cubs conversion - budget

Discuss questions around local unit policies for budgeting, reconciling, etc. This forum should not contain specific financial or membership information.
nj6a
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#11

Post by nj6a »

crislapi wrote:The only objection I've seen comes from the new e-doc sent down tonight. It says:
Do not transfer previously recorded expenses from Budget: Administration. You may be tempted to adjust all of the old expenses to the new Budget subcategories. THIS IS NOT RECOMMENDED. Doing so will not allow you to have an accurate picture of correct running balances.
crislapi

For more than a few years wards in our stake have had budget funds allocated to them quarterly. Funds that are not used were retained by the ward and were available for future use by the ward in their budget. If this is not the same and the old system of auto-reimbursment of budget in some CUBS transition wards/stakes; then having no balance or a zero net balance in the budget section (as spoken of in recent e-mails makes sense in those wards/stakes and re-posting of budget expenses to the new accounts would cause budget imbalances again for those stakes (because those expenses in fact were auto-reimbursed).

Don't you think that is the reason that the recent e-mail instructions tell us not to do this reposting of budget expense that I am proposing and you have done?

Or did all US stakes move to the new system that I describe above pre-CUBS conversion?
crislapi
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#12

Post by crislapi »

nj6a wrote:Or did all US stakes move to the new system that I describe above pre-CUBS conversion?
There are no "transition units". The entire US has switched to CUBS at the same time: Oct 17-24 2010. So what is happening in your ward/stake is the same as every other ward/stake in the US.
nj6a wrote:...If this is not the same and the old system of auto-[reimbursement] of budget in some CUBS transition wards/stakes[,] then having no balance or a zero net balance in the budget section (as spoken of in recent e-mails[)] makes sense in those wards/stakes and re-posting of budget expenses to the new accounts would cause budget imbalances again for those stakes (because those expenses in fact were auto-reimbursed).

Don't you think that is the reason that the recent e-mail instructions tell us not to do this reposting of budget expense that I am proposing and you have done?
As Alan_Brown mentioned previously, your overall budget balance does not change one penny when you recategorize expenses or perform transfers. The warning, then, is related to what resolution you want when you look at the budget.

Here's an example (income & expense report, current year). I want to get the detail of the $500 that was in my Budget: Relief Society back. However, my I&E looks like this (sorry about the underscores - it's the only way I can build a table):

Category_______Bal.For.__Inc____Exp______Tran______Bal
Budget:Admin__$0.00 ____$0.00___-$5,00.00__$5,000.00__$0.00
Budget:RS______$0.00____$0.00___$0.00______$0.00_____$0.00
Total:__________$0.00_____$0.00___-$5,000.00_$5,000.00__$0.00

Take note of the values in "Total". They will not change as money moves around. However, the "Balance" value for subcategories will.

In my View/Update Expenses screen, I recategorize all my expenses. Now my I&E looks like this:

Category_______Bal.For.__Inc____Exp_______Tran______Bal
Budget:Admin__$0.00 ____$0.00___-$4,500.00__$5,000.00__$500.00
Budget:RS______$0.00____$0.00___-$500.00____$0.00_____-$500.00
Total:__________$0.00_____$0.00___-$5,000.00__$5,000.00__$0.00

This is good. The $500 in expenses is showing in RS again. However, Budget:Administration now has a $500 balance while RS has a -$500 balance. That is wrong, and that is the error. CUBS completely "zerored" all expenses on Oct 17. I just "undid" that for RS (and Administration).

Subcategories should start at $0 (have a balance of $0) on Oct 18 and only go negative as new expenses are drawn from it. However, recategorizing my expenses has made RS start at -$500. New expenses are only going to make it more negative. To correct this, you just need to transfer a credit from Budget:Administration to Budget:Relief Society equal to the total RS expenses up to and including Oct 17 ($500 in my example).

