a biscuit tin and a story.

The test is dull and sufficient. Open last installation dinner. Name the dining price. Name the guest price if the lodge uses one. Show the confirmed covers. Show who paid by card, who paid cash, and who still owes. Show the raffle line. Show the named gifts with names. Show the cash count, who counted it, and the paying-in reference. If that view needs three exports and a phone call, the night was not owned.

Four streams usually move in the same room on the same evening. Dining is the meal cost. The raffle is money taken for tickets or a bottle pledge. Named gifts are donations a brother makes with his name attached. Unnamed cash is the plate, the box, or the tin that has no donor list. Card and cash are how those streams arrive. They are not extra streams of their own.

Draw the map before the summons goes out, not after the last toast. Write, on that meeting, whether dining will be charged, whether guests pay a different rate, whether a raffle will be taken, and whether a collection will be taken. If the lodge does not charge for dining, say so. The Treasurer still needs the night if a collection moved.

Each stream needs a home on the meeting before anyone takes a pound. Dining sits on the diner row. Raffle sits on a raffle line. Named gifts sit on a named line. Unnamed cash sits on a cash line for that night. If those four homes are not written down, the first tin that fills will swallow the rest.

The usual failure looks harmless while the room is still full. A brother pays two covers in cash and buys raffle tickets from the same wallet. Another brother taps a card for dining and drops coins in the alms tin. A guest settles later by bank transfer with no reference. By Sunday the Treasurer has one card total, one paying-in hope, and a Steward who is sure the numbers were different. The map exists so that mixing at the table does not become mixing in the books.

The map is also how officers stop arguing about ownership. The Steward owns the cover count and whether the caterer was told the right number. The Treasurer owns what the night took and whether it later matches the bank. The Charity Steward owns the charitable slice: named gifts and the unnamed tin. One meeting lets those three jobs look at the same evening. Three pockets make month-end into archaeology.

The evening feels like one social event. The books cannot treat it as one pot. Dining is usually a meal cost. A raffle may be a lodge social account. Only the money the lodge treats as a charitable collection belongs in a Gift Aid or GASDS conversation. Decide that on the night, in writing, not in a later argument.

Pouring the three together because it was quicker is how a year disappears. The bank will show one credit if you bag the night as a lump. That is normal. The books still owe committee a split. If you cannot say which part fed the caterer, which part was raffle, and which part was a gift, you cannot later reclaim a pound and you cannot later explain a shortage.

Some lodges do not charge for dining at all. Some charge members and dine guests free. Some run a raffle only at installation. Those are lodge customs. This guide will not invent a rule about which custom you must use. The officer job is the same in every custom: know what was offered, record what was taken, and keep the streams on the meeting so the Steward and the Treasurer are looking at one night.

Charity is the slice that most often gets lost because it feels small on the night. A named envelope and a plate of coins can sit ten minutes apart and still be different records. Mixing them to save a count is how thanks go to the wrong person and how reclaim dies. Keep the name where there is a name. Keep a night and a total where there is not.

Dining money that lives in a different app from the summons will never match the Steward's count. The summons already asked who is dining. The RSVP already has a yes, a guest, or an apology. Payment is the next fact on that same row, not a new list started at the table.

A working process is dull and sufficient. The meeting is raised with a dining price the lodge has already set. Members reply for themselves and for guests. The Steward works from the confirmed count, with a cut-off the lodge actually respects. Payment is taken or recorded against those same names: card before the night, cash at the door, or a recorded exception the Treasurer can still see in the morning.

Guests are where dining lists rot. A brother brings two visitors, pays for one, and the second is remembered as someone's guest on a napkin. Name the guest on the RSVP, price the cover, and record who paid. If the lodge dines visitors at a different rate, that rate sits on the meeting, not in a side conversation with the Steward.

Apologies matter because they change the catering number and they must not stay on the paid list. A brother who sent apologies is not a diner. If he already paid, the lodge decides how it handles that: a credit, a refund, or a held cover the lodge has chosen to keep. Write the decision on the meeting. Do not leave it as a mental note that expires when the Treasurer changes.

