Transfer money from Budget to "other"

Discuss questions around local unit policies for budgeting, reconciling, etc. This forum should not contain specific financial or membership information.
Post Reply
Gary_Miller
Senior Member
Posts: 1222
Joined: Thu Dec 08, 2011 10:42 am
Location: Emmett, Idaho

Re: Transfer money from Budget to "other"

#51

Post by Gary_Miller »

russellhltn wrote:
Gary_Miller wrote:
russellhltn wrote:I don't see as carrying a balance in "Other" category is a problem as long as the individual sub-accounts that represent specific activities are closed in a reasonable length of time after the event.
The audit sees it as a problem if the funds in the other category is not designated for a specific purpose and spent in a reasonable amount of time.
Agreed. But I think some people see a balance in "other" and immediately assume there's a problem. I'm saying that the parent category of "other" could carry a balance for years and not be a problem as long as all the sub-accounts are compliant.
That is because there is a problem. Keeping the funds in the parent category is will get the unit an audit exception for sure. Funds in the other category is suppose to be for a specific purpose therefore should have their own sub-category.
russellhltn wrote:
Gary_Miller wrote:The whole principle is to use the Budget allowance for every thing including camps.
I understand what you are saying, but in the context of this thread, it might be misunderstood.

I'm saying that to keep one's books clean, all funds collected should go into a specific "other" sub-account.
Correct, but I don't think "should" is the correct word it leads to the belief that there are options. In this instant the correct word would be "must".
russellhltn wrote:Between transfers from budget and expenses charged to the "other" sub-account, the account is brought back to zero. If that's done then it's easy to see that all funds raised went toward the event. But if there's ever a transfer from "other" to budget, then the scope of inquiry has to expand to see if the expenses paid from budget for the event covers the transfer. If it does not, then not ALL of the fund-raising went into the event - some ended up enlarging someone's budget.
There is no need for a transfer when you write the check out you just ensure that you charge to the proper category. If the funds in the other is intended to be used for the purpose of the expense then use the other account. If there is not enough funds in the other to cover the total expense put the rest of the expense in the proper budget category.
russellhltn wrote:By all means, use as much budget to fund the activity as possible. But if one runs all the funding though the budget account, then you can end up with less-than-transparent bookkeeping.
All funding for an activity should be ran through the budget allowance. Unless the Bishop decides there is insufficient budget funds and funds are then collected from individual participants or through a fund raiser for the specific Camp or other authorized purpose, at which time you should put the expense against the specific other category.

There should never be any expenses in the other category unless there is enough funds in the specific other category to cover the expense.
russellhltn
Community Administrator
Posts: 34422
Joined: Sat Jan 20, 2007 2:53 pm
Location: U.S.

Re: Transfer money from Budget to "other"

#52

Post by russellhltn »

Gary_Miller wrote:That is because there is a problem. Keeping the funds in the parent category is will get the unit an audit exception for sure. Funds in the other category is suppose to be for a specific purpose therefore should have their own sub-category.
There shouldn't be funds in the parent category, but doesn't the balance of the parent reflect the balance of all the subs as well?
Have you searched the Help Center? Try doing a Google search and adding "site:churchofjesuschrist.org/help" to the search criteria.

So we can better help you, please edit your Profile to include your general location.
Gary_Miller
Senior Member
Posts: 1222
Joined: Thu Dec 08, 2011 10:42 am
Location: Emmett, Idaho

Re: Transfer money from Budget to "other"

#53

Post by Gary_Miller »

russellhltn wrote:
Gary_Miller wrote:That is because there is a problem. Keeping the funds in the parent category is will get the unit an audit exception for sure. Funds in the other category is suppose to be for a specific purpose therefore should have their own sub-category.
There shouldn't be funds in the parent category, but doesn't the balance of the parent reflect the balance of all the subs as well?
No, the bottom line reflects the balance of all the categories including the parent. The only thing that is ever put in the parent category is interest, which should be move to a subcategory occasionally.

I never treat the other account as a whole since the funds are suppose to be for specific purposes I always treat it a separate accounts. Where as for Missionary or Budget I look at the bottom line.
jasonfitt
Member
Posts: 62
Joined: Fri Feb 04, 2011 8:42 am

Re: Transfer money from Budget to "other"

#54

Post by jasonfitt »

Gary_Miller wrote:
jasonfitt wrote:It would really be nice to be able to transfer funds from "Other" to "Budget" and vice versa like the good old days. For instance, we had too much sitting in the "Other" categories that had been sitting there for over a year, and the auditor suggested we do something with it.

So, we had to write ourselves a check, and deposit it as a donation in to the various budgets. I guess I could have gone in to the donation batches (there were several that were processed over a year before), but decided to do the check thing.
Which is against the Handbook of instructions, HB1 14.7.2. under General Principles and Guidelines.