Category_______Bal.For.__Inc____Exp______Tran______Bal
Budget:Admin__$0.00 ____$0.00___-$4,500.00_$4,500.00__$0.00
Budget:RS______$0.00____$0.00___-$500.00___$500.00___$0.00
Total:__________$0.00_____$0.00___-$5,000.00_$5,000.00_$0.00

Problem solved. The detailed expenses are present in the desired subcategory and the starting balance on Oct 18 is $0. The RS balance will match CUBS exactly.

Despite all of this movement, true to Alan_Brown's statement, my overall budget balance has not changed one penny (bottom right corner).
crislapi
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#13

Post by crislapi »

For stake clerks out there, this same approach can be used to recreate your stake budget. However, only use Budget:Administration for expenses actually paid for by the stake. To recreate sub-categories for tracking ward budgets, this same idea can be used to recreate ward budget subcategories and remaining balances under budget allocations. Post-CUBS, all allocations were put in Budget:Budget Allocations. I used to have (and wanted back) sub-categories for each unit. Here's how I did it.

I recognize this will only work for the remainder of 2010 since ward budgets will go straight to the ward in 2011 but this makes disbursing remaining 2010 balances to each unit very simple.

A STAKE Income and Expense report (summary by subcategory, current year) might look like this:

Category__Bal.For.___Inc___Exp_____Tran_____Bal
Bu:Admin__$0 _______$0____-$7,000___$7,000____$0
Bu:Bu All___-$73,000__$0____-$24,400__$110,000__$12,600
Total:______-$73,000__$0____-$31,400__$117,000__$12,600

$12,600 is the total remaining balance for 2010 for the entire stake. Budget:Administration contains expenses the stake has paid from its budget account. Don't get too wrapped up in any other balances.

Now I added subcategories under Budget:Budget Allocations for each unit (for the sake of this example, 5 units and the stake). Since all 2010 disbursements are in Budget:Budget Allocations (i.e. none went directly to a unit so the stake has all the money; this is ONLY for 2010), I transferred each unit's total 2010 budget from Budget:Budget Allocations to Budget:Budget Allocations:Unit#. For the sake of this example. assume the following hypothetical 2010 budgets:
Unit1 - $4,500; Unit2 - $4,000; Unit3 - $5,500; Unit4 - $3,800; Unit5 - $3,600; Stake - $8,200.

Category_______Bal.For.___Inc___Exp_____Tran_____Bal
Bu:Admin_______$0 _______$0____-$7,000___$7,000____$0
Bu:Bu All_______-$73,000__$0____-$24,400__$80,000___-$17,000
Bu:Bu All:Unit1___$0______$0_____$0_______$4,500____$4,500
Bu:Bu All:Unit2___$0______$0_____$0_______$4,000____$4,000
Bu:Bu All:Unit3___$0______$0_____$0_______$5,500____$5,500
Bu:Bu All:Unit4___$0______$0_____$0_______$3,800____$3,800
Bu:Bu All:Unit5___$0______$0_____$0_______$3,600____$3,600
Bu:Bu All:Stake___$0______$0_____$0_______$8,200____$8,200
Total:__________-$73,000__$0____-$31,400__$117,000__$12,600

However, the only money remaining in the stake is the unspent money. The 2010 budget amounts need to be reduced by the amount of each unit's YTD expenses on Oct 17, 2010. These figures will be available on the next SFS (some have already received this).

Transfers will not let you move expenses (i.e. negative amounts), but you can make a sub-category more negative by taking a positive amount from it. I therefore transferred from each unit subcategory back to Budget:Budget Allocations an amount equal to their YTD expenses as shown on the October SFS. Again, for the sake of this example. assume the following hypothetical 2010 YTD expenses:
Unit1 - $3,350; Unit2 - $3,400; Unit3 - $4,000; Unit4 - $3,450; Unit5 - $3,200; Stake - $7,000*.
*I don't think your stake expenses will exactly match what is shown in Budget:Administration. I know not all my 2010 expenses were reclassified there. It just keeps the example simple.

