Financial Dashboard & Unit Payments

MySummitKeep gives your unit several money screens that work together. The Financial Dashboard at /financials is your at-a-glance overview. The Ledger at /financials/ledger is your unit’s actual check register — every dollar in and out of the troop’s account. The Payments page at /payments is where the day-to-day collecting happens: dues and fees, marking payments received, printing receipts, and issuing refunds.

Find it in the left menu: Finance → Dashboard.

If you are the treasurer and only read one page, read The Unit Ledger — that is where your troop’s real balance lives.

This guide covers both, plus the tamper-evident Financial Audit Log.

Note

The finance tools and roles described here are designed for unit treasurers, Scoutmasters, and admins. See Permissions for exactly who can do what.

The Financial Dashboard

Open Finance in the left menu and choose Dashboard to land on the dashboard. The other finance pages (Ledger, Who Owes What, Reconciliation, Annual Budget, Scout Accounts, Invoices, Budget Templates, Fundraising, Unit Payments, Bank Accounts, Audit Log, Family Statements, Treasurer Handover and Reimbursements) are listed in the same Finance group.

At the top you’ll find three KPI cards:

• Total Unit Balance — the actual money in your unit’s account: your opening balance plus everything recorded in the Ledger since. This is a real balance and it can be negative if the troop is overdrawn.
• Monthly Income — money that came in during the current month.
• Monthly Expenses — money that went out during the current month.

All three read from the unit ledger, so they agree with the register and with your year-end figures.

If you haven’t set an opening balance yet

The balance card will say so and link you to the Ledger. Until you record what was already in the bank account, the balance reflects only what has been entered here — so it will look too low. Setting the opening balance is the first thing a new treasurer should do.

This changed in August 2026

These cards used to be calculated from payment records rather than from a ledger, which meant the balance could never be positive and “Monthly Expenses” actually showed unsettled payments rather than money spent. If you remember the old numbers not making sense, that is why — and the figures you see now are the real ones.

Below the cards is the Recent Transactions table (Date, Member, Description, Status, Amount). Use the search box to filter by member name or description, and click the filter icon to narrow by status: All, Succeeded, Pending, Failed, or Refunded.

If one part of the page can’t load, only that part says so. A card shows a dash (—) with a Retry button, and the transactions list shows “Couldn’t load transactions” with its own Retry button, so you don’t need to reload the page. A dash never means zero dollars; it means the number wasn’t loaded.

Tip

The dashboard is a read-and-overview screen. To record money the unit spent or received, use the Ledger. To collect from families, refund, or issue a receipt, use the Payments page below.

Recording income and expenses

From the dashboard header, leaders with finance access see two buttons:

• Record Expense — log a cost against a Scout’s account (a campout fee they owe, gear issued to them).
• Record Income — log money received against a Scout’s account (a cash payment that didn’t come through an online checkout).

Each opens a short form, and every entry is written to the Financial Audit Log.

These buttons record SCOUT ACCOUNT activity, not unit money

They post against an individual Scout’s balance. They do not move the KPI cards above, which read the unit’s own ledger — a Scout paying their camp fee isn’t the troop spending or earning money, it’s a family settling up.

To record the troop’s own money — insurance, recharter, a campsite deposit, a fundraiser deposit into the troop account — use the Ledger. That is what the balance, income and expense cards are showing.

Note

These buttons only appear if you hold the Financials.Manage permission. If you don’t see them, ask your unit admin to grant finance access.

Collecting payments

The Payments page (Finance → Unit Payments, /financials/payments) is built around collecting money from your families.

At the top, Outstanding Payments lists every unpaid request the unit has sent. Each card has a pay button:

• Stripe — Pay with Stripe opens a hosted card checkout.

Online payment is by card through Stripe

Online payment is by card through Stripe. Use Mark Paid for anything that arrives another way.

A Recently Paid section shows the last few completed requests, and four summary cards roll up Total Paid, Outstanding, Succeeded, and Pending counts.

Below that, the payments table (Member, Description, Amount, Status, Date, Actions) lists individual payment records. Filter with the search box (member, event, or description) and the status dropdown, and page through results with Previous/Next.

Tip

To send a brand-new bill to families, configure dues and create payment requests under your unit’s payment settings. Online collection requires a connected processor (Stripe). See Finance & Payments for the full setup.

Marking a payment paid and issuing receipts

When money arrives outside the app — cash at a meeting, a check, a Venmo transfer — record it so the books stay accurate.

In the payments table, click Mark Paid (or Edit on an already-paid record) to open the payment detail panel. Choose the Payment Method (Cash, Check, Card (manual), Bank Transfer, Venmo, Zelle, or Other), optionally add a Confirmation / Check Number and Notes, then click Mark as Paid. The record flips to Paid and posts to the ledger.

Once a payment is Paid, Succeeded, Refunded, or Partial Refund, a Receipt button appears in its Actions column. Click it to generate a printable receipt you can hand or email to the family.

Refunds

To reverse a completed payment, open it with Edit and click Refund. The amount defaults to the full remaining refundable balance (you can enter a partial amount), and you can add an optional reason such as “Event canceled” or “Duplicate charge.”

Caution

Stripe-backed payments are refunded automatically through the processor. Manual payments (cash, check, Venmo, etc.) are only marked refunded in the ledger — you must return the actual money to the payer yourself. After processing, the record shows as Refunded or Partial Refund.

The Financial Audit Log

Every financial event — payments created, succeeded, failed, refunded, and cancelled, plus recorded transactions and unit payment requests — is written to an immutable, tamper-evident log. Each entry is SHA-256 hashed.

Reach it from the Audit Log button in the dashboard header, or go straight to /financials/audit-log.

Filter by entity type (Payment, Invoice, Transaction, Unit Payment Request) and by a from/to date range, then click Apply (or Clear to reset). The table shows Timestamp, Event, Entity, Description, Amount, and a Hash column — click the hash on any row to reveal its SHA-256 value for verification. Results are paginated.

Tip

The audit log is your answer to “where did that money go?” at recharter time or during a committee review. Because entries can’t be edited, it’s a reliable record for handing the books to a new treasurer.

Permissions

Finance is gated by two permissions, typically held by the Scoutmaster, Treasurer, and unit admins. A Treasurer has them whether the role says Treasurer or the member holds the Troop Treasurer (Adult) or Pack Treasurer position on Manage Positions:

• Financials.Manage — controls the Record Income and Record Expense buttons on the dashboard, the Ledger and Annual Budget screens, and the finance-control endpoints (configuring dues, recording payments and expenses, processing, and refunding). Without it, the dashboard is read-only.
• Payment.Update — controls the per-payment Mark Paid / Edit action in the payments table, where reconciliation and refunds happen.

The Financial Audit Log is leader-only (Scoutmaster, Assistant Scoutmaster, or admin).

Note

Families and Scouts never see the unit-wide dashboard or audit log. They only see and pay their own outstanding requests through the family-facing flow.

Related

• Finance & Payments — connect Stripe, configure dues, and send payment requests.
• Scout Accounts — per-Scout account balances and ledgers.
• Event Budgets — track income and costs for a specific event.
• The Unit Ledger — your check register: recording money, corrections, reconciling with the bank.
• Annual Budget & Year-End — plan the year, compare against actuals, close the books.
• Banking Reconciliation — match recorded transactions to your bank statement.