Using Budget instead of Other

[kennethjorgensen]

I did consider my question largely answered early in the conversation.....
BTW, just so it's clear where I'm coming from: I've been a ward finance clerk, and a stake finance clerk, but I'm currently the vice-chairman of the audit committee and what I'm after is something that's compelling enough that people will _want_ to do it the right way despite the fact that it's harder to do so (IMO).

Finally, it may be possible that the inconveniences of the right way could be addressed by making changes to MLS such that doing it the right way isn't so painful. Does this forum have any influence on the MLS development team?

I totally agree with you here. As a previous stake auditor, Branch President and Clerk I recognise all too well what you have described and it would be great if MLS was changed to make it easier to follow the guidelines. What it might have to take is for you to write it all down and describe then problem along with potential solutions (examples of reports etc) and then no doubt (I hope) someone in the MLS development team will catch the same vision as you do.

I think we all agree indiv camp, fundraising for camp etc all goes into "Others" but the discussion about "personal funds", violations, own statements and interpretations did not help to identify the solution to Ponders original issue.

[russellhltn]

I thinking this over, I've come up with a few things that might help.

I think one big issue I'd have with running everything through budget is that it affects the ward's bottom line budget numbers until everything is resolved. With all the "noise" caused by camp contributions and expenses, the Bishop will have little idea of where the ward budget on a whole stands by looking at the bottom line. (Nor would the stake.)

Now, I've got a hypothetical situation for you all. At first this may appear as a tangent, but I'll explain.

Suppose a ward budgets $2000 for camp. However camp costs $3000. So the 20 parents all pay $50 each. But when the camp is over, the actual cost is $250 less then expected. On the other hand, the ward is going over budget elsewhere. It's very tempting to move this $250 excess into the budget. After all 20 checks of $12.50 is such a pain. But what is the right thing to do?

Now what does that have to do with this thread? Well, how is an auditor going to know the right thing was done? If it's all run though budget, I think it would be quite easy to change the camp's budget allocation to $1750 and the excess is "absorbed" without any transfer taking place.

As for making things easier, what about writing a budget check out to "other", run all the expenses from the other account and then if anything should go back into budget, write a check back to budget. Now all the camp expenses are on one report and it's very transparent as to what has taken place.

While we're still looking for incentives for ward to use "other" properly, let's not discount the use of the age old "because the stake said so".

[ponders-p40]

Unless a Church employee who works in the Church financial department responds in this forum we are not going to get the official reasons but rather conjecture (and most of that based on experience) from forum subscribers.

I would expect that the MLS development team is in close contact with the Church financial experts to ensure that MLS conforms to the practices necessary to ensure proper handling of finances to meet the needs of the Church programs and the laws of the nations in which it has financial transactions. But then again we can only voice our concerns and hope a Church employee in a position to comment can shed some light or initiate a change if appropriate.

A question I was trying to get at earlier is whether Church finance department and/or MLS development personnel actually frequent these forums or do I need to gather up what we've discussed here and try to "get an audience" of some kind (a support phone call at least)?

[mkmurray]

A question I was trying to get at earlier is whether Church finance department and/or MLS development personnel actually frequent these forums or do I need to gather up what we've discussed here and try to "get an audience" of some kind (a support phone call at least)?

Well I (very briefly) answered you question a few posts ago...

Does this forum have any influence on the MLS development team?

It most certainly does.

...but I will expand more on what I mean.

There are most definitely Church Employees that are viewing these threads, and the frequency of their viewings and participation is growing each week. Many Church Employees have an LDS Church Badge by thier username on all of their posts (see this thread: http://tech.lds.org/forum/showthread.php?t=796). Some don't have the badge because of personal preference or just not getting around to it, but most do.

Also, I personally take note of threads that are in desparate need of Church Employee response, comment, or even just acknowledgment, and try to pass it on (I won't tell you how, because I don't want everyone doing it all at the same time, but I bet many of you can guess ; it doesn't involve PMing Church Employees, that tends to be less effective).

So I hope that answers your question. A support call wouldn't hurt though.

[aebrown]

Suppose a ward budgets $2000 for camp. However camp costs $3000. So the 20 parents all pay $50 each.

I know this was hypothetical, and I don't want to fork the thread, but of course parents never pay for the annual camp -- there are three and only three options for payment, in order:

1. Budget allowance;
2. If #1 is insufficient, participants earn the money;
3. If #2 is insufficient, approved fund-raisers

Now what does that have to do with this thread? Well, how is an auditor going to know the right thing was done? If it's all run though budget, I think it would be quite easy to change the camp's budget allocation to $1750 and the excess is "absorbed" without any transfer taking place.

As for making things easier, what about writing a budget check out to "other", run all the expenses from the other account and then if anything should go back into budget, write a check back to budget. Now all the camp expenses are on one report and it's very transparent as to what has taken place.

These are very good points. Perhaps not totally compelling, but your advice helps avoid a couple of potential messy situations.

[Mikerowaved]

Now, I've got a hypothetical situation for you all. At first this may appear as a tangent, but I'll explain.

Suppose a ward budgets $2000 for camp. However camp costs $3000. So the 20 parents all pay $50 each. But when the camp is over, the actual cost is $250 less then expected. On the other hand, the ward is going over budget elsewhere. It's very tempting to move this $250 excess into the budget. After all 20 checks of $12.50 is such a pain. But what is the right thing to do?

I've got another hypothetical...

Suppose a ward budgets $2000 for camp, however, camp costs $3000. The boys collectively earned $1000 by running a Christmas gift wrapping booth last December at the local mall. Their hard earned funds were deposited into last year's budget... Oops.

[crislapi]

I seem to remember once being able to finagle MLS into allowing me to transfer between the two, but it was complicated, and now I'm curious if I just tricked MLS and the money never actually moved. Any thoughts? I'll look into this one on my end to see what happened with the money.

In case anyone was waiting for a reply on this, I checked and double checked. I couldn't fine anything I'd done that moved money from other to budget. Stick to cutting checks - it's much easier!

[ffrsqpilot]

I said I was out of this thread but Crislapi's statement above reminded me what the unit I was discussing in my previous posts did. The unit in question did not "transfer" funds from Other to Budget but indeed did write a check from other and deposited it into budget. They then proceeded to spend that money but made a total mess out of it which drove the auditor bippy when he tried to do the end of year audit. That is when I got involved and spent the next couple of weeks trying to figure out what all happened and how to go about rectifying it. Wasn't a whole lot of fun.

[gingus]

FWIW

I got a message from SLC regarding this and they said that the budget dollars come back to the ward, but it was against church policy to make deposits to the budget accounts. So, it would be better to follow church policy.

[aebrown]

I got a message from SLC regarding this and they said that the budget dollars come back to the ward, but it was against church policy to make deposits to the budget accounts. So, it would be better to follow church policy.

Although I understand the basic policy you are trying to state, you are oversimplifying a bit. It is definitely within policy to make certain deposits to budget accounts:

• Return of advanced funds (see slide 23 of lesson Handling Church Expenses)
• Correcting errors (see slide 32 of lesson Understanding and Using the "Other" Category)
• Transferring funds between units (one ward reimburses another ward for its share of a multi-ward activity, or shared agent ward expenses).

But you're right that it is against policy to make donations to the Budget category.