Category_______Bal.For.___Inc___Exp_____Tran_____Bal
Bu:Admin_______$0 _______$0____-$7,000___$7,000____$0
Bu:Bu All_______-$73,000__$0____-$24,400__$104,800___$7,4000
Bu:Bu All:Unit1___$0______$0_____$0_______$1,150_____$1,150
Bu:Bu All:Unit2___$0______$0_____$0_______$600______$600
Bu:Bu All:Unit3___$0______$0_____$0_______$1,500_____$1,500
Bu:Bu All:Unit4___$0______$0_____$0_______$350______$350
Bu:Bu All:Unit5___$0______$0_____$0_______$400______$400
Bu:Bu All:Stake___$0______$0_____$0_______$1,200____$1,200
Total:__________-$73,000__$0____-$31,400__$117,000__$12,600

That's it. Your subcategory balances now tell you exactly how much money to give to each unit in the stake. When you cut the check for each unit, pull it from the corresponding subcategory and the subcategory balance will drop to zero, indicating they have received 100% of their budget. You obviously don't have to cut one to the stake. I guess it's even optional to include it as a subcategory. All you really gain is seeing exactly how much money is left in the approved 2010 stake budget ($1,200) as well as how much you received in excess of what you budgeted for back at the start of the year when budgets were approved/set ($7,400). It is surplus - the yearly allocations ended up being more than anticipated.

It is just as easy for it to be a negative number!! If it is, you may want to adjust how much you distribute back to the wards since the remaining negative will be yours to recover from.

Disclaimers: I hope I got this right. I'm going off memory and it's late. Also, please don't feel like you have to do this - you don't. If you do want to, this is not the only way to do it. There are several ways I can think of to achieve the same result. This just fit best with what I mentioned previously.
nj6a
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#14

Post by nj6a »

Thanks for the illustration and example.
But, you did not understand my question. In my ward our Oct. 17th budget balances do not add to zero (and they should not be zero - because CHQ has not taken our unused budget funds from us - they remain with us - since our/stake /ward remains on the no-autoreimbursment for budget expenses system. (caution-I do not have the reports or print outs available to me now;I am working from memory)
I believe that all US stakes/wards have now transitioned (with cubs transition) to a similar system as we have been using for some years now. If I am correct on this point then I believe that that explains why the transition emails say some things that don't seem to apply to my wards situation. Could I be correct?
crislapi
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#15

Post by crislapi »

nj6a wrote:But, you did not understand my question.
Fair enough. I wasn't exactly sure what you were going at so I took my best guess.
nj6a wrote:In my ward our Oct. 17th budget balances do not add to zero (and they should not be zero - because CHQ has not taken our unused budget funds from us - they remain with us - since our/stake /ward remains on the no-autoreimbursment for budget expenses system.

Excess ward budget funds have never left the stake. It was just common practice for stakes to pull in all remaining funds at the end of the year. Your stake was nice enough to let wards keep the funds. Disbursements have always been given quarterly to the stake, so it's not unreasonable that pre-CUBS some stakes gave their units quarterly disbursements as well. Why not ask your stake clerk how things were set up pre-Oct 17?
nj6a wrote:I believe that all US stakes/wards have now transitioned (with cubs transition) to a similar system as we have been using for some years now. If I am correct on this point then I believe that that explains why the transition emails say some things that don't seem to apply to my wards situation. Could I be correct?
I'd never say never, but I highly doubt it. I watched a stake clerk beg to be put on CUBS earlier than the rest of the US and be told that it was impossible - the system didn't work that way. However, you (or your stake clerk) would know better than I if you were on some beta version of something similar. For example, have you had to do reconciles? Have you had to enter your distribution center expenses and missionary payments? If so, you were likely on the same system as the rest of us. If you are unsure, the ones who would really know are LUS (Local Unit Support).
nj6a
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#16

Post by nj6a »

Thanks for the help. The info that you have provided let's me know that I am best off to take another look at my budget balances to confirm that they do/ or don't add to zero.

