New Audit Question

Post by **lajackson** » Mon Jan 10, 2011 2:54 pm

crislapi wrote:What do you mean by "everything?"

Our area audit supervisor provided us instructions on how to complete the entire audit process on-line where high speed internet is available. The auditor completes the audit online, the bishop enters his corrective action plan on line, other approvers sign/approve online. This is being implemented in most, but not all, areas of the United States beginning with the February audits.

aebrown · Post by **aebrown** » Mon Jan 10, 2011 2:56 pm

lajackson wrote:Our area audit supervisor provided us instructions on how to complete the entire audit process on-line where high speed internet is available. The auditor completes the audit online, the bishop enters his corrective action plan on line, other approvers sign/approve online. This is being implemented in most, but not all, areas of the United States beginning with the February audits.

Hmm. That sounds great, but I haven't heard anything about that. But we live so far from CHQ (I can see the Church Office Building out my window where I work) that I can see how it might take a while for us to get the message.

Post by **lajackson** » Mon Jan 10, 2011 3:02 pm

aebrown wrote:Hmm. That sounds great, but I haven't heard anything about that. But we live so far from CHQ (I can see the Church Office Building out my window where I work) that I can see how it might take a while for us to get the message.

I will verify when I get home this evening, but I think you live in the "but not all" area that is not yet going online, sorry. We were told that one or two areas in the US went online last audit, but that there were server bandwidth issues. We have been told this is the reason that the entire US is not going live this time, but that the plan is eventually to have everyone online.

As I said, I will get the specifics this evening and post again (after FHE).

jeromer7 · Post by **jeromer7** » Mon Jan 10, 2011 3:53 pm

Our Area Auditor Trainer sent notice to our Stake Audit Committee Chairman a couple of weeks ago, that our area (and two or three others) were being "encouraged" to use the new online audit system for the 2010 year-end audits. The Committee Chairman and Stake Auditor positions are in the standard callings list. I was instructed to make the appropriate assignments in MLS and now these individuals have access via LDS Account to a new (well new for us) audit site off LDS.org. Our Area Auditor Trainer was told he'd be receiving training, but it had not been scheduled yet. Our audit committee is still discussing the pros and cons of using the new system, but seems to be leaning in that direction. A positive for us is that we have broadband connections for all our unit admin computers.

Based on the "huh?" reaction here and what Larry has reported, we apparently have been invited to play in the second round. Personally, I love the idea of doing the audits online in a fashion similar to the Missionary Online Recommendation System. The current system has a lot of paper to keep track of, make copies of, etc.

mlh78 · Post by **mlh78** » Mon Jan 10, 2011 4:11 pm

crislapi wrote:What do you mean by "everything?" Starting last year, it was up to the stake to print their own forms from MLS. However, after that, everything was filled in by hand and mailed back in. I have not heard of any online submission system yet.

Our area audior/trainer gave us some training on the online system before the last audit cycle, but evidently the system was not in place in time. Our training was consistent with Jeromer7's explanation. Hopefully it works this time around.

Post by **lajackson** » Mon Jan 10, 2011 8:35 pm

lajackson wrote:I will verify when I get home this evening, but I think you live in the "but not all" area that is not yet going online, sorry.

In all areas except Utah and Idaho, the 2010 year-end audits can be conducted and submitted using new online software. A Notice dated December 20th was sent to affected stake presidents.

Based on other materials we have received, including a December 13th Notice, it appears that the new system is a version of the paper forms that the auditor can fill out online as he audits the unit. This would require either high speed internet access from the administrative computer, or the auditor's own laptop and internet connection.

After the auditor completes the audit, the bishop logs in to complete the corrective action form and electronically sign the audit. Then others log in to approve and complete the audit in an order similar to the signatures on the audit forms. Anyone working electronically needs to have LDSAccount and be in MLS/CDOL in a standard position as a stake auditor, bishop, audit committee chairman, stake president, etc.