Late diners after the cut-off are exceptions on the meeting, not a second unofficial list. If late diners are common, the lodge can move the cut-off. It should not run a second book under the table. A Steward who locks a count and then feeds the kitchen from WhatsApp has already abandoned the record the Treasurer will open in the morning.

Ceremony attendance and dining are different replies. A brother can attend and not dine. A guest can dine and not be on the attendance roll the Secretary keeps. This guide will not tell you how to run the meeting itself. It will say: do not force those two replies into one tick, and do not price dining from the attendance list. The dinner job of menus and diets is already written at how a lodge runs the festive board as a dinner.

The raffle is not a separate project with its own cash book. It is money taken in the same room, on the same night, for the same meeting. If it is banked a week later under a different description, the Treasurer will spend April asking whether it was dining, alms, or something else.

Treat raffle takings as a line on the meeting. Card or online tickets can keep a name. Cash in a pot is a total that still needs a count and a paying-in reference. Do not mix the raffle pot into the dining tin and hope the bank statement will sort it out. It will not. The statement will show a credit. It will not show which brothers bought tickets.

Some lodges run a cash raffle, a bottle pledge, or both. Those are lodge customs, not software features this page will invent rules for. The officer job is the same: know what was offered, record what was taken, and keep it on the meeting so the Charity Steward and the Treasurer are looking at one night.

If a brother buys tickets by card and another drops coins in a jar, both belong on that meeting. One is easier to attribute. The other still happened. Leaving the coins off the record because they are small is how a year of nights disappears. A successor reading November should see a raffle line even if the pot was only coins.

Raffle is not automatically charity. If the lodge later treats raffle surplus as a gift, write that decision. Do not silently move raffle into the alms tin because the numbers look tidier as one total. A Gift Aid conversation that starts from a mixed pot is already a reconstruction.

Alms are the collection the lodge already takes. Named gifts are the donations a brother makes with his name attached. They are not the same record, even when they happen ten minutes apart. A named gift should keep the name. Unnamed cash should keep a night and a total. Mixing them is how reclaim dies and how thanks go to the wrong person.

For a named gift, capture the name at the point of giving, or already have it on the member. Card and online gifts do this naturally if they sit on the meeting. Cash can do it if someone writes the name down that night. A tin that goes to the bank as a lump has no names left. You cannot add them in April from memory.

A labelled envelope is not unnamed cash. Do not empty it into the tin to make the count simpler. The brother who wrote his name expected the lodge to keep it. The Treasurer who later wants Gift Aid on that gift needs the name. The Charity Steward who later wants to thank the right person needs the name. A faster count is not worth losing both.

Unnamed cash is a different fact. It may later sit under the Gift Aid Small Donations Scheme if the charity meets HMRC's published conditions. That does not change the night. Count it, record it against the meeting, and bank it with a reference you can still find. A scheme cannot reclaim a tin that never became a line.

Card and cash are methods. They are not two ledgers. A dining cover paid by card and a dining cover paid in cash are the same dining line with different arrival stories. A named gift on a card and a named gift in an envelope are the same named-gift job. Treating the card reader as the books, and the tin as a side matter, is how cash nights vanish.

When a brother pays by card, the processor should already tell the books that the payment succeeded or failed. The Treasurer should not be typing paid from a screenshot. Failed cards are not the same as a brother who never tried. A failure needs a retry or another method, written on that diner or that gift the same night.

Card money that has not yet settled is not in the lodge bank. Cash still in a tin is not in the lodge bank. Both need records. Neither is a reason to adjust the night to match a hope. The processor is one way money arrives. The paying-in slip is another. The meeting has to hold both.

Fees will appear as a separate deduction or as a net settlement, depending on the processor and the bank. Record them as what they are: a cost of taking cards. Do not bury them inside the dining total so the night looks healthier than it was. Do not invent a fee table in the minutes. Use the figure the processor actually charged.

