CUBS Additional Clarification

[crislapi]

If the ward intends to absorb any excess funds for administrative use, the allocations will work fine. But if the ward plans to let auxiliaries retain any money they've not spent, then transfers need to be used since allocations will essentially reset the starting balance.

Nice summary. I'd agree. I think the budget report makes more sense if you require your ward auxiliaries to budget a year out and you will give them a lump sum at the start of the year. The total amount of budget is there from day 1 and they can see it all year long. I also see a lot of wards absorbing all left-over money from the subcategories at the end of the year, so this approach makes that easy.

If you give committees quarterly disbursements or you allow them to carry money over, then transfers will make that approach easier.

[jdlessley]

Now that the wards get to retain the funds at the end of the year, I suppose the decision of transfers vs. allocations can be affected by what the ward intends to do with the money at the end of the year. If the ward intends to absorb any excess funds for administrative use, the allocations will work fine. But if the ward plans to let auxiliaries retain any money they've not spent, then transfers need to be used since allocations will essentially reset the starting balance.

If I've missed something important, please correct me.

CUBS will rollover budget balances into the next year. This may or may not change your stake's policy regarding budget excesses or deficiencies. You may want to consult your stake clerk or president about how they plan on handling year end budget balances.

Making the assumption that since CUBS rolls budget balances for a ward into the next year that the stake must accept that method of handling budgets may not be your stake's plan for handling budget balances. If your stake zeroed your budget at year end prior to CUBS they may want to continue to zero unit budget balances. If so they may ask units with budget excesses to cut a check to the stake so that those excesses can be used for other purposes. Likewise the stake may cut a check to units with deficiencies.

[ffrsqpilot]

Well, I am ready to throw my hands up in the air and call uncle. I can make very little sense out of the multiple threads posted on this site saying to do this or do that, nor can I make little sense out of the original messages sent down on the 8th, nor the pdf notice that just came out. No matter how hard I try I cannot seem to make sense out of the numbers I am seeing in the (after CUB's) transition.

Balancing budgets either in the Budget categories or in the Other Categories is beyond me at this time because the numbers just don't add up no matter which way I look at it.

So, to get on with business I tried figuring out what portion of the "allocated funds" we as a stake need to send to each unit. I have compared all four allocation letters that have been sent out with quarterly allocations and compared that with the Budget Allocation Report now in CUBS. Yet even they don't add up to a number that makes sense.

For instance: Budget Allocation Report (1 Jan 2010 - 27 Oct 2010)
Total allocation for the stake is $79,282.25 (that includes all four allocations to our nine wards and branches in the stake)
After all the lines showing the quarterly allocations there is an additional line at the end of the page that reads:
20 Oct 2010 LUBA Balance Transfer for CFAR SYS CD and Unit: 00 $90,306.59
This all totals up to $169,588.84
The next line down states that our stakes remaining budget as of 27 Oct 2010 is $169,588.84

However when I compare this with the latest Stake Financial Summary report that was sent to our Stake President yesterday the bottom line doesn't match.

Our quarterly allocations total $79,282.25
Carry over from 2009 is $58,781.78
This comes to a total of $138,064.03
Total spent so far this year $47,757.44 leaving a balance of $90,306.59 (which equates to that last line in the Budget Allocation Report).

So it looks to me like the Budget Allocation Report in MLS used incorrect data or at least an incorrect accounting method to come up with erroneous balances. Rather than the actual balance remaining in the stake budget of $90,306.59, the most recent report shows we have $169,588.84 which isn't correct.

The report is giving erroneous balances which just confuses matters rather then helping. So it makes me wonder what else in the data that is showing up in the post CUBS transition is right.

Sorry for the long missive here but hopefully it shows in part what is causing most of us out in the stakes some real headaches. Hopefully this will all work itself out but right now it is so far messed up that I doubt without an accountant coming in and working through this some of us dunderheads are in over our heads.

[quicky]

Pilotfly, I concur completely. I have amounts, both positive and negative, in the oddest places. For instance, not all my budget columns zeroed. Single adult, YM/YW activities and YW all show positive balances. Payable to local unit Girl's Camp also shows an almost $5000 dollar balance even though that bill was paid in June. I have a Budget Allocations carry over of $26K but a payable to local unit of 57K (perhaps quarterly budget allocations to different wards?), a travel income of $600+ (??) a $12K balance in the O Young Women column and a $35+K positive balance in the Regional Youth Conference column. I have over 20 hours in this mess myself and I am not much closer to figuring these things out yet.

I took a lot of pride in doing everything exactly and in good time. Now it is just a mess. For instance, I just made (last night) the 4th quarter budget allocations to each of the wards since that allocation was pre-CUBS. Was that the right thing to do? Who knows. I think I am supposed to wait until the next Stake Financial Summary comes out to write the wards a check for their remaining balances up until Oct 17. I think there was a woeful job on the part of the church as far as pre-planning the implementation training. In fact, there was no training at all other than the notice on which things to print out as a starting point in reconstruction. If you multiply the manhours across all the wards and stakes in the church this has been a colossal cost. My taxes with all the schedule C forms make more sense. Quicky

[aebrown]

For instance, I just made (last night) the 4th quarter budget allocations to each of the wards since that allocation was pre-CUBS. Was that the right thing to do? Who knows. I think I am supposed to wait until the next Stake Financial Summary comes out to write the wards a check for their remaining balances up until Oct 17.

