Real-Time Missionary Account Balance

[rrketcheson]

Over the last several years, my family has encountered repeated challenges obtaining accurate, current balances for our children’s missionary accounts, despite diligent payments and follow-ups with ward and stake leaders.​

For the final six months of our daughter’s mission, we received conflicting figures from ward and stake clerks, paid an additional amount after being informed of a shortfall, and later discovered an overpayment exceeding $700. Those funds were redirected to our son’s mission, but the lack of transparency created unnecessary stress and confusion.​

Our son is currently serving, with another likely entering the field next year, and we continue making faithful contributions. Without real-time visibility, overpayments seem inevitable, requiring cleanup at mission's end and straining family budgets already stretched to support multiple missionaries.​

From a tech perspective, this feels solvable. Clerks already access individual missionary subcategory balances in LCR/Finance, and members view personal donation histories via Member Tools. A read-only summary view for designated contributors (parents/guardians) could show net balance changes without donor details.​

Proposed features to empower families and reduce errors:

• Real-time balance card in Donations/Member Tools: "Elder/Sister X – Current Balance" with dates/net changes only.​
  
  Automated statements emailed to parents/guardians: Beginning balance, donations, expenses, ending balance – privacy-safe.​
  
  Clerk authorization in LCR for family visibility, akin to existing controls.​
  
  Auto-disable donations when an account reaches zero/paid-in-full status, preventing accidental overpayments if balances remain non-visible.​

These enhancements would lighten clerks' workloads, promote family self-reliance, minimize end-of-mission adjustments, and bless parents worldwide who stretch finances to sustain their missionaries' service.​

Tech experts here: Are policy/tech barriers blocking summary balance access? If feasible, how to advocate this as a product priority? What local workarounds have worked? Let's collaborate for better tools.

[russellhltn]

I think the underlying issue is policy and possibly the legal requirements to keep the payments tax-deductible. While the family has primary responsibility they are not the only source of funds. Automatically granting the families access to the balance could pose issues.

For example, consider this corner case: The parents are separated/divorced, but both have agreed to contribute one-half of the monthly payment. Who should have access to the balance? Consider that whoever does have access would see if their former spouse is contributing, violating confidentiality. All kinds of variations of this theme of multiple donors are possible.

I think the real issue you experienced is ineffective ward clerks. I don't know what went wrong, but it's not all that hard. If you donated on-line, it should have gone smoothly as long as you selected the right missionary. If you donated by handing in a gray envelope, the clerk processing would have to know that your donation would go to a specific missionary and not the general ward missionary fund. As far as reporting, someone might have only been looking at your donations and not at the actual account balance (which would have factored in donations from other members and any carryover).

I'm not sure to what extent the stake clerk has access to the information.

[eblood66]

I'm not sure to what extent the stake clerk has access to the information.

The stake clerk and stake finance clerk have access to the balance of each missionary account and the amount and dates of donations but do not have access to any information about the donors.