Tech Forum

Hi,

So we had a missionary out ( still out) and there is a ward mission fund with his name attached to it. He was already out by the time I was put in as financial clerk. We just had another missionary go out. Does the church automatically setup this account or am I supposed to do that? His folks submitted the first payment this past week and since I didn't have his account set up (or know how to) I just stuck it under the ward missionary fund. What's the route for this situation? Thanks

The named missionary account, is normally created around the time they enter the MTC.

Once the account is there, you can use the Transfer option (in MLS) to transfer the already donated funds from the Ward Mission Fund to the named missionary's account.

Biggles wrote:The named missionary account, is normally created around the time they enter the MTC.

In the US the ward should get charged for the missionary starting at the beginning of the month when they start their mission. So if the missionary entered the MTC in February then the account should have been set up by the beginning of February and you should have already seen the first charge. If that's not the case then either the missionary department is late on charging accounts (which I did see occasionally) or your ward is not set as the financially responsible ward. That could happen for instance if the application was started in a YSA ward and they didn't correctly list the home ward. You (or the bishop or ward clerk if you don't have access) should go into the missionary application system and check to make sure your ward is listed as the financially responsible ward.

If that is set up correctly then you may need to contact Local Unit Support to find out why the account hasn't been set up.

Biggles wrote:Once the account is there, you can use the Transfer option (in MLS) to transfer the already donated funds from the Ward Mission Fund to the named missionary's account.

Although that is an option, I prefer to go to the donation and change the category to the new account. It does essentially the same transfer but it links the transfer to the original donation.

Biggles wrote:The named missionary account, is normally created around the time they enter the MTC.

I've even seen it created as early as within a couple days of the date the call was issued.

Biggles wrote:The named missionary account, is normally created around the time they enter the MTC.

Once the account is there, you can use the Transfer option (in MLS) to transfer the already donated funds from the Ward Mission Fund to the named missionary's account.

Rather than transfer the funds to the newly available account, you should edit the original donations to credit the proper account.

daveywest wrote:Rather than transfer the funds to the newly available account, you should edit the original donations to credit the proper account.

Could you please provide some instructions on how to do this? I have been manually transferring from the general ward missionary fund to the individual missionary accounts for months. It appears that my entire stake does it this way!

jasondavie wrote:

daveywest wrote:Rather than transfer the funds to the newly available account, you should edit the original donations to credit the proper account.

Could you please provide some instructions on how to do this? I have been manually transferring from the general ward missionary fund to the individual missionary accounts for months. It appears that my entire stake does it this way!

You need to know what donation batches contained the original donations. You can find that by running an Income and Expense Detail Report for the Ward Missionary category (or if the donations were all made by a single donor, it might be easier to generate a YTD Donation Statement for that donor). Then for each batch that contains a donation you want to change, go to View/Update Donations, find the batch, and click on its date to open the batch. Edit the particular donation and change the category for the Ward Missionary donation to be in the new subcategory for the missionary.

It's not required to do it this way, but the reports will be more accurate -- the Income and Expense reports for Ward Missionary will show the donations for that missionary coming in on the dates they were actually made. Also, Donor Statements for the member will show that their donations were for the specific missionary.

Thanks, this is what I tried, but for some reason the options to edit are not available for most of the donations. I find that only 1 member's donations allow me to edit them. I've attached a pic (no specifics of individuals) to show you what I mean. The first pic is how everyone's donations except the one member which seems to be editable looks. The second pic (I've removed the missionary's name whose account the donation is actually made into) shows how I would like it to be, with the buttons able to be pressed and edited!

I also realised that the one member which allows me to edit the donation already has their donation going directly into the missionary's personal subcategory. It's like MLS will allow me to re-allocate the donation back to the general ward missionary fund but not one other donation can be edited.
Maybe it's just me, but I simply cannot edit any transactions in the view/update report after I select them. All of the magnifying glasses are unable to be selected.