Band Fund Thursday #2: The Band Accountant

In this second series of Band Fund, or artists funds, Thursday, the focus problem is having too many band members in charge of keeping track of finances. Through my years of being in bands one thing that I have always stressed, and will continue to stress, is that there is a lot of work to be done to make a band successful, but there are a lot of members in most bands to do all of that work. The point being that while everyone in the band should have an idea about band finances, such as how much a recording is going to cost or how much and where the band is going to get buttons pressed, things will work much smoother if one band member takes ownership of the finances.

In one of my past bands in particular our drummer was decent at math and really enjoyed keeping track of merch sales and creating spreadsheets. The drummer took it upon himself to keep track of the band fund and all merch sales which went hand in hand with the band fund. Every so often he would give us all an update and remind us of large expenses on the horizon that we had to begin to save for. Now the drummer certainly was not a CPA but he could fill in a spreadsheet and use the equation functions. The math was fairly simple but the key was his dedication to the task and the ownership of the responsibility. Surprisingly, no one asked our drummer to head up the finances, he did it on his own. Your band may not be as lucky, but you still need a band fund point person. If no one wants to do it you could try a rotation per month and see who kept track of funds the best.

As a parting note, remember that the band fund point person is not in complete control of the money and that the books and records should be open to all the band members. Money is a touchy subject, even in a band, and can cause many problems.

If you have a unique way you keep track of your band funds or a unique system to split up the band fund responsibility let us know with a comment below.