Cash and cheques are why the card dashboard is never the whole night. They will never arrive with a processor confirmation. They arrive as a count, a bag, a counter credit, or a cheque that clears days later. Those lines stay unmatched until you attach them to the meeting. Ignoring the tin because most brethren now tap a card is how the charitable slice, and the last guests, go missing.

Do not pour card takings into the cash tin on paper to save work. A processor total for the evening is not a cash count. Named card gifts already have a name. Dining card totals are meal money. Dumping either into a cash line creates a pack that does not match the bank or the processor. A second officer reading the totals in spring will not be able to defend it.

Cash that waits until Sunday is cash that will argue with the bank. Two officers count it before anyone leaves. Write the total on the meeting, split by dining, raffle, and alms if those tins were separate. Bag it, note who counted, and pay it in with a reference that matches the meeting date.

The Steward's dining cash, the raffle pot, and the alms tin are three counts even when they travel to the same bank. If you pour them together at the table, you have already lost the night. If you pour them together at the counter, write the split before you do it. The paying-in slip is not a memory aid. It is a single number.

Floats belong on the same paper. If the raffle started with a float, write the float in and the takings out. If dining change sat in the same box as alms, say so on the line. Hiding a float inside a round total is how a successor thinks the collection was larger than it was, or smaller, and cannot tell which.

Shortages happen. A diner paid later, a guest left without settling, the raffle float was wrong. Record the shortage on the meeting the same night, with a short reason. Do not hide it inside a round number that makes the bank look tidy. A successor should see that installation night was £20 short because a cover was not collected, not because someone is bad at arithmetic.

Card payments do not replace the cash count. They reduce how much cash you hold. They do not excuse skipping the count on what remains. The meeting is finished when dining, raffle, named gifts, unnamed cash, and the cash total are all on that record.

Who counts is a lodge choice, not a rule this page will invent. Commonly the Treasurer counts with the Charity Steward or the Steward. The test is a successor who can see who counted and what they wrote. A tin that went home with one officer is already a story.

The night job is to keep the streams apart so a later claim is still possible. The reclaim jobs already have their own desks on this site. This page will point at them. It will not copy them.

Named Gift Aid needs a valid declaration on the named donor and a gift the lodge can defend as a donation. That is HMRC practice, not a lodge by-law. A declaration in a Secretary's file from 2019 is useless if this evening's gift is an anonymous line. The document on the member is written at how a lodge takes a Gift Aid declaration. The wider reclaim year of dues, alms, and donations is at how a lodge reclaims Gift Aid on dues, alms, and donations. The charitable portion of the annual subscription is a different stream from the dinner, and it has its own note: how a Treasurer splits dues so Gift Aid can be claimed.

Unnamed small cash may later sit under the Gift Aid Small Donations Scheme if the charity meets HMRC's published conditions. LodgePay's public copy already states an annual allowance of up to £8,000. We are not adding a higher figure. The count, the matching rule, and the claim pack are written at how a lodge reclaims GASDS on festive-board cash. Stay here for the night. Open that desk when the tin has to become a claim.

The schemes are not a menu you pick for convenience. Named card and online gifts with a declaration belong on Gift Aid. Unnamed small cash belongs on GASDS if the conditions are met. Dining is usually a meal cost. Raffle is not automatically a donation. Pouring card takings into GASDS to save matching work is how a pack becomes hard to defend. The GASDS desk already says that. This page only needs the night to keep those lines apart.

The product facts for reclaim sit on the Gift Aid page. The Treasurer's three committee questions sit on the Treasurer desk. Use those pages when you are choosing a tool. Use this page when you are running the evening.

The bank is the truth of what arrived. The meeting is the truth of what the night took. Those two have to meet. A card settlement, a cash paying-in, and a guest transfer with no reference will all land in the same current account. The statement does not care which officer collected them. The Treasurer does.

Do the paying-in while the night is still in living memory. A Treasurer who waits a fortnight to bank the tin will not remember which festive board the lump was. Write a reference that points at that meeting date, not at a month. If you bag dining, raffle, and alms as one credit, the split must already sit on the meeting. The bank sees one line. The books still owe committee three.

