CUBS Implementation -- Notes from the field

Discussions around using and interfacing with the Church MLS program.
freedom55
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Location: BC, Canada

#21

Post by freedom55 »

We've been dealing with these issues since July. Resolved some - still waiting for resolution on others.

Here is a copy of a note that I sent our ward clerks to help them restore their Y-T-D budget expenditure info. If it's helpful to you, great. I had included marked up screen shots for clarity - sorry I don't know how to add them here.

"Step #1 - Go to Finance --> Budget --> Add/Update Categories. You will note that the system has set a group of subcategories to Budget. Those are set as part of the finance system and cannot be changed. Use as many as are helpful to you. If you need some subcategories that are not set, you can still add them under Budget Allocations. You will see in my example that the system brought some of my original subcategories over and set them as fixed (red x), while missing some that I had been using prior to the switchover. I've added the ones that I need (green dot). I'm told that the unneeded subcategories will drop off if they are unused over time (typically 5 years). So, once you have set the subcategories to match what you had before the switchover..........

Step #2 - Go to Finance --> Budget --> View/Edit Budget and reset the amounts that you entered at the beginning of the year.

Step #3 - Go to Finance --> Finance Reports --> Income and Expense Report. Choose Summary by Sub-Category for the current year. Note whether any amounts show up in the Balance Forward column for Budget subcategories. Ignore the amounts for Budget:Administration and Budget:Budget Allocations. You want the other Budget bring forward amounts to be zero.

Step #4 - Go to Finance --> Enter Transfers. Set the date to 31 Dec 2009. Fill in the comment line with something like, "To set initial balance". On the left side, select the subcategories that have bring forward amounts and enter those amounts. We are going to transfer those amounts FROM the selected subcategories. After you have filled in all the amounts, go to the right side, choose Budget:Budget Allocations and enter the category total showing on the left side. This is the amount we are transferring TO Budget Allocations. Press Save. Go back to your Income and Expense Report and check that your bring forward amounts are now zero.

Step #5 - You will now see that the Income and Expense Report and your Budget Report both show your expenditures since the switchover. Now we want to add the expenses that occurred before the switchover. You will need the report(s) that you printed prior to the switchover, that show your expenses. If for some reason you can't find them, you will find that information by going to the Income and Expense Report and selecting Details by Subcategory for Budget:Administration.

OK, go to Finance --> Enter Transfers. Leave the date as today's. Fill in the comment line with something like, "To accumulate Y-T-D expenses". On the left side, select the subcategories that have previous expense amounts and enter those amounts. We are going to transfer those amounts FROM the selected subcategories. After you have filled in all the amounts, go to the right side, choose Budget:Budget Allocations and enter the category total showing on the left side. This is the amount we are transferring TO Budget Allocations. Press Save. Go back to your Income and Expense Report and check that your balance amounts now show the total year's expenditures. Now you can go to your Budget Report and print off a Y-T-D expense summary for your bishop".

I checked with CHQ and they said this procedure was fine with them.
bcfridley
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Posts: 1
Joined: Mon Nov 01, 2010 11:44 am
Location: US

Need access to pre-conversion data

#22

Post by bcfridley »

My Finance Clerk did not print the necessary reports on Oct 17th as instructed, so now we do not have the detail balances for the Budget, Other and Ward Missionary accounts to be able to move funds to the individual accounts. I was told that I could install MLS on a seperate computer and restore our backup from Oct 17th. I found an MLS 2.9.3 install and tried it, but, it says the backup version is newer than the installed version. I also tried it by downloading the latest MLS version 3.2.3 and it won't work with the new version.. Any ideas how to get the MLS version prior to the conversion?
waynecooke
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Posts: 170
Joined: Wed Oct 27, 2010 12:05 pm
Location: Kalama, Washington

Dissapearing Missionary Account

#23

Post by waynecooke »

In regards to the Missionary account question, we had a family who were not able to keep up on their son's donations while he was on his mission. He returned several months ago, but they are still paying, trying to donate the total amount that was required for the two years. We were keeping track of these number in the Missionary subcategory for their son, but it disappeared. It was not a great problem to just go to the "Member Donation" report, and wrote down each years donations, as they are separated as such on the report. Printing out the report is not necessary. It took me about three minutes to get the three years of information. Because of how far these folks are behind, it will take a couple of more years to catch up, so just an annual recap is all that is necessary until it gets close. A little more work, but when the obligation is met, we will be able to tell this family when they have completed their obligation.
crislapi
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Location: USA

#24

Post by crislapi »

bcfridley wrote:I also tried it by downloading the latest MLS version 3.2.3 and it won't work with the new version.. Any ideas how to get the MLS version prior to the conversion?
There are many things that could go wrong. Could you please be more specific on what you mean by "it won't work". Are you getting an error message? Are you able to restore but locked out of finances still?
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johnshaw
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Joined: Fri Jan 19, 2007 1:55 pm
Location: Syracuse, UT

#25

Post by johnshaw »

wcooke wrote:In regards to the Missionary account question, we had a family who were not able to keep up on their son's donations while he was on his mission. He returned several months ago, but they are still paying, trying to donate the total amount that was required for the two years. We were keeping track of these number in the Missionary subcategory for their son, but it disappeared. It was not a great problem to just go to the "Member Donation" report, and wrote down each years donations, as they are separated as such on the report. Printing out the report is not necessary. It took me about three minutes to get the three years of information. Because of how far these folks are behind, it will take a couple of more years to catch up, so just an annual recap is all that is necessary until it gets close. A little more work, but when the obligation is met, we will be able to tell this family when they have completed their obligation.
Wow.. that is some dedication, I hope that the Bishop has counseled well with interested parties, this seems a burden that could be made light by bringing in additional funds. Just a comment, I am not at all familiar with the situation, but we are all in this together :)
dappel
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Joined: Sun Nov 07, 2010 7:51 pm
Location: Portland OR

Which Sub-categories to Use?