As an alternative, we can still complete the paper forms and mail them in for any individual unit (or all) in the stake.

I guess this one is just like MLS. It started away from Church Headquarters and moved inward.

(And yes, we had a wonderful Family Home Evening. Thanks for asking.)

ffrsqpilot · Post by **ffrsqpilot** » Tue Jan 11, 2011 8:17 am

Our stake received the letter (on the 20th of December) notifiying us of the electronic audit version. The Stake President member who is also the Audit Committee Chairman and I have discussed issues in depth and have decided that this time around we will stick with the paper version.

Our reasoning is thus; we have several units that are on dial up and don't have access to the audit web site. We also have several Family History Centers (4) with only one of them located in the stake center. We have not called (and at this point do not anticipate calling) a stake Family History Director and thus those four FHC directors are not found on the stake CDOL. Our main reason however is that during the CUBs conversion, we had 8 out of 10 units that had issues with the balances in the Other account after the conversion. We have tried diligently (many, many hours spent trying to resolve issues) and still have problems that show up in MLS. Those errors are going to show as exceptions on the audits because the Financial Statements sent out by Salt Lake do not match what is still in MLS. We intend to write this into the audit reports to let the auditors know that these exceptions are beyond our capability to repair and until bugs are fixed in MLS we will continue to have unresoved financial issues.

Our hope was that the problems would have been resolved prior to the end of the year but to date, they have not. Old computers that continue to crash, units that are still on dial-up, no Stake FHC director, and multiple CUBs issues have led us to the decision that going the paper route this time might be the better way to go. We have the new forms as they were sent to us via email from the Audit departement when the MLS web site download of MLS 3.3 had the old forms. Not sure that the normal download has corrected that but at least we have the proper forms to train our auditors with.

The fact is we have too many issues that need resolution which are beyond the stakes capabilities of fixing. With the paper forms we can sit down after the audit and make an educated synopsis of the issues found and let the Audit Department know that not every "exception" is due to errors on the stake and ward clerks part. By using the electronic version it appears that the forms are sent directly to SLC once the Stake President electronically signs them, thus not allowing the stake audit committee time to make comments that will hopefully clarify what I have discussed above.

We do hope that next time around our auditors will be fully trained, we will have newer computers (that hopefully don't crash unexpectedly), we will have all units up with internet access, and we will have these unresolved "Other Account" inbalances fixed. Hopefully this doesn't sound like sour grapes, but at least in our stake we believe the paper forms will better serve our purpose this time around.

aebrown · Post by **aebrown** » Tue Jan 11, 2011 8:46 am

FFRsqpilot wrote:Our stake received the letter (on the 20th of December) notifiying us of the electronic audit version. The Stake President member who is also the Audit Committee Chairman and I have discussed issues in depth and have decided that this time around we will stick with the paper version.

Thanks for sharing your perspective.

FFRsqpilot wrote:... the MLS web site download of MLS 3.3 had the old forms. Not sure that the normal download has corrected that but at least we have the proper forms to train our auditors with.

The download itself still has the old forms, but when you do a Send/Receive after installing MLS 3.3, you get the updated forms.

mlh78 · Post by **mlh78** » Sun Jan 23, 2011 4:25 pm

jeromer7 wrote:The Committee Chairman and Stake Auditor positions are in the standard callings list. I was instructed to make the appropriate assignments in MLS and now these individuals have access via LDS Account to a new (well new for us) audit site off LDS.org.

Any idea on the lag between adding the auditors in MLS and them having online access to complete the audit?

Post by **lajackson** » Sun Jan 23, 2011 7:57 pm

mlh78 wrote:Any idea on the lag between adding the auditors in MLS and them having online access to complete the audit?

I do not know, but I would suspect a day or two at the most. Entering the change into MLS and doing the Send/Receive will update the CDOL almost immediately. The delay will be in how long it takes the Audit system to recognize the change.