Card money should already know it succeeded. The bank import is then a confirmation that the settlement landed, not the first news that the cover was taken. Cash, cheques, and anything that did not come through the processor stay unmatched until you attach them. An unmatched line is not a rounding error. It is money the lodge cannot yet explain.

Month-end is confirmation, not discovery. If a meeting has no cash line and you remember a collection, write the failure down and fix the process. Do not invent a figure from the paying-in book. The longer method for importing the CSV, matching known payments, and leaving leftovers visible is already written at how a Treasurer matches the lodge bank every month. This page only needs the night to be matchable.

Do not treat the processor as a second bank. Fees, refunds, and pending settlements will confuse anyone who tries. The lodge current account is what the lodge actually has. The meeting explains why a credit exists. The unmatched list is where mysteries stay until someone owns them. Hiding a festive-board leftover in a miscellaneous tab is how handover fails.

The Steward cares about covers, diets, and whether the caterer was told the right number. The Treasurer cares about money. Those are the same meeting if the RSVP and the payments share a record. They are a dispute if one list is a printout and the other is a card reader total from a different app.

Cut-off dates exist so the Steward can stop chasing and the caterer can be told a number. After the cut-off, late changes are exceptions on the meeting. In the morning the Treasurer should open that meeting and see: who dined, who paid, what the raffle took, what named gifts were given, what cash was counted, and what is still outstanding.

If the caterer invoices the lodge and members pay later, the meeting still needs a diner list and a payment state on each row. The invoice is a cost. The covers are income. Mixing them in one tin is how the night disappears. A lodge that dines on account has not escaped the record. It has added a second timing.

Outstanding covers should stay visible. A guest who left without settling is not a rounding error. A brother who promised to pay on Sunday is still outstanding on Monday. Write the owner of the chase on the meeting. A list of leftovers with no owners is a list nobody will clear.

Access should be limited to the officers who need it. The Treasurer, usually the Charity Steward for the charity slice, and whoever the lodge has authorised, need the names and the amounts. The wider lodge sees totals, not every brother's gift, unless your own standing orders say otherwise. We are not inventing a UGLE rule here. That is ordinary data care for a small organisation holding payments.

Handover fails when each festive board lives in a different brother's pocket. The next Treasurer inherits a biscuit tin, a catering invoice, and a Charity Steward who is sure the November collection was larger than the paying-in book.

Treat the year as a run of meetings, not a spring reconstruction. Eight dinners that were written on the night can be opened in June. Eight dinners that were banked as lumps in March cannot. The running year is also how Gift Aid and GASDS stay honest: those desks already warn that a tin which never became a line cannot support a claim.

Write the year as if the next Treasurer will open it with no handover meeting. The dining price on each meeting. The guest price if any. The raffle line. The named gifts. The cash count and who counted. The paying-in reference. The leftovers still visible. If that pack is a USB stick and a promise that it all went in, the nights were a diary.

LodgePay already publishes the only illustration this page will repeat. A typical 30-member lodge reclaims £1,125 a year: £225 from dues and £900 from eight festive boards, plus GASDS on cash up to £8,000 a year. Those board figures assume the nights were recorded. Do not quote them to committee as if they were last year's tin.

The £900 is eight recorded boards, not eight memories. A lodge that banked a mixed lump and lost the names cannot honestly use that figure. Run the same arithmetic on your own membership and meeting count. Use your own dining prices and your own alms totals.

LodgePay Essentials is from £149 a month billed annually, which is £1,788 for the year, or £169 billed monthly, as on the pricing page. The published Gift Aid illustration of £1,125 does not pay that subscription. Do not tell committee that reclaim covers the software. GASDS, if your charity meets HMRC's conditions, is a separate allowance on small cash up to the published £8,000. It is not a reason to invent a tin figure that pays the year.

Named competitors are real. We re-checked public pages on 11 September 2026. We will not invent a feature, a price, or a same-night ledger those pages do not state.

