Budget Balance and Carryover

[drepouille]

Just a word of warning to you all. The Budget Balance listed on the Budget tab of LCR Finance is based upon the annual budget amount that was estimated at the beginning of the year. In my case, I had overestimated my 2019 budget allocations, so the amount shown is $538 more than my actual budget balance, which will carry over to 2020.

You need to look at the Budget balance on the Income and Expense Summary to know exactly how much will be carried over to the next year. And of course, that amount can change right up through New Year's Eve, since IROP and EFT expenses can always surprise you.

[cchang]

Is there any way we can re-allocate the organization's budget allocation online through LCR or does this still need to be done on MLS? If in MLS, is there a way to access MLS through our home computer or do we need to physically log in at the church building? We have a category called "light the world" fund that was not budgeted and I would like to allocate the remaining budget balance to that budget category but cannot do it on LCR.

Is it good practice to allocate all the carryover into a budget category each year or only budget what you are expecting from the quarterly income based on prior history? For example, the budget income each year is around $4000 and I assign each of the unit budgets according to this $4000 so that we do not allocate more than what we are expecting. However, the $1000 carried over from previous year is unallocated but now I need to allocate that to one of our other category.

[russellhltn]

If in MLS, is there a way to access MLS through our home computer or do we need to physically log in at the church building?

You have to be physically there in front of the computer.

We have a category called "light the world" fund that was not budgeted and I would like to allocate the remaining budget balance to that budget category but cannot do it on LCR.

Unless things have changed, the only thing that carries over is the actual money. All budgets are zeroed, so it really doesn't matter what was assigned to what. The ward gets to carry over the money, but none of the organizations get to.

[chriswoodut]

Just a word of warning to you all. The Budget Balance listed on the Budget tab of LCR Finance is based upon the annual budget amount that was estimated at the beginning of the year. In my case, I had overestimated my 2019 budget allocations, so the amount shown is $538 more than my actual budget balance, which will carry over to 2020.

You need to look at the Budget balance on the Income and Expense Summary to know exactly how much will be carried over to the next year. And of course, that amount can change right up through New Year's Eve, since IROP and EFT expenses can always surprise you.

Great info. This is helpful.

Is there any way we can re-allocate the organization's budget allocation online through LCR or does this still need to be done on MLS? If in MLS, is there a way to access MLS through our home computer or do we need to physically log in at the church building? We have a category called "light the world" fund that was not budgeted and I would like to allocate the remaining budget balance to that budget category but cannot do it on LCR.

Is it good practice to allocate all the carryover into a budget category each year or only budget what you are expecting from the quarterly income based on prior history? For example, the budget income each year is around $4000 and I assign each of the unit budgets according to this $4000 so that we do not allocate more than what we are expecting. However, the $1000 carried over from previous year is unallocated but now I need to allocate that to one of our other category.

We treat the carry over as income along with an estimate of what we think the church/stake will budget for us. Then we do a new allocation to budget categories based on rollover + estimated allocation from the stake for the year.

[cchang]

We treat the carry over as income along with an estimate of what we think the church/stake will budget for us. Then we do a new allocation to budget categories based on rollover + estimated allocation from the stake for the year.

Which budget category do you put the rollover money into for the year? Or do you redistribute the rollover money to the organizations? Normally I would not redistribute the rollover money since that inflates each organization's budget each year based on rollover amounts.

Do you also send an email out to the organization's presidencies to request if there are any unique circumstances they are looking to request a bigger budget this year compared to last year or do you just go with past history?

[Biggles]

Which budget category do you put the rollover money into for the year? Or do you redistribute the rollover money to the organizations? Normally I would not redistribute the rollover money since that inflates each organization's budget each year based on rollover amounts.

Unless things have changed, the only thing that carries over is the actual money. All budgets are zeroed, so it really doesn't matter what was assigned to what. The ward gets to carry over the money, but none of the organizations get to.

russellhltn has already answered this particular question in his post above!

[chriswoodut]

We treat the carry over as income along with an estimate of what we think the church/stake will budget for us. Then we do a new allocation to budget categories based on rollover + estimated allocation from the stake for the year.

Which budget category do you put the rollover money into for the year? Or do you redistribute the rollover money to the organizations? Normally I would not redistribute the rollover money since that inflates each organization's budget each year based on rollover amounts.

