Tech Forum

aebrown wrote:MLS 3.3.1 is not anywhere near as big a change as the CUBS conversion. The only reason you are getting advance notice is so that you won't waste time doing transfers between budget subcategories as you were told to do in the previous communications. Other than that, you can just wait until you see the actual release. At that point, the release notes will explain the changes and you can implement your changes to the View/Edit Budget at your own pace.

Can anyone provide a reason why using the budgeting portion of MLS rather than transferring allocated funds between (sub-)categories is strongly preferred, if not mandated? By using actual balances we can keep our organizations to spending what they have, rather than spending what they might have. Carry-overs from year to year already happens without additional calculation. etc., etc., etc.

It seems simple enough to use budget categories and subcategories as separate registers with their own debits and credits rather than adding a layer of complexity. Is there something about the soon-to-be-released budget screens that brings this level of simplicity? If not, then it just seems like a lot of extra work to undo what we have been doing for weeks now. What is the penalty or disadvantage to using the transfer approach?

maethows wrote:Can anyone provide a reason why using the budgeting portion of MLS rather than transferring allocated funds between (sub-)categories is strongly preferred, if not mandated? By using actual balances we can keep our organizations to spending what they have, rather than spending what they might have. Carry-overs from year to year already happens without additional calculation. etc., etc., etc.

It seems simple enough to use budget categories and subcategories as separate registers with their own debits and credits rather than adding a layer of complexity. Is there something about the soon-to-be-released budget screens that brings this level of simplicity? If not, then it just seems like a lot of extra work to undo what we have been doing for weeks now. What is the penalty or disadvantage to using the transfer approach?

The new MLS 3.3.1 budget accounting will indeed simplify this whole process. What you propose involves multiple transfers every quarter. What is coming doesn't, and thus is much simpler. I'd strongly advise you to be patient and wait for MLS 3.3.1; then you'll understand your options and be able to make a better decision.

This may be a silly question, but I have been away from clerking for a while. When it says to "transfer" subcategories in Budget Allocations, to the main category Budget:Budget Allocations, are we supposed to do that:

(a) by using the "Transfer" function in MLS; or
(b) by editing the transaction and changing the category?

opee wrote:This may be a silly question, but I have been away from clerking for a while. When it says to "transfer" subcategories in Budget Allocations, to the main category Budget:Budget Allocations, are we supposed to do that:

(a) by using the "Transfer" function in MLS; or
(b) by editing the transaction and changing the category?

(a). The balances in subcategories of Budget Allocations are composed of many transactions that may span several years. So changing the category on each transaction would be a lot of work. So it's much simpler to just create one transfer. Besides, you can date the transfer in 2010 and then your 2011 beginning balances will be zero and you will rarely if ever need to do reports for past years now that we are in 2011.

Can I edit the date of a transfer after it has already been made?

idahotarheel wrote:I get the humor...yes clerks are supposed to pay attention to MLS messages. However, note that pre CUBS the majority of the MLS messages have been tips and informational and I suspect many clerks did not feel the need to read them "every week".

I heard from a ward that had not seen any of them, then MLS updated and they lost all the data dividing their unit funds into several categories that they had been managing for the last couple of years. All their Philmont money was lumped into the whole, and now no one knows how much was in Philmont, amounts per child, and . . . their paper records are old.

Oops.

tortdog wrote:I heard from a ward that had not seen any of them, then MLS updated and they lost all the data dividing their unit funds into several categories that they had been managing for the last couple of years. All their Philmont money was lumped into the whole, and now no one knows how much was in Philmont, amounts per child, and . . . their paper records are old.

Oops.

It requires care, but it is possible to restore an old backup (assuming they kept one) and see the data prior to the CUBS conversion. Then you can print whatever reports are needed and then restore. There are steps that have to be done carefully, but if the alternative is to lose important accounting, I would recommend that you look into this.

aebrown wrote:It requires care, but it is possible to restore an old backup (assuming they kept one) and see the data prior to the CUBS conversion. Then you can print whatever reports are needed and then restore. There are steps that have to be done carefully, but if the alternative is to lose important accounting, I would recommend that you look into this.

We had several wards who lost information after the original CUBS transition. We called Salt Lake and described what was missing. They were able to send (via email) budget reports or income/expense reports from the latest backup that they had on file. I'm not sure if that was a special case for the CUBS transition, but it might be worth a try.