Fast Offerings causing Unreconciled Differences
Posted: Wed Jan 28, 2009 7:01 am
I want to pose a question but I'm not sure in my own mind what the question should be! Twice now in the last three weeks I have had to deal with monthly reconcilliations that won't balance. The cause in both cases is Fast Offering checks that were written on or about the last day of the month.
Three weeks ago I sat down with the finance clerk of one of our wards and tried to work through why his November reconciliation kept coming up with an unreconciled balance. After lots of research it came down to a fast offering check that had been written on the 30th of November. It showed for some strange reason in the expense and transfer pages of the reconcilliation process as if it were cleared when in fact it had not. To clear the unbalanced difference we had to place a check in the transfer column indicating that the check was cleared. Why one would do that I don't know (and it makes no sense that we did do it) but it was the only way to make the statement balance. Probably should not have done it, but we could find no other way to make the statement balance when the whole unreconciled report hung on one non-cleared check.
Last night, I received a call from my home ward's clerk that he was unable to balance the December report. Over the phone I listened to him and low and behold - the same strange problem cropped up. A fast offering check that was written on the 31st of December was causing the unreconciled difference. Over the phone I asked him if the check number showed up in both the Expense and Transfer pages. Indeed it did with one difference that I did not notice when I worked the previous problem. This time the check number was listed in the expense column (in the CUFS it shows as an outstanding check) but when looking at the Transfer page the check number showed twice, once as a negative amount and again as a positive amount. I asked him to put a check mark on the transfer page next to the positive check and look if that balanced the reconcilliation. Indeed it did.
So, either I am losing my mind, or there is something going on that I don't understand, or there is some "glitch" in the reconcilliation program that is causing some problems. I will call Salt Lake but as I mentioned in the beginning sentence of this post - I'm not sure what the question is that I should ask. Being the stake clerk I should have an answer for this but clearly I do not.
Can anyone of you explain this problem with late month checks (for some reason it seems in both cases to be a fast offering disbursement) and why it is causing an unreconciled report?
Signed - PuzzledinMontrose
Three weeks ago I sat down with the finance clerk of one of our wards and tried to work through why his November reconciliation kept coming up with an unreconciled balance. After lots of research it came down to a fast offering check that had been written on the 30th of November. It showed for some strange reason in the expense and transfer pages of the reconcilliation process as if it were cleared when in fact it had not. To clear the unbalanced difference we had to place a check in the transfer column indicating that the check was cleared. Why one would do that I don't know (and it makes no sense that we did do it) but it was the only way to make the statement balance. Probably should not have done it, but we could find no other way to make the statement balance when the whole unreconciled report hung on one non-cleared check.
Last night, I received a call from my home ward's clerk that he was unable to balance the December report. Over the phone I listened to him and low and behold - the same strange problem cropped up. A fast offering check that was written on the 31st of December was causing the unreconciled difference. Over the phone I asked him if the check number showed up in both the Expense and Transfer pages. Indeed it did with one difference that I did not notice when I worked the previous problem. This time the check number was listed in the expense column (in the CUFS it shows as an outstanding check) but when looking at the Transfer page the check number showed twice, once as a negative amount and again as a positive amount. I asked him to put a check mark on the transfer page next to the positive check and look if that balanced the reconcilliation. Indeed it did.
So, either I am losing my mind, or there is something going on that I don't understand, or there is some "glitch" in the reconcilliation program that is causing some problems. I will call Salt Lake but as I mentioned in the beginning sentence of this post - I'm not sure what the question is that I should ask. Being the stake clerk I should have an answer for this but clearly I do not.
Can anyone of you explain this problem with late month checks (for some reason it seems in both cases to be a fast offering disbursement) and why it is causing an unreconciled report?
Signed - PuzzledinMontrose