Thanks again.
nj6a
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#17

Post by nj6a »

crislapi

Ok. but I am familiar with the Budget Reports produced by the MLS budget pages. From my viewpoint these reports have in past years provided an intelegent budget report for planning and administration.
crislapi
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#18

Post by crislapi »

nj6a wrote:Ok. but I am familiar with the Budget Reports produced by the MLS budget pages. From my viewpoint these reports have in past years provided an intelegent budget report for planning and administration.
I don't doubt you are. Hopefully, however, you are aware that for CUBS, budget reports do not show you the true status of your budget. Please see this post. You are better off using Income & Expense reports, just make sure you are only selecting Budget categories.
crislapi
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#19

Post by crislapi »

I've been working on a couple wards while I've been replying and seem to have discovered what I consider a "bug" that would affect your balance. The issue seems to be related to 2007 (or later) expenses that deal with 2006 (or earlier) funds.

See this postabout Other balance and this postabout Budget Administration balance.
jimmyrun
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#20

Post by jimmyrun »

New member to the forum here and I’m hoping that those with far more experience at being a clerk than I have can lend some assistance, really I just want to make sure that I understand what’s going on so that I don’t make any mistakes with this change. I have been a clerk for about a year so I’m not exactly brand new at this but any knowledge that helps me do this job better is always welcome.

I guess the first thing I should put out there, so that my situation can be best understood, is that I am another of the clerks that went back through all the expenses for the year and put them into their correct categories rather than leave them in the Budget: Administration category, I actually did this before the church sent out the information saying not to do it. For my ward, which is a YSA ward, this was actually a simple change as we don’t have nearly as many transactions as most other wards and we don’t have near the amount of categories that they use either. Also, before the change to CUBS I didn’t really use the I&E report at all so that is not something I am extremely familiar with, though I figure it may be different from here on out.

I guess that’s my situation in a nutshell so now I’m hoping I can get some answers to a couple questions that I have as well as some insight as to where I stand from those who seem to know more than myself.

As to the questions, I am looking at the Budget report and the I&E report and wondering if there should be some correlation between the ending/remaining balance between the reports? Basically if my remaining budget balance is say $500 shouldn’t my I&E report ending balance be similar to that amount considering most of the transactions are immediately transferred to CHQ (tithing, fast offerings, etc.)? or am I just off in thinking that there should be/is some correlation between the two reports?

The reason that I ask that is because after recategorizing all the expenses to the correct category my remaining budget balance is way off the remaining I&E balance. For example, on my budget report I have a total allocated budget of say $1,000.00, with expenses of say $500.00, this should leave me with a remaining budget amount of $500.00 but when I look at my budget report I also have a transfer in the Budget: Administration category of say a positive $400.00 which makes my remaining budget amount $900.00. All of my category budget amounts are correct, except for the Administration as it has that transfer in it and I am not sure what I will end up doing with this, but I am assuming that this is what crislapi mentioned in his previous post that he would correct at the end of the year, of course if my assumption there is way off let me know. In contrast to that, and I’m going off memory here as I don’t have the reports in from of me, the I&E report shows that I have a negative balance, so in my example we could use a -$50.00, to me there shouldn’t be such a large difference between the remaining budget balance and the remaining I&E balance, is this maybe because as crislapi said I only moved the expense and haven’t done the transfer at the end of the year he was talking about?

Lastly, and maybe this would be better in a different forum thread but as I am already here I am going to ask away and hope that you don’t mind, I am thinking that for future budgets, meaning beginning with the new year in January, that the quarterly approach would be best, in that I will assign the budget for each organization based upon a percentage so that each quarter the budget goes up. If I do use this approach how am I going to handle organizations that are front-heavy in their spending, meaning that they spend the majority of their budget in the first quarter or first half of the year? Will the church allow for checks to be written that would exceed the amount in the ward account as long as that amount is made up by having the organization get out of the negative balance that is sitting in that category?

I do apologize for the somewhat long post, I really just want to make sure that I understand this transition so that our ward doesn’t have any issues that come up that need to be corrected later, I spent my first couple of months in this calling fixing all the past problems and don’t want to have to do that again. Also, I really do appreciate all the help I have already received just from reading all the posts already out there and if anything in the post needs further clarification please let me know and I will do my best to drill down to a better example.
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