Tech Forum

Apologies up front; I cannot seem to get MLS Ward Missionary balance to match the Church Financial Statement Missionary Net Funds Available. This is a huge issue especially when trying to reconcile, we cannot reconcile with the large differences in these two. As an example, MLS shows a balance of $43K while the CFS shows a balance of $7K. Additionally, the $43K is comprised of $27K in Balance Forward and $16K in Donations. There is zero amounts in Expenses and Transfers. I believe this is where the descrepency lies somewhere. Forgive me, do we need to transfer money out of the MLS balance to somewhere so that the difference is the CFS balance of $7K? If so how is this accomplished. Thanks in advance, we are just struggling and know somewhere/someone out there may have some advice. Thanks in advance....

When was the last successful reconcile?

buckeye wrote:Apologies up front; I cannot seem to get MLS Ward Missionary balance to match the Church Financial Statement Missionary Net Funds Available.

For one thing, you never should reconcile to "Net Funds Available" but rather to "Ending Balance." In many cases they will be the same, but you can't depend on that being the case.

In any case, I would recommend that you work through the steps outlined in the wiki article Reconciliation, which also contains a link to the online training lesson Reconciling the Church Unit Financial Statement .

If you systematically work through that process, you will be able to make sure you are checking off all the right transactions, entering the correct balances, etc.

Also, feel free to consult with your stake clerk or stake financial clerk for assistance and training.

buckeye wrote:do we need to transfer money out of the MLS balance to somewhere so that the difference is the CFS balance of $7K? If so how is this accomplished.

You should not transfer money to reconcile -- rather, it is a process of making sure that everything in MLS is on the CUFS, and everything on the CUFS is in MLS, and reconciling the differences.

It does not appear that there has ever been a successful reconcile. Unfortunately...

buckeye wrote:It does not appear that there has ever been a successful reconcile. Unfortunately...

When I first became ward clerk, there had been no successful reconciliation since the switch from FIS to MLS. At that point, I had about 18 months of reconciliations to work through.

How far back do you have paper records for?
How far back do you have records in MLS for?

If your paper records pre-date your MLS records, then I would think you would be able to start from the time your unit switched over to MLS from FIS. If not, then it is probably best for you to have your stake clerk contact Clerk Support for instructions (assuming the stake clerk is unable to figure it out either).

jbh001 wrote: If your paper records pre-date your MLS records, then I would think you would be able to start from the time your unit switched over to MLS from FIS. If not, then it is probably best for you to have your stake clerk contact Clerk Support for instructions (assuming the stake clerk is unable to figure it out either).

There is a wiki article specifically for Reconciliation for units that have not reconciled in MLS. You may find that helpful -- it goes through very detailed steps to follow in this case. The content was prepared by the Finance Department.