At first glance, things are pretty similar. No surprises there. I thought I'd make a list of the new financial categories for the curious. None of these were there before. The categories we had before are now sub-categories under Budget:Budget Allocations and are still prepended with the "BU-" from the old system. The budget categories are:The transition to the new financial system at Church headquarters is complete. You can now use MLS finance functionality.
Budget:Administration
Budget:Budget Allocations
Budget:Curriculum
Budget: Distribution Center Charges (have to add space or I get a smiley)
Budget:Elders Quorum
Budget:High Priests Group
Budget:Library
Budget:Other
Budget:Primary
Budget:Relief Society
Budget:Single Adults
Budget:Sunday School
Budget:Young Men
Budget:Young Women
Fast Offering categories have some slightly different wording (none of these are in the stake MLS. They weren't before either):
Fast Offerings: Fast Offerings Expenditures Food
Fast Offerings: Fast Offerings Expenditures Housing
Fast Offerings: Fast Offerings Expenditures Medical
Fast Offerings: Fast Offerings Expenditures Other
Fast Offerings: Fast Offerings Expenditures Utilities
The other categories appear to have kept more of the original categories. There are some new ones, however:
Other:Payable to Local Unit (every Other subcategory now has "Payable to Local Unit" as well.
Other:Payable to Local Unit:Cash over
Other:Payable to Local Unit:Misc
Plus some others
Reimbursed Expenses:Utah Sales Tax
Ward Missionary Fund
Ward Missionary Fund:Missionary Commitment Transfers (not in Stake MLS)
Additional fields unique to the stake are:
Payable to Local Unit
Reimbursed Expenses:Computer Equipment Repair
Reimbursed Expenses:Local Telephone Line
Reimbursed Expenses:Missionary Housing
Reimbursed Expenses:Priesthood Leader Phone/Travel
Reimbursed Expenses:Scout Registration
Besides our local sub-categories, that is everything listed on the drop down menu in the category section of the Enter Expenses screen (and the Income and Expense report: Summary by Sub-Categories).
Some additional observations:
Budget Report screen shows all 0's except it appears the YTD total of my expenses are now lumped into the Budget:Administration category. Sub-category balances will need to be recreated. That was covered in the instructions sent to each unit.
View/Edit budget screen still gives me the functionality to hand-enter starting balances for each budget subcategory. They are currently all 0's. There is still a spot on the bottom to enter a yearly budget allocation total as well.
The add/update donors screen appears to be the same as well.
***A unit running MLS 3.3.0b did NOT convert correctly. Here are some of the errors:
I got some database errors (a database error has occurred) when trying to open the Income and Expense report. It did open, however.
I get a database error (there was an error while reading the database) when I select view/update donations although it does still open. This unit is missing all donations prior to Jul 25 2010.
View/update expenses screen opens and appears to be ok. I do get a database error again when I try to view prior year info. If opens, but I'll have to actually compare reports to see if I'm missing anything.