Local Unit Financial Statement Part two

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

Post by RossEvans »

wraytogo wrote:1. A new back end financial system (CUBS) is being created which will eventually make the need for reconciliation unnecessary. MLS and the new back-end system will have two-way communication allowing confirmation of data to be received in MLS.

Hooray. That does sound lovely. I wonder how long "eventually" is. So long as it precedes the introduction of the new financial statement, that would resolve my previous objections.
wraytogo wrote: 2. The intent of the new monthly statements is to report financial activity with action or follow-up items as indicated in the report. When reconciliation will no longer be necessary, the new statements purpose will be to act as a detailed report of action and follow-up items.

Concentrating on items that truly are "action items" sounds like a good focus in general.

It does seem that some of the content goes beyond that principle, although that may also be part of the intent. I am thinking of the detailed summaries by budget and expense category. Similar reports are already available on demand within MLS, and heretofore not even stakes have routinely managed budget spending in such detail. So seeing that in a report from Salt Lake may strike some as micromanagement from the top. Whether that is desirable is a question above my pay grade as finance clerk.
jbh001
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#12

Post by jbh001 »

Based on that new information, my preference (as a non-accountant) is the by category version. I think this statement communicates information more the way I would likely go looking for it. The by income summary version is more confusing to me.
lajackson
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#13

Post by lajackson »

wraytogo wrote:If the need for reconciliation were eliminated, would that change the feedback which has already been given on the new look statements?
Yes. All of my reconciliation concerns go away.

And in that case, I would prefer the By Category statement, since that is really the way I look at a statement, one category at a time.
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mfmohlma
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#14

Post by mfmohlma »

Without reconciliation concerns, I like the by category statement better as well. That way it represents the "mini accounts" that logically make up the one checking account for the ward.
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#15

Post by RossEvans »

oregonmatt wrote:Without reconciliation concerns, I like the by category statement better as well. That way it represents the "mini accounts" that logically make up the one checking account for the ward.

I agree. The "By Category" format makes more sense to me for the same reason.

There is one detail of that report format I don't understand, however: Why is there a separate category for "Reimbursed Expenses?"

I should think these items would be sorted under their appropriate parent category. So most reimbursements would typically fall under Budget, some under Other and a few under Fast Offerings. The example given does not even look like a "reimbursement" at all (which to me means reimbursing a member for out-of-pocket purchases). In the example the payee is a Boy Scout council.
eblood66
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#16

Post by eblood66 »

boomerbubba wrote: There is one detail of that report format I don't understand, however: Why is there a separate category for "Reimbursed Expenses?"

I should think these items would be sorted under their appropriate parent category. So most reimbursements would typically fall under Budget, some under Other and a few under Fast Offerings. The example given does not even look like a "reimbursement" at all (which to me means reimbursing a member for out-of-pocket purchases). In the example the payee is a Boy Scout council.
I think those are expenses that are reimbursed to the stake by CHQ rather than expenses reimbursed to members from the ward.
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aebrown
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#17

Post by aebrown »

boomerbubba wrote: There is one detail of that report format I don't understand, however: Why is there a separate category for "Reimbursed Expenses?"

I should think these items would be sorted under their appropriate parent category. So most reimbursements would typically fall under Budget, some under Other and a few under Fast Offerings. The example given does not even look like a "reimbursement" at all (which to me means reimbursing a member for out-of-pocket purchases). In the example the payee is a Boy Scout council.
At the stake level, there are "special" subcategories of Other that are automatically reimbursed. These include Other:Scout Registration, Other:Missionary Host Family, Other:Authorized Computer Repair, and several others. The example given fits quite well in the Other:Scout Registration category. It would be an expense incurred by the stake, but reimbursed by the Church, which would make the category "Reimbursed Expenses" fit pretty well.

I wonder if among the contemplated changes with the new back-end system would be a restructuring of these special Other subcategories into a different parent category. As it is, there is absolutely nothing special about the name or anything else about the subcategory that lets you know that it will be automatically reimbursed -- you just have to know the magic list of Other subcategories that are automatically reimbursed. It would be nice to make that attribute much more visible.
RossEvans
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#18

Post by RossEvans »

Alan_Brown wrote:At the stake level, there are "special" subcategories of Other that are automatically reimbursed. These include Other:Scout Registration, Other:Missionary Host Family, Other:Authorized Computer Repair, and several others. ...

Thanks for that explanation. All of that was new to me. Do any of these ever appear in a ward financial statement as it is now structured?
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aebrown
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#19

Post by aebrown »

boomerbubba wrote:Thanks for that explanation. All of that was new to me. Do any of these ever appear in a ward financial statement as it is now structured?
None of the special expense subcategories of Other exist at the ward level. There are special donation subcategories (such as Other:Humanitarian Aid) that are automatically swept, but no Other subcategories that are automatically reimbursed, as far as I know.
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jeromer7
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#20

Post by jeromer7 »

Alan_Brown wrote:At the stake level, there are "special" subcategories of Other that are automatically reimbursed. These include Other:Scout Registration, Other:Missionary Host Family, Other:Authorized Computer Repair, and several others. The example given fits quite well in the Other:Scout Registration category. It would be an expense incurred by the stake, but reimbursed by the Church, which would make the category "Reimbursed Expenses" fit pretty well.
Except that the sample report is for a ward, not a stake. However, it is just a sample.

As a stake clerk, I would like to see a sample of the stake version of the "category" report. Based on what I see in the ward level category report, I think that would work very well for us at the stake level as well, but it would still be nice to preview one.
JLR
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