Do you also send an email out to the organization's presidencies to request if there are any unique circumstances they are looking to request a bigger budget this year compared to last year or do you just go with past history?

There's a thread here with some good discussion about the new youth program and budgeting. viewtopic.php?f=46&t=35733

Honestly, I think this is one area we are still getting better at after a couple years of doing it. Our Bishop has each organization do a bottom up budget.

As discussed in the thread above, you can estimate how much church/stake are allocating to you per youth. We actually allocate a little higher than that and somehow make it work. Every ward/branch is different.

Our YW president will do a ground up budget that looks something like:
YW Camp:
- facility cost = $x
- Food = $x
- Crafts = $x
- T-shirts = $x
- Misc = $x
Total Camp budget

Youg women regular budget for weekly activities:
YW Class 1 - $x
YW Class 2 - $x
YW Class 3 - $x
YW Combined Activities - $x

If the desired budget is different than the Bishop's target, there's a negotiation, discussions for fundraisers, etc.

Each organization does something similar. So, if we have excess budget rolled over, where does it go? The Bishop makes that decision based on what is going on that year. One year, the YW wanted to go to a scout camp that set aside a couple weeks for YW camps. For that year, the Young MEN budgets for camps was reduced so that the YW could go to an organized camp.
This year we have FSY but had planned a trek and stake youth conference. We do not increase everyone's budget if there's a rollover. It's always a ground up creation of the budget that is justifiable for the use of the funds meeting church goals.

[cchang]

Which budget category do you put the rollover money into for the year? Or do you redistribute the rollover money to the organizations? Normally I would not redistribute the rollover money since that inflates each organization's budget each year based on rollover amounts.

Unless things have changed, the only thing that carries over is the actual money. All budgets are zeroed, so it really doesn't matter what was assigned to what. The ward gets to carry over the money, but none of the organizations get to.

russellhltn has already answered this particular question in his post above!

The ward money that gets carried over should be put into a budget category and was wondering which category it is put in. It doesn't have to be put into a budget category but would you normally put it in? I understand all budgets get zeroed out but what do you do with the carry over ward money?

[davesudweeks]

Keep in mind that the ward gets to carry over whatever the stake allows them to. I have seen cases where the stake asked wards to send some of their end-of-year surplus back to the stake.

I used a spreadsheet that had each of the planned quarters for the next year and included a line for the carryover - these 5 amounts became the proposed total budget for the new year. It showed each organization and their spending against the prior 1 or 2 years. I then proposed new budgets per organization based on historical spending. Each organization should provide a proposed budget for the upcoming year per church policy... I have personally never seen that happen at the ward/branch level in practice in my ~20 years as a ward or branch clerk.

When I was serving as clerk, we would keep about 10% aside in a "contingency" fund that was used to cover budget shortfalls as the year progressed so organizations could plan on their annual budget not changing once it was approved. I would base the annual budget on the 1Q numbers but have found that usually the 1st quarter is always the highest budget quarter. When following quarters were lower, I would reduce the contingency fund accordingly to keep the budget in MLS fully accounted for. Had I not been released as ward clerk recently (I'm still in mourning, LOL), I was going to change and propose using a lower number for this year. Our YW and YM organizations are almost the same size so changing to provide the same amount per youth instead of the same amount per organization is not a problem for us.

[chriswoodut]

Which budget category do you put the rollover money into for the year? Or do you redistribute the rollover money to the organizations? Normally I would not redistribute the rollover money since that inflates each organization's budget each year based on rollover amounts.

Unless things have changed, the only thing that carries over is the actual money. All budgets are zeroed, so it really doesn't matter what was assigned to what. The ward gets to carry over the money, but none of the organizations get to.

russellhltn has already answered this particular question in his post above!

The ward money that gets carried over should be put into a budget category and was wondering which category it is put in. It doesn't have to be put into a budget category but would you normally put it in? I understand all budgets get zeroed out but what do you do with the carry over ward money?

I don't think you have to allocate 100% of the income. If you want to allocate it somewhere because you don't have a use for it right now you could put it in a budget category only the clerks use because they'll know it isn't theirs. You can adjust the budget later if you need to and move it.