Your last statement is the correct action. If you wrote checks to the wards for the full Q4 allocations, then you would probably have given them too much -- the amount they should have received was their total annual allocation less their YTD expenses as of Oct 17. That was explained in the documentation that was sent out before the transition.

[quicky]

Alan, if that is the case and the SFS doesn't come out until mid-November, doesn't that put each ward in a real bind figuring out how much is available for Christmas programs? Most Christmas programs are in the first or second week of December.

[aebrown]

Alan, if that is the case and the SFS doesn't come out until mid-November, doesn't that put each ward in a real bind figuring out how much is available for Christmas programs? Most Christmas programs are in the first or second week of December.

The point is that there is no change. Wherever the wards stood with their budget prior to the transition is where they stood immediately after the transition. They should have budgeted for the Christmas programs at the beginning of the year. I don't see why there should be any bind. The stake should be able to have this all sorted out by November 10th or so anyway.

[crislapi]

Budget Allocation Report (1 Jan 2010 - 27 Oct 2010)
Total spent so far this year $47,757.44 leaving a balance of $90,306.59 (which equates to that last line in the Budget Allocation Report).

Perhaps not relevant but I would be curious what this would look like run as an Income & Expense report instead of budget allocation. My reports show a negative balance forward which offset the transfers. You don't mention one.

There was a separate transfer for the remaining balance. Every stake should see a line similar to what you stated (and I'm sure many would wish to have your amount!): 20 Oct 2010 LUBA Balance Transfer for CFAR SYS CD and Unit: 00 $90,306.59. This IS your remaining balance for the entire stake as of Oct 24, 2010.

The fact your report shows your balance as being off exactly the amount of you 2010 disbursements is suspicious ($169,588.84 is 2010 disbursements plus remaining balance). I wonder if this is related to the report you are running: the Budget Allocation Report (see this post). Did you enter your 2010 budget allocation total in the view/update budget screen? If so, the budget report will show this as income in addition to the disbursements entered by CUBS, essentially giving your 2x$79,282.25. The Income & Expense report will not do this, which is why I'm curious what numbers you get if you run that report.

So it looks to me like the Budget Allocation Report in MLS used incorrect data or at least an incorrect accounting method to come up with erroneous balances. Rather than the actual balance remaining in the stake budget of $90,306.59, the most recent report shows we have $169,588.84 which isn't correct.

I would agree that the amounts on their own don't make sense. For example, my Budget:Budget Allocations category has a huge negative balance forward that makes no sense. Instead, I would look at the balance from an Income & Expense report for Budget:Budget Allocations and work backwards from there.

Keep in mind you do not yet know your October expenses, so until you get the last SFS, you will still not be able to get the numbers to match exactly.

[ffrsqpilot]

Keep in mind you do not yet know your October expenses, so until you get the last SFS, you will still not be able to get the numbers to match exactly.

Your last statement isn't quite right. I indeed do have my October expenses - we already have our October Stake Financial Summary report. Most Stake Presidents were sent this report this last week. It entails all expenses up to and including 17 October. That is where I compared the data that prints out on the Budget Allocation Report versus what shows on the SFS report. The difference is that the MLS report added our remaining balance to the Quarterly allocations giving us an erroneous balance. The SFS correctly identifies the remaining balance while MLS no longer does.

This is what makes me wonder what else went wrong in the conversion of data. Am I beating my head against the wall needlessly trying to make sense of data that doesn't (and may never) reflect reality?

Just to add to the confusion, and show other data that doesn't compute, I will present another example: we had one unit that had problems downloading (activating?) CUB's last Sunday. They have been locked out of finances since the 17th. I have spent several hours driving back and forth to their unit and finally got the CUB's transistion loaded this morning. While printing out all the reports that were identified in the messages on the 8th I noticed their missionary balance is a negative $8,600. There are no subcategories under the Ward Missionary category and the unit has no missionaries out in the field. The SFS shows the unit has a positive Ward Missionary balance of $1,033.70 While I was on the line with Salt Lake advising them that I now had the unit up and running I mentioned the negative missionary balance. We walked through looking at the data and they came to the conclusion that - they don't understand the disparity either and will give it to the MLS folks to work.

These are just two examples (incorrect budget allocation data and erroneous missionary balances) that don't make sense. With what little instructions that have been sent down from Salt Lake and what we find here on the web site it is no wonder so many clerks are confused and frustrated.

However, I still believe it will all work out in the end. I just don't know how much hair I'll have left once all the dust settles!

[lajackson]

I still believe it will all work out in the end. I just don't know how much hair I'll have left once all the dust settles!

You'll have it all if you don't pull on it! [grin]

We have the added luxury of being a new stake created on October 17th, just in time for the big financial adventure. We don't have a computer or any financial information, except for one thing.

We have a piece of paper with each unit's annual budget allocation. We are using a pencil to keep it updated.

Our wonderful stake clerk, who remained with the old stake, always kept it simple. We miss him already.