Get Missionary Account Balance

[scgallafent]

It might be good to review these two threads:
viewtopic.php?f=92&t=35447
viewtopic.php?f=156&t=24369

[jdlessley]

The effort a clerk has to expend now to pull the individual missionary account details and summary has been simplified. No longer does he have to extract information, but rather he can print a report that will show the full details of the account without any donor information as was done in MLS. In LCR the clerk can go to Finances > Overview > Income and Expense Details; select Ward Missionary Fund in the categories drop-down list box; select the ward missionary name from the unit subcategories drop-down list box; and select the appropriate date range as either 'Current Year', 'Previous Year', or my favorite, 'Custom Dates'. With custom dates he can select the from date as the date of the first financial transaction for the account and the today's date as the end date.

We have a family in which two of their missionaries returned in December and they wanted to know what needed to be done to reconcile the accounts. I printed the accounts for both missionaries with the complete activity from the beginning in less than three minutes. And as I mentioned earlier they had no contributor information for any of the donations that were not their own.

[svthurber]

I would love to be able to have my missionary account balances without talking to the clerk. I have two out now. Sometimes someone anonymously donates, which is a great blessing, but nobody is obligated to do that, so I would like to be able to see the shortfall and cover the balance each month. I think this could be securely done without disclosing anyone's name. Yes?

[jdlessley]

I would love to be able to have my missionary account balances without talking to the clerk.

The best method to get your suggestion to the someone who has authority to consider it is to use the feedback link on the bottom of the Donations page, or really any churchofjesuschrist.org page. Alternatively you can send it up the priesthood chain by talking to your bishop who then passes it along to your stake president and then on up.

I would not be surprised if your suggestion has already been considered or is being considered for development now. The timeline for release, if this is true, will not be known since they seldom release programming considerations or release timelines.

I suspect that if there is any difficulty in making this capability available it is identifying who should get this information. We know that the financial responsibility for full time missionaries is the ward's. The missionary and/or his/her family are encouraged to provide the funding contributions and may commit to that responsibility. But there is currently no method to let headquarters know who has committed to provide financial responsibility and therefore might be able to view through the online system the account information, even if it is only the balance.

As a ward clerk I do not find it an inconvenience to provide account balances. Even providing an account report now from LCR does not take much time.

[russellhltn]

I would not be surprised if your suggestion has already been considered or is being considered for development now. The timeline for release, if this is true, will not be known since they seldom release programming considerations or release timelines.

I'm not so sure. There may be legal (tax) implications if the families' responsibility is formalized. (As opposed to it being the responsibility of the unit.)

Either way, if betting were allowed, I'd say both odds were unfavorable for it happening before both of the missionaries would return.

[eblood66]

I think this could be securely done without disclosing anyone's name. Yes?

I can think of situations where disclosing the current balance could violate someone's privacy even without showing names. For instance, if two people (for instance a divorced couple) have each committed to provide equal funding, then both could tell if the other hasn't fulfill their commitment. This is unlikely for almost all missionaries but it could cause problems if it occurs. That's not to say they could come up with ways of managing it but complexities like this may make the decision makers hesitant.

[DeanML]

I agree with jbrent3, especially since if you over donate to a mission fund it is not retrievable. I've been ward clerk several times, we ask families to be prompt with the mission payments, not to fall behind. This is my first missionary and I have family members donating, They have asked me if it's ok to donate to his fund, I've given them the unit # but yet somehow it is a privacy issue to see the mission balance? Just saying it would be nice to be able to have this feature so that I am not bugging the clerks every time I am wondering how much to put in. This is especially true in an era of covid when clerks are only around on a limited basis.

[davesudweeks]

I agree with jbrent3, especially since if you over donate to a mission fund it is not retrievable. I've been ward clerk several times, we ask families to be prompt with the mission payments, not to fall behind. This is my first missionary and I have family members donating, They have asked me if it's ok to donate to his fund, I've given them the unit # but yet somehow it is a privacy issue to see the mission balance? Just saying it would be nice to be able to have this feature so that I am not bugging the clerks every time I am wondering how much to put in. This is especially true in an era of covid when clerks are only around on a limited basis.

As previously suggested, it may not be a privacy issue as much as a potential tax issue. But, the fact of the matter is, such a report currently must be requested from the clerk and we don't know why. We can discuss reasoning here and we can provide feedback on the the church website, but that's about all we can do. When I served many years as clerk, I never had a problem providing the report when requested. Since the fund is only pulled monthly, running the report more frequently than that is not value-added time.

Just my 2-cents...

[jonesrk]

This is especially true in an era of covid when clerks are only around on a limited basis.

The clerk can look this up online, so covid shouldn't affect it.

[baileys]

Yes, I would love to be able to check it myself. Various people have told me they donated but I don’t know how much. It would be nice to have access-especially with two missionaries out serving snow.