Do we need to be a nonprofit to use this?

No. The finance tools work for any team, whether the money sits in a school account, a parent booster club or a 501(c)(3). Fiscal sponsorship is optional and applied for separately.

Can students see the budget?

That is a per-team setting. Finance visibility is a role permission, so you can let the whole team see the budget while keeping reimbursements to the people who handle them.

The toolkit is free for teams. Fiscal sponsorship has its own terms, described during the application.

The whole toolkit Budgets, orders and receipts in one ledger

Team finance

A robotics team is a small organisation with real money moving through it, and most of them run it out of one person’s inbox. Robolyst gives that money a ledger, so the handover at the end of the season is a login rather than an archaeology project.

Everything in the toolkit

Free for every team · run by a 501(c)(3)

A parts request from the moment a student files it to the receipt on the ledger.

Parts request — goBILDA sample

Compliant wheels, 3in ×8 @ $7.68 $61.44
Hex shaft, 8mm × 200mm ×4 @ $5.10 $20.40
Axial bearing block ×2 @ $3.95 $7.90

Intake Robot parts filed by Devon K. $89.74

Requested Approved Ordered Received approved by Mr. Alvarez

Reimbursement sample

Hardware store — brackets $18.72 receipt attached Paid Fri

Receipts are served through the app, so a receipt link cannot be guessed or shared out of the team.

A budget that reflects the season

Set category budgets for the season and watch them against what has actually been committed, not just what has cleared. An order placed today counts against the budget today.

Orders, items and vendors

Track what was ordered, from whom, for how much, and which subsystem it was for. Per-item costs mean the drivetrain’s real spend is a number you can look up rather than estimate.

Expenses and reimbursements

Mentors and students submit what they paid out of pocket with the receipt attached, and see where the request stands. Receipts are served through the app rather than a public bucket, so a receipt link cannot be guessed.

Donations and fiscal sponsorship

Take donations through a hosted page, issue receipts automatically, and — for teams that need one — operate under the Robotics Catalyst Foundation’s 501(c)(3) so sponsors can deduct their gift.

A donation page per team, with an embeddable version for your own site
Year-end donor statements generated from the ledger
Optional fiscal sponsorship, applied for from inside the portal

Reports that survive the handover

Export the season’s ledger, hand the login to next year’s treasurer, and skip the conversation where nobody can say what the team spent on the robot.

Questions teams ask

Do we need to be a nonprofit to use this?: No. The finance tools work for any team, whether the money sits in a school account, a parent booster club or a 501(c)(3). Fiscal sponsorship is optional and applied for separately.
Can students see the budget?: That is a per-team setting. Finance visibility is a role permission, so you can let the whole team see the budget while keeping reimbursements to the people who handle them.
What does it cost?: The toolkit is free for teams. Fiscal sponsorship has its own terms, described during the application.

The rest of the toolkit

Team finance is one part of the portal.

The roster, the build schedule, the notebook, the money and your public site run on the same free account. Setting it up takes an afternoon.