How To View Running Balance of Ward/Stake Checking Account

[jkiclimber]

Is there a way to view the ward/stake checking account as a running balance, i.e. as a list of debits and credits, sorted by date, along with the account balance after each entry (similar to the way a personal checking account is viewed online)?

I sometimes have a hard time deciphering if a transaction is a debit or a credit, and this view would quickly clear that up.

[eblood66]

What country are you in? At least in the US wards do not have their own checking accounts. The closest thing to that would be the Income and Expense Detail report (select Finance > Overview > Income and Expense Detail). It doesn't have a running balance but it does explicitly say whether each transaction is an expense, income or transfer.

[jkiclimber]

I'm in the U.S.
I was under the impression that stakes and wards do have their own checking accounts, per 34.6.7 in the handbook.

[eblood66]

In the US units only have checking accounts in a very loose sense. Each unit has a local deposit concentration account with a local bank. That's where deposits are made. Those funds are automatically transferred to headquarters accounts (at Zions bank I believe). Then each unit technically has a 'checking' account at Zions banks for checks written by the unit. But no funds are held directly in that account. Essentially whenever a check is entered in MLS or LCR money is transferred into the unit's account to cover the check when it's cashed (although I'm not sure any real transfer occurs--I think that when the check reaches Zion's bank it actually checks to make sure it's been entered into the church systems and funds the check out of other accounts--the unit's account is just to tie the check to the unit).

In any case, US units don't ever see any bank statements and don't have to do any reconciliation because the accounts basically always have a zero balance.

The budget, ward missionary and 'Other' funds which 'belong' to the unit are really just accounting categories maintained by the church and don't represent money that's in a unit bank account.

[jkiclimber]

Thank you for the explanation. This was very insightful.

[russellhltn]

Even though US units don't have a checking account, there's still the matter of how much of their budget allocation has been spent. That's a separate question from how much of their budget (as in spending plan) has been spent. You don't want to overspend your allocation.