Mls 3.2

Discussions around using and interfacing with the Church MLS program.
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atticusewig
Member
Posts: 308
Joined: Fri Jan 19, 2007 9:48 am

Mls 3.2

#1

Post by atticusewig »

MLS 3.2 is available. Release Notes Attached.

Financial Upgrades come when the Church Unit Banking System
is Activated. Some will be real time-savers. Others I expect
will cause some problems.

Auto-reconciliation : This will be appreciated by the financial
clerks quite a bit I imagine.

Budget Account: Tying this to the actual allocated amount
received by the Stake follows some accounting principles
but I expect it will lead to every Stake having to adopt a
method of quarterly allocation of funds instead of even
bothering with yearly allocations (which, while they are
technically only estimations, help wards plan for the year.)
Question - What happens to the balance in this account
from Quarter-to-Quarter, and from Year End-to-New Year ?

Direct Charges Account: I always just used a specific Payee for
the Distribution Center charges, but maybe this new Account
will make sure Distribution charges are recorded. Just don't
make it an Urgent Task. I know wards that don't ever bother
to look at them.

Donor Names: Forced to be the Membership record name. Even
with a checkbox to include the spouse, this is just ripe to cause
problems. Doesn't it seem that every ward has at least one donor
who goes by their middle name. People aren't going to start
filling out the donation slips any differently. So all this will do is
make it more difficult to match the slip to the donor. I really don't
know why this is being imposed as an "upgrade". The current system
prints the Membership record name on the records that count (tax
statements) anyway, so this just seems like an completely unwanted
and unnecessary change that will cause more problems then it solves.

Finally, nowhere in the release notes does it mention the changes in relation
to Missionary Accounts that have been mentioned on this forum. Why is it that key changes to MLS are almost always omitted from the Release Notes ?

- Atticus
Attachments
MLS 3.2 Release Notes.pdf
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lajackson
Community Moderators
Posts: 11460
Joined: Mon Mar 17, 2008 10:27 pm
Location: US

#2

Post by lajackson »

atticusewig wrote:MLS 3.2 is available.

Financial Upgrades come when the Church Unit Banking System is Activated.

Direct Charges Account: . . . Distribution Center charges

Finally, nowhere in the release notes does it mention the changes in relation to Missionary Accounts that have been mentioned on this forum. Why is it that key changes to MLS are almost always omitted from the Release Notes?
Because, although MLS has been changed to accommodate this, it is really a CUBS change, and instructions will be sent out when CUBS is activated.

As the release notes say, "There will be a new subcategory for direct charges, such as those from Distribution Services. Stake and ward finance clerks will then need to move amounts from this subcategory to the correct budget subcategories to keep the information in MLS correct."

It would seem from this description that the charge will show up in the "direct charges" account, and then the clerk will move them to the proper category, probably a budget category, but perhaps an other category, depending on the expense.

I doubt that ward missionary charges would show up in the "direct charges" category. They probably will be charged directly to the ward missionary account. Under the new financial system, there would be no reason to put them in the generic "direct charges" account when everyone, including Church Headquarters, know exactly which account they belong in, i.e., ward mission.

In any event, MLS 3.2 does not activate CUBS. It contains the software that will be needed, but the actual activation process will be a little more complicated, as was also outlined in the release notes.
CWatsonJr
Member
Posts: 67
Joined: Sun Jun 27, 2010 9:25 pm
Location: United States

3.2 No Send/Receive

#3

Post by CWatsonJr »

We received our 3.2 today and when we tried to send and receive the checks we wrote, the only thing that happened was a "Preparing Data" window would pop up and then disappear. When we tried to exit the program, we received a pop up explaining that the checks had to be transmitted, yet MLS wouldn't transmit them. I don't know if the new version wasn't installed correctly or what. The clerk said the Send/Receive worked for the batch but when they went back to do the checks it didn't. I even sat down and rebooted the computer a couple of times to see if that would work... no go.

We were connected to the Internet because I was able to use FireFox to reach lds.org. I tried switching from the "Internet" option (we have a wireless network in our FHC we connect to) to the "Dial Up" option and that didn't work either.

Our clerk will be calling SLC tomorrow because they need to know about the checks but I hope a fix is coming for this.
atticusewig
Member
Posts: 308
Joined: Fri Jan 19, 2007 9:48 am

#4

Post by atticusewig »

Please excuse my earlier comments.

The changes that will occur when CUBS is activated are
no doubt well thought out. I was just so surprised about
the donor standardization process (and my unit has quite
a number of donors who do not use their first names).

I expect that the Donor standardization as well as the storing
of the preferred names of members at CHQ have more to do with
upcoming new websites the church will offer than to local
administration. We have already seen what can be done with
linking of standardized callings in MLS as an access control for
the beta-maps, new unit directory, and CDOL websites. This
new Donor standardization is probably a precursor to an exciting
new website for members to examine their donation records
via their LDSAccount. I doubt we'll ever do Tithing Settlement
via internet teleconference, but a website offering an on-demand
printing of Tax statements would be appreciated by members and
clerks alike.

- Atticus
techgy
Community Moderators
Posts: 3183
Joined: Sun Jan 13, 2008 6:48 pm
Location: California

#5

Post by techgy »

atticusewig wrote:Please excuse my earlier comments.

The changes that will occur when CUBS is activated are
no doubt well thought out. I was just so surprised about
the donor standardization process (and my unit has quite
a number of donors who do not use their first names).

I expect that the Donor standardization as well as the storing
of the preferred names of members at CHQ have more to do with
upcoming new websites the church will offer than to local
administration. We have already seen what can be done with
linking of standardized callings in MLS as an access control for
the beta-maps, new unit directory, and CDOL websites. This
new Donor standardization is probably a precursor to an exciting
new website for members to examine their donation records
via their LDSAccount. I doubt we'll ever do Tithing Settlement
via internet teleconference, but a website offering an on-demand
printing of Tax statements would be appreciated by members and
clerks alike.

- Atticus
Although this feature may be desired by some, I, personally, would be a little nervous having my financial records for the church on the Internet - secured or not.

The average member has little need for a tax statement to be printed that often that they couldn't visit their ward financial clerk and have him provide a print-out.

Just my $0.02
Have you read the Code of Conduct?
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