The Working Tools is a secretary operating system with a Treasurer's cash book. We re-read theworkingtools.co.uk pricing and treasurer feature pages on 11 September 2026. Pricing was £5.00 a month, with a 30-day trial. Extra lodges are offered at a reduced cost on their help pages. Those pages did not state a public extra-lodge figure on the day we checked, and this article will not invent one. The treasurer page describes a cash book with lodge-relevant categories, subscriptions and dining fees against members, who has paid dues, email reminders, charitable donations tracked separately from general funds, year-end figures, branded PDFs, and dining numbers from the Event Planner. That is a serious cheap desk. A cash book can record that money moved. Those pages did not describe dining, raffle, and alms sitting on the same record as the summons and the RSVP, and they did not describe Gift Aid or GASDS reclaim.

Lodge Master 5, at lodge-master.co.uk, calls itself the all-in-one platform for secretaries to manage meetings, track attendance, plan menus, and more for the lodge's festive board. We re-read that public page on 11 September 2026. It lists attendance for meetings and festive boards, members and non-members filling preferences, up to five courses with multiple menu choices, children's menus, dietary requirements, menu supplements, a public sign-up link, email to attendees, hosting the summons, attendance reports, export to Perfect Table Plan, and Stripe payment gateway integration. In their own words, a +1 guest must register as a visitor until the next major release. The public site did not publish a price. Menus and summons are a real slice of the night. This article will not award it a single meeting ledger for raffle, named alms, and a same-night cash count unless their own pages say so. The honest dinner compare is already at how a lodge runs the festive board as a dinner.

LodgeAccounting, at lodgetreasurer.co.uk, publishes members and subscriptions, dining events with diners and guests, banking with receipt allocation, and a full set of nominals through trial balance, profit and loss, and a balance sheet. That is a real books product. The public site did not publish a price when we checked on 11 September 2026. The pages we read did not describe Gift Aid. If you need diners and receipts inside a chart of accounts, read their site and ask them. Omit what they have not said.

Lodgical, at lodgical.app, publishes summonses, summons replies, dining dues, member accounts, and a charity role that can edit donations and collections. It offers a demonstration lodge and a live trial. Price was not published on the pages we used on 11 September 2026. Dining and a Charity Steward are in scope for the night. Do not assume cash counted on the meeting and named gifts kept on the same record as the summons unless they have said so.

Once the lodge owns the job, software is a way to stop the night living in three pockets. LodgePay's Treasurer and meeting pages already state the product facts we are allowed to use: festive-board collections on the meeting, dining RSVPs with payment status beside the reply, collections attributed to members, Gift Aid on named gifts where a declaration exists, and cash tracked so it can sit under GASDS if the charity uses that scheme. LodgePay's public copy states an allowance of up to £8,000 a year for GASDS. We are not adding a new figure.

Card payments go through Mooov. Status is webhook-verified, so a succeeded card is already known before the statement arrives. Standard processing fees pass through at cost. We will not invent a fee table. Cash is still counted and recorded. The processor is one way money arrives. It is not the night.

Published prices sit on the pricing page: Essentials £149 a month billed annually, which is £1,788 for the year, or £169 monthly; Complete £229; Group £349; Province from £2k a month plus £35 per lodge, typically £4,500 a month. Those figures do not count the tin for you, and the £1,125 Gift Aid illustration does not pay the Essentials year.

A £5 cash book the lodge actually operates beats a fuller platform nobody opens. If you only need a secretary operating system and that cash book, The Working Tools is a real cheap desk. If you only need courses, children's menus, and a Perfect Table Plan export, read Lodge Master 5 and ask for a price. If you only need nominals and a balance sheet, read LodgeAccounting. If the meeting must sit with dining, raffle, named gifts, the cash count, the bank match, and Gift Aid on the same record, book a LodgePay walkthrough and ask the questions at the end of this page.

That is the end of the pitch. If the meeting is not owned, buying a platform will not reconstruct last November.