Tech Forum

t0008sa wrote:Budget Reports can now be accessed / printed in LCR.

Hallelujah!

Woohoo! Thanks for pointing this out. There's some oddities with the old MLS budget system. Hopefully they are willing to make some improvements on this one.

Update: now that I look at it closer, I can't seem to edit the budget itself. The numbers they are including as the budget.... I don't know where they are getting some of those numbers from. Some are right, others aren't right and won't match MLS (I'll confirm tomorrow).

Our LCR version appears to match MLS. However, there is no way to assign the budget amounts yet in LCR. Also, the "Other: Member Authorized..." for camps, high adventure, etc. are not available on LCR yet (unless I'm missing something).

davesudweeks wrote:Our LCR version appears to match MLS. However, there is no way to assign the budget amounts yet in LCR. Also, the "Other: Member Authorized..." for camps, high adventure, etc. are not available on LCR yet (unless I'm missing something).

There seems to be a trend lately to roll out half-featured releases that don't have all the things necessary to make it useful. As someone that has managed programmers, I don't understand that approach.

davesudweeks wrote:Our LCR version appears to match MLS. However, there is no way to assign the budget amounts yet in LCR. Also, the "Other: Member Authorized..." for camps, high adventure, etc. are not available on LCR yet (unless I'm missing something).

You can kind of get the Other::AFMA information using the Overview > Summary or Overview > Details. The biggest problem is that it lists donations by batch rather than by donor. You have to click through to each batch to see the specific donors. Hopefully they eventually make a report that shows donors directly.

chriswoodut wrote:There seems to be a trend lately to roll out half-featured releases that don't have all the things necessary to make it useful. As someone that has managed programmers, I don't understand that approach.

To me this looks more than useful enough to release. I generally only edit the budget amounts once a year so doing it in MLS is not a big problem. I generate budget reports for organizations monthly. Now I can generate them at home and email them out. In fact, just before this new report came out I had a new Relief Society presidency email me asking about their budget. I told them I'd have to wait until I could get to the church to run them a report. Then the next day this new version came out and I was able to generate the report and email it to them.

eblood66 wrote:

chriswoodut wrote:There seems to be a trend lately to roll out half-featured releases that don't have all the things necessary to make it useful. As someone that has managed programmers, I don't understand that approach.

To me this looks more than useful enough to release. I generally only edit the budget amounts once a year so doing it in MLS is not a big problem. I generate budget reports for organizations monthly. Now I can generate them at home and email them out. In fact, just before this new report came out I had a new Relief Society presidency email me asking about their budget. I told them I'd have to wait until I could get to the church to run them a report. Then the next day this new version came out and I was able to generate the report and email it to them.

I totally agree that it's very very helpful to have access from home. I've had to tell people to wait too. I intend to send them out monthly but I don't remember to when I'm at the church so they don't get send out much as they should. It just seems strange to not do all the programming at once. Kicking the programming can down the road to edit the budget seems strange when the long term goal is to get rid of MLS.

eblood66 wrote:

chriswoodut wrote:There seems to be a trend lately to roll out half-featured releases that don't have all the things necessary to make it useful. As someone that has managed programmers, I don't understand that approach.

To me this looks more than useful enough to release. I generally only edit the budget amounts once a year so doing it in MLS is not a big problem. I generate budget reports for organizations monthly. Now I can generate them at home and email them out. In fact, just before this new report came out I had a new Relief Society presidency email me asking about their budget. I told them I'd have to wait until I could get to the church to run them a report. Then the next day this new version came out and I was able to generate the report and email it to them.

I agree it is useful, but I have to edit the budget more often than annually (long story, don't need to get into that here - it isn't often enough that I can't do it at the church when I am there).

Questions regarding the Other: AFMA accounts are often enough that I wish I could easily see the same information available in MLS via LCR, but I have been a clerk for many years and am used to telling folks they will have to wait until the next time I'm at the church for that.

I just like being able to finally see the budget status whenever I want without having to go to the church building. Changing/adding budget categories happens infrequently enough that I'm fine with doing that at the clerk computer.

I have to say THANK YOU to getting the budget on LCR. I had the YW President text me for a copy of the YTD budget and I was able to send it in 2 minutes from my house. No going to the church. I decided that was so easy I should send all the orgs their budget. Nice!

Are the budget reports you send from LCR showing the balance still available? I don't see that when I look at individual organization budget reports. That's usually the item of greatest concern.