Discuss questions around local unit policies for budgeting, reconciling, etc. This forum should not contain specific financial or membership information.
dramafreefamily wrote:Based on what I've read in this thread, there's no need to initiate a transfer from a category with a positive balance to a subcategory with a negative balance as long as the overall ward budget is not negative, correct?
For example, our distribution center charge budget had a $0 budget but funds were used from that budget to pay for some expenses so now it has a ($300) balance. I don't need to initiate a transfer to from another budget category so it no longer shows positive, correct?
No. Individual categories can be negative. What matters is that your total budget isn't negative. The best way to see that is to view the balance for budget on the Overview > Income and Expense Summary page in LCR.
Having said that I find it is usually best edit distribution center changes and change them to another category depending on what organization the materials are for. This usually gives better tracking of expenses. Editing an expense is equivalent to a transfer except that the system automatically keeps track of the original transaction so it's easier to know exactly what happened.
Agreed. We spent a lot of budget money for things we normally don't buy. Each time I bought something from either Staples or the Distribution Center, the IROP charges debited the Distribution Center Charges budget category. I repeatedly change the source of funds for these expenses to the Administration category -- until it went negative. Then I just gave up, and allowed the Distribution Center Charges category to keep going more negative. We still have plenty of money in other categories that will not be spent this year. So the bottom line is that the original budget category allocations are just a planning tool to see how good your initial guesses were. As long as your Budget has a positive balance on the Income and Expense Summary, it's all good. Just don't allow THAT to go negative.
What our past Bishop's have done (new Bishop about a month ago) is to allocate the funds to the Auxiliaries by a percentage of the total budget on a quarter by quarter basis. We seem to have very 'elastic' incoming amounts. In one year the amounts can vary by $500 from one quarter to the other, and looking at history there seems to no rhyme nor reason as to the fluctuations. One total year my be $1000 less than a year previous or a year after. The Auxiliaries are encouraged to keep within the amount they have at the beginning of each quarter because it may be a lot less next quarter. Very tough. Do any of you have the same experience with the variation of moneys coming in?
The Quarterly Budget Allowance reports provide a detailed explanation of how your quarterly budget allocations are calculated. They are based upon your quarterly reports. If your attendance numbers fluctuate significantly among quarters, then the same will happen to your budget allocations. You can also examine those reports to see if your stake is playing games with the allocation percentages.
I guess that one could go back and look at the previous reports, take the numbers and multiply by the dollar amounts that are used as the multipliers and come up with something very close. I have to admit that I had never thought of going through that exercise. It might be interesting to see how many do go through that exercise.
I immediately calculate the quarterly budget allocation after I submit a quarterly report using a spreadsheet that is set up with the capitation amounts, stake percentage pass through, and calculation formulas. The only numbers I need to enter are the attendance numbers and the results are quite accurate. For example, I hit the nail on the head for the second quarter 2020 amount using the fourth quarter 2019 quarterly report attendance figures. Estimating the entire year has been relatively accurate using the changes from year to year in the past to estimate the changes for the year. Small tweaks are necessary when demographics begin to change.
The only issues for this year since the COVID restrictions has been in determining how headquarters is using 2019 attendance data. There must be an adjustment factor being used based on the differences in membership records in the ward from last year to this year. But when I thought I had it figured out the numbers were off by 11% in our favor. However, that has not been important since our budget expenditures have dramatically declined due to program adjustments and very few activities resulting from COVID restrictions. Next year will be interesting to predict without knowing what restrictions are going to be in place.
JD Lessley Have you tried finding your answer on the ChurchofJesusChrist.org Help Center or Tech Wiki?
jdlessley wrote:The only issues for this year since the COVID restrictions has been in determining how headquarters is using 2019 attendance data. There must be an adjustment factor being used based on the differences in membership records in the ward from last year to this year. But when I thought I had it figured out the numbers were off by 11% in our favor. However, that has not been important since our budget expenditures have dramatically declined due to program adjustments and very few activities resulting from COVID restrictions. Next year will be interesting to predict without knowing what restrictions are going to be in place.
The estimation process is pretty intricate. We have a 2½ page "summary" of how it works for area offices to use when questions come up. The model had some significant improvements between Q2 and Q3.
Hello, I'm the stake clerk in the Nairobi Kenya east stake. We just received our LUBA and I'm not sure on how to divide it between the auxiliaries, any help?
Eokech wrote: Mon Oct 09, 2023 2:20 pm
Hello, I'm the stake clerk in the Nairobi Kenya east stake. We just received our LUBA and I'm not sure on how to divide it between the auxiliaries, any help?
I would review General Handbook 34.6 to understand how budgets work.
Typically, none of the auxiliaries would receive actual funds, but would have a "spending plan" budget they need to keep with. As the expenses are submitted, make sure to correctly categorize them so they go against the proper budget.
You may also want to review the articles in the Help Center.
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