The proper thing to do would have to 1) reimburse money back to the individuals since you did not need all the fund collected, or 2) Designate it for next years camps, or 3) Purchase some equipment need for YW and YM camps.
Writing a check to ourselves is what the stake clerk suggested we do, because the members were already reimbursed...just from the wrong budget categories. Rather than open up several old payment batches spanning the last 2-3 years to change the categories, we opted to write a check to ourselves instead to reimburse those categories that the expenses were taken out of. So we actually did not go against HB1 14.7.2, in my estimation, because it wasn't excess funds and we couldn't designate it for next years camps because the money was already spent.
Gary_Miller
Senior Member
Posts: 1222
Joined: Thu Dec 08, 2011 10:42 am
Location: Emmett, Idaho

Re: Transfer money from Budget to "other"

#55

Post by Gary_Miller »

jasonfitt wrote:Writing a check to ourselves is what the stake clerk suggested we do, because the members were already reimbursed...just from the wrong budget categories. Rather than open up several old payment batches spanning the last 2-3 years to change the categories, we opted to write a check to ourselves instead to reimburse those categories that the expenses were taken out of. So we actually did not go against HB1 14.7.2, in my estimation, because it wasn't excess funds and we couldn't designate it for next years camps because the money was already spent.
From the sound of it, it would appear that the unit was able to cover all the expenses out of the budget allowance so would have had no need to charge an individual Participant Fee or do a fund raiser.
dannykos
Member
Posts: 298
Joined: Wed Oct 15, 2008 2:26 am
Location: UK, East Grinstead

Re: Transfer money from Budget to "other"

#56

Post by dannykos »

Sorry for the silence - the Camps I referred to were indeed two separate and distinct camps, one for Deacons and one for Beehives. We do that in an EFY year, so the 12-13 year olds have something to look forward to – and also so they get equal benefit of the funds raised that year.

Ultimately the policy now seems to be that we collect funds into a specific other account at a ward level - and then stake pays for the event from stake budget funds. Stake then does a ward to stake transfer from Other to Other, and then re-categorises various camp expenses to Other - to use up all the transferred funds.

Does that seem to make sense - and be how everyone else is doing it?

The answer to carrying large Other account balances is to reduce fundraising efforts until the balances are at a more sensible level, rather than just trying to raise as much as possible.
Gary_Miller
Senior Member
Posts: 1222
Joined: Thu Dec 08, 2011 10:42 am
Location: Emmett, Idaho

Re: Transfer money from Budget to "other"

#57

Post by Gary_Miller »

dannykos wrote:Ultimately the policy now seems to be that we collect funds into a specific other account at a ward level - and then stake pays for the event from stake budget funds. Stake then does a ward to stake transfer from Other to Other, and then re-categories various camp expenses to Other - to use up all the transferred funds.

Does that seem to make sense - and be how everyone else is doing it?
All of it makes sense to me except the transfer fro ward to stake however you are in the UK and I know due to the banking system things are a little different. In the US we would write a check to the stake instead of transferring the money.

The rest of what the stake is doing re-categorizing the expense from budget to other would be the correct way of doing this. That is what we do in my ward since our fund raiser is in the fall and we have to have Scout Camp payed for in the spring.
Last edited by Gary_Miller on Mon Nov 04, 2013 7:42 am, edited 1 time in total.
dannykos
Member
Posts: 298
Joined: Wed Oct 15, 2008 2:26 am
Location: UK, East Grinstead

Re: Transfer money from Budget to "other"

#58

Post by dannykos »

thanks for the info :)
jasonfitt
Member
Posts: 62
Joined: Fri Feb 04, 2011 8:42 am

Re: Transfer money from Budget to "other"

#59

Post by jasonfitt »

Gary_Miller wrote:
jasonfitt wrote:Writing a check to ourselves is what the stake clerk suggested we do, because the members were already reimbursed...just from the wrong budget categories. Rather than open up several old payment batches spanning the last 2-3 years to change the categories, we opted to write a check to ourselves instead to reimburse those categories that the expenses were taken out of. So we actually did not go against HB1 14.7.2, in my estimation, because it wasn't excess funds and we couldn't designate it for next years camps because the money was already spent.
From the sound of it, it would appear that the unit was able to cover all the expenses out of the budget allowance so would have had no need to charge an individual Participant Fee or do a fund raiser.
You would be correct. I was not involved in the decision making at the time, so they had a fundraiser even though we had enough in the ward budget to cover the camp expenses. My guess is they weren't aware that we had enough, or they weren't aware they could use funds from the budget allowance. In any case, I'm going to mention this to our bishop before he meets with the auxiliaries to set the 2014 budget.
russellhltn
Community Administrator
Posts: 34422
Joined: Sat Jan 20, 2007 2:53 pm
Location: U.S.

Re: Transfer money from Budget to "other"

#60

Post by russellhltn »

jasonfitt wrote:so they had a fundraiser even though we had enough in the ward budget to cover the camp expenses.
It's possible they had enough in the budget to front the money, but not enough to pay for the camp and fund the ward for the rest of the year.
Have you searched the Help Center? Try doing a Google search and adding "site:churchofjesuschrist.org/help" to the search criteria.

So we can better help you, please edit your Profile to include your general location.
Post Reply

Return to “Local Unit Finance”