#26

Post by dappel »

I see the HQ defined sub-categories and after the conversion I was left with a few Ward defined sub sub-categories under the Budget allocation sub-category. I'm trying to figure out how to use the sub-categories. Is the budget allocation subcategory supposed to be used to create ward specific categories like: Activities Committee Budget, Ward Mission Budget, etc. or am I suppose to use the HQ categories as much as possible (put the Activities Committee Budget under the Budget:Other subcategory)

I'm just not sure how all of these will roll up and how they will show up on reports for the leadership of the ward. Is there a suggested method from HQ?
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aebrown
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Joined: Tue Nov 27, 2007 8:48 pm
Location: Draper, Utah

#27

Post by aebrown »

davidappel wrote:I see the HQ defined sub-categories and after the conversion I was left with a few Ward defined sub sub-categories under the Budget allocation sub-category. I'm trying to figure out how to use the sub-categories. Is the budget allocation subcategory supposed to be used to create ward specific categories like: Activities Committee Budget, Ward Mission Budget, etc. or am I suppose to use the HQ categories as much as possible (put the Activities Committee Budget under the Budget:Other subcategory)

I'm just not sure how all of these will roll up and how they will show up on reports for the leadership of the ward. Is there a suggested method from HQ?
As you can read in this post, you should not be using the sub-categories under "Budget:Budget Allocations" for any expenses. Instead, use the new built-in categories where possible, and create subcategories under the built-in categories (including "Budget:Other") where it is not.
Questions that can benefit the larger community should be asked in a public forum, not a private message.
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kh_design
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Dissapearing Missionary Account

#28

Post by kh_design »

wcooke wrote:We were keeping track of these number in the Missionary subcategory for their son, but it disappeared.
I think this was to bring the missionary donations more inline with the federal requirements that defines charitable donations. As per federal defined requirements for a donor to claim charitable donations as income tax deductions the donor cannot specify who the charitable donation is to go toward or benefit.
Pilotfly wrote:Sorry if I sound a bit upset, but to tell the truth - I am. I am disappointed that the only instructions that came out of the support folks is the two messages sent out the week prior to the conversion with only the instructions to compare two sets of reports and.....well, there is no and!

We will get this done but right now all I see is hours and hours of work ahead of me that I can ill afford.
Church unit leadership is volunteer time. I feel from time to time the volunteer time is mishandled when new technology is implemented. For example, in fall of 2004 when MLS was deployed in our Stake. Now with the CUBS transition Clerks, Bishoprics and Presidencies have an average 5 hours (being conservative) x 15,000 Local and Stake Units is 75,000 hours (perhaps more). More than 75,000 hours of volunteer time could have been more prudently used for the ministering and benefit of mankind that has been spent in the administration of CUBS data.

I do feel though we will all work through this with an overall positive attitude.
nreading
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Joined: Sun Jan 11, 2009 1:00 pm
Location: Cary, NC, USA

#29

Post by nreading »

bcfridley wrote:My Finance Clerk did not print the necessary reports on Oct 17th as instructed, so now we do not have the detail balances for the Budget, Other and Ward Missionary accounts to be able to move funds to the individual accounts. I was told that I could install MLS on a seperate computer and restore our backup from Oct 17th. I found an MLS 2.9.3 install and tried it, but, it says the backup version is newer than the installed version. I also tried it by downloading the latest MLS version 3.2.3 and it won't work with the new version.. Any ideas how to get the MLS version prior to the conversion?
I think I have a solution to this that doesn't involve any MLS hacks. I'm a stake finance clerk and I did print out all the recommended form, but was caught by surprise by the fact that the CUBS transition lost all information about categories for expenses. I called the MLS help phone number and found out that they can produce any form you need from a backup they made a few days before the transition. I got them to send me a Budget Detail Report, which was what I needed. I imagine that they can get you the forms you didn't print out before. (Ask them what date of backup they are working from, and then you can reconstruct, based on current MLS data and possibly your paper documentation on expenses, what the forms would have looked like had you printed them on Oct 17.)

I'm guessing that the MLS support staff would like to do as little of this as possible, so I would suggest that anyone going this route figure out what forms they absolutely need and ask (really nicely) for them all at once.
crislapi
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Joined: Mon Jul 07, 2008 4:05 pm
Location: USA

#30

Post by crislapi »

reading wrote:I'm guessing that the MLS support staff would like to do as little of this as possible, so I would suggest that anyone going this route figure out what forms they absolutely need and ask (really nicely) for them all at once.
Or you could save them the work and do it yourself. That way you get any reports you need as well as spare having them the workload. See this thread.
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