Tech Forum

Hi Brethren,

Hope everyone is well and good.

Just need a little bit of help. I'm pretty sure this has been answered before but I can't seem to find the post.

Could anyone tell me please, on MLS, how to transfer money that is still sitting in the "other" categories into the ward budget? To explain, when stake asked to transfer money owing for FSY for example I transferred money straight from ward budget to stake instead of from category>other: FSY.

Many thanks in advance.
Rod

Levasa wrote:To explain, when stake asked to transfer money owing for FSY for example I transferred money straight from ward budget to stake instead of from category>other: FSY.

I'd look at re-categorizing the transfer.

I think the only way to get money out of Other and into Budget, is to write a check from the Other account. Receive it into Budget with the next batch.

I'd wonder about how the money ended up in the "Other" category to begin with. Should it have been originally deposited into a budget category? (Forgive me but I'm a little frustrated by all the unexplained acronyms in the church, so I had to look up "FSY" to discover it means "For the Strength of Youth" Confrences, right?) Normally, we don't make deposits into "Budget" categories.

So, is it possible to go back and correct the original deposit(s) to go into "Budget" instead of "Other"? Is it possible to correct the expenses that were taken from "Budget" for FSY and change them to "Other:FSY"? It seems like the cleanest way to fix this is to just correct the past income and the expense records in order to clear out the "Other:FSY" category, rather than create transfers. This should be possible, unless the things which need correction happened too far in the past.

The best use of "Other" is, of course, to collect money for a specific purpose and then use it all up for that specific purpose. Was that the way it should have worked in this case? Is it too late to correct the records so that, on paper, this is exactly what happened?

Just keep in mind that transferring "other" to "budget" is a red-flag to a auditor as using fund-raising or other donations to extend the budget is prohibited. That's why I say it's better to re-categorizing or split the expenses. If you do transfer "other" to "budget", I sure hope that there's a equal or larger transfer from "budget" to "other" or you could be in for a long audit and possible exceptions.

If this is left over money, then I'd suggest holding on to it for next year. Otherwise, you'll have to refund it or send it to CHQ. Rolling it into budget is a no-no.

Sorry to resurrect a dead post, but I need to do the exact same thing and the option that was given as a solution is not really an option. Everyone recommended editing the transfer to change the category from "budget: allocation" to "other: authorized member financed".

Situation: We made a transfer to the stake to cover prepayment of boys camp. At the time, the fund raising money had not been deposited into the Other account so the payment had to be made out of the Budget: Allocation account. Now that the funds have been deposited, we need to make the switch as those are what the funds were raised for. I have only seen the ability to create or view transfers and not edit them. Since the transfer was made, we are now having an extra sum count against our budget and our other account looks padded.

I have read that writing a check from the Other account that holds that fundraising money back into the Budget is kind of frowned upon. Suggestions?

tedo77 wrote:I have read that writing a check from the Other account that holds that fundraising money back into the Budget is kind of frowned upon.

You may be stuck having to do exactly that. Short of having the stake return the money so you can re-do the transfer, I don't know as there's any other options.

You could try calling CHQ and see if there's something they can do at their end to edit the transfer.

We had similar experience today where a ward sent in their portion of Youth camp funds to the stake by writing out a check using their "Budget" account. Their "Other" account was empty, so they had to use "Budget"account money because the money was due. The leader said that money will be coming in soon from parents of youth and fund raising, but he didn't know if he could put the money coming in into the "Budget' account, because he knows it's really "Other" account money.
My question is could this ward have written a check coming out of an empty "Other" account, and then immediately refund the "Other" account as the monies came in to off-set the negative balance that they would have created?

hopperjd8770 wrote:My question is could this ward have written a check coming out of an empty "Other" account, and then immediately refund the "Other" account as the monies came in to off-set the negative balance that they would have created?

Driving the "Other" account negative is likely to result in a unpleasant message from CHQ. A better strategy would be to write the check from the budget account and then when the "Other" account has the funds, reclassify the check. The reclassification will reimburse the budget (in an approved way) and remove the funds from "Other" (but without driving it into the red).

tedo77 wrote:Sorry to resurrect a dead post, but I need to do the exact same thing and the option that was given as a solution is not really an option. Everyone recommended editing the transfer to change the category from "budget: allocation" to "other: authorized member financed".

Situation: We made a transfer to the stake to cover prepayment of boys camp. At the time, the fund raising money had not been deposited into the Other account so the payment had to be made out of the Budget: Allocation account. Now that the funds have been deposited, we need to make the switch as those are what the funds were raised for. I have only seen the ability to create or view transfers and not edit them. Since the transfer was made, we are now having an extra sum count against our budget and our other account looks padded.

I have read that writing a check from the Other account that holds that fundraising money back into the Budget is kind of frowned upon. Suggestions?

I had this come up and our stake instructed me to write a check from the OTHER and deposit it in the bank into the BUDGET.