Missionary Account

Discuss questions around local unit policies for budgeting, reconciling, etc. This forum should not contain specific financial or membership information.
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aebrown
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#11

Post by aebrown »

Mikerowaved wrote:kh_design, when you TAB down so Ward Missionary is highlighted, press the SPACE bar to open the pop-up submenu. From there you can enter a donation for the General Ward Missionary fund. If the donation is for a specific missionary, use the DOWN ARROW key to scroll down to the appropriate name and TAB over to enter the funds. When done, press CRTL-ENTER to close the pop-up.
One additional keyboarding trick that may help:

Rather than pressing Down Arrow to scroll to the appropriate category name, you can just start typing the category name. If the desired category is a subcategory, you can type a colon. For example,
  • Type W to get to the Ward Missionary parent category
  • Type : to skip to the end of "Ward Missionary" and type a colon
  • Type SM to get to "Ward Missionary:Smith, Joseph"
Depending on the exact list of categories, you may have to type more letters, or type a few letters, then a down arrow or two (if you have three Christensen missionaries serving, a down arrow would be the quickest way to get to the third one).

This same trick works for Budget or Other subcategories, too.
gpetersen-p40
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#12

Post by gpetersen-p40 »

While we're at it, would it be possible to highlight the the category line as you scroll down through the amount fields. Similar to the way Excel highlights the row and column fields when you are in a particular cell. I think it would provide additional verification that you are on the correct line when you enter the donation amounts.
Ivan-p40
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Processing of excess funds

#13

Post by Ivan-p40 »

I am serving as stake clerk. We have also recently received these instructions. What is the proper way to handle these excess funds? Should the wards write checks to the stake or the CHQ directly? Exactly who should these checks be written to and sent to?

Ivan

Alan_Brown wrote:Our stake recently received a letter from President Rasband (of the Presidency of the Seventy) where we were asked to send excess funds in our stake's missionary funds back to the Church. The Church obviously knows how many missionaries are serving from our stake, and they also can add up the sum of the Ward Missionary accounts in all the wards and the stake (yes, there is a Ward Missionary account at the stake level).

The letter specifically mentioned the three months of reserve per missionary, and went on to calculate the total amount of that reserve for our stake. It then noted the difference between our stake's total Ward Missionary funds and that reserve amount and requested that we send in the difference (an amount that was specified to the penny).

Now we do have some families that "prepay" for a mission -- for tax purposes they choose to pay for all or a significant portion of the mission at the beginning of the mission. We researched what portion of the funds were prepays, and used the three month figure for all other missionaries. The stake collected the remaining excess from each ward and then sent the balance in to the Church.

The letter counseled us to not retain excess funds in our stake, because the funds can be used to support missionaries throughout the world who are in need. Wise counsel!
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aebrown
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#14

Post by aebrown »

Ivan wrote:I am serving as stake clerk. We have also recently received these instructions. What is the proper way to handle these excess funds? Should the wards write checks to the stake or the CHQ directly? Exactly who should these checks be written to and sent to?

When we got the letter from President Rasband, it said precisely who to make it out to and where to send it. As I recall it was the Corporation of the President. I can look it up the next time I am at the stake center (in a couple of days).

We chose to have the wards send their excess funds to the stake, then we sent one check to CHQ. We wanted to make sure that we fulfilled the requirements of the letter, so we chose to be in the middle.
greggo
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#15

Post by greggo »

Wouldn't it accomplish the same thing by just writing a check to the ward from Ward Missionary and then donating it back into the General Missiionary category?
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aebrown
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#16

Post by aebrown »

Greggo wrote:Wouldn't it accomplish the same thing by just writing a check to the ward from Ward Missionary and then donating it back into the General Missiionary category?
You'd have to ask President Rasband about that. He gave very specific instructions as to how the funds were to be sent to the Church. Financially, I suppose you're right, but at least in our stake's case, that was not what we were told to do. I would guess that it was done that way for tracking purposes.
cherishj
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Location: UT, USA

#17

Post by cherishj »

Greggo wrote:Wouldn't it accomplish the same thing by just writing a check to the ward from Ward Missionary and then donating it back into the General Missiionary category?
Actually the money doesn't go to the same place if you just donate it back to General Missionary. If you have received a request to submit your excess funds, you really do need to mail in a check and indicate it's excess WM funds.
cward-p40
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#18

Post by cward-p40 »

Alan_Brown wrote:When we got the letter from President Rasband, it said precisely who to make it out to and where to send it. As I recall it was the Corporation of the President. I can look it up the next time I am at the stake center (in a couple of days).

We chose to have the wards send their excess funds to the stake, then we sent one check to CHQ. We wanted to make sure that we fulfilled the requirements of the letter, so we chose to be in the middle.

The check is made payable to Corporation of the President and mailed to: Disbursing Office, 50 East North Temple Street Rm. 1521, Salt Lake City, UT 84150-3612. Please put surplus Ward Missionary on the purpose line.

The reason to send it to the stake first vs. having the ward send it directly to CHQ is so that the stake can assess the needs of all the units in the stake. And then if needed distribute any funds to units in need before sending in the excess funds. It is up to your stake to decide if they want the funds sent to them first or to send it directly to CHQ.
cward-p40
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#19

Post by cward-p40 »

Mikerowaved wrote:2. The parents of a missionary currently serving have moved out of the Ward, you are still seeing the monthly deduction from CHQ, and your Bishop would like the new Ward to assume responsibility for the missionary. In this case, your Bishop must contact the Bishop of the new Ward and get permission to pass the financial responsibility with an effective date. This date could be retroactive or anytime in the future. Once this is done, simply contact CHQ with the details of the arrangement and they will handle the rest.

When a missionary's membership and/or his or her family have moved, the financial responsibility for the missionary does not automatically move. Our procedure for moving missionaries from a unit is as follows:

1. We ask that contact be made between the bishop where the funding is currently being charged and the bishop of the new unit where the membership has moved to.

2. The new bishop needs to agree to have the funding of the missionary in question moved to his unit.

3. If he agrees to accept the funding, then the two bishops agree on an effective date when the new unit will take over the funding. Based on this effective date, we will make a change to refund the current unit and charge the new unit for those payments.

4. After the two bishops have spoken, any member of the bishopric including clerks can contact us with full name of the missionary, the new unit number, the effective date and indicate that the new bishop agrees to the change.

Based on this information we will change the funding unit and make any necessary changes for the payments.
LSS-p40
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#20

Post by LSS-p40 »

13thfloorrocks wrote:Actually the money doesn't go to the same place if you just donate it back to General Missionary. If you have received a request to submit your excess funds, you really do need to mail in a check and indicate it's excess WM funds.


The donations to General Missionary are used to support missionaries not serving from the US and
Canada. The funds that are sent from Ward Missionary are used to support the US and Canadian missionaries.
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