MLS finance transition to CUBS

Discuss questions around local unit policies for budgeting, reconciling, etc. This forum should not contain specific financial or membership information.
crislapi
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#21

Post by crislapi »

BroMurray wrote:Should we reconcile our July statement before the 15th?
I plan on it. No mention is made of needing to do it but I don't want to get stuck with anything.
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aebrown
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#22

Post by aebrown »

BroMurray wrote:Should we reconcile our July statement before the 15th?
I would think that's a good idea. I've done mine. It seems like we should do everything as normal until the transition date -- that should reduce the number of transition issues we have to resolve.
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gregwanderson
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#23

Post by gregwanderson »

This is reminding me of the transition from FIS to MLS (which, for us, happened in November 2004). I knew exactly what was going on in our ward finances (and was all up-to-date in FIS before the transition) but I just didn't know how to please MLS at first. I wasn't trying to enter any false information or mis-manage ward funds in any way but MLS was still "slapping my hands" a lot. Don't try to argue with MLS because 1) it's in charge anyway, 2) it's extremely stubborn and 3) it'll win every time using the law of "because I said so." In 2004 I was convinced that FIS had been my tool but MLS was my master.

But then, once I learned the MLS way of doing things, it was okay. So I would suggest that the first month of CUBS will cause a lot of hair loss but, after that, it'll probably be okay. Dig into it as soon as you can. Then let's all come back here and share our "tips and tricks" right off the bat.
ddurocher-p40
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#24

Post by ddurocher-p40 »

So a unit's unused budget will roll over from quarter to quarter and year to year? It will not get automatically zeroed out at any point?
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aebrown
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#25

Post by aebrown »

ddurocher wrote:So a unit's unused budget will roll over from quarter to quarter and year to year? It will not get automatically zeroed out at any point?
It will certainly roll over from quarter to quarter and not get zeroed at the quarter. We'll have to see just what happens at the year end. It appears that MLS will not automatically zero out the Budget category at the end of a year anymore, but I local stakes still control the overall budget and may set local policies.
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mlh78
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#26

Post by mlh78 »

Alan_Brown wrote:It appears that MLS will not automatically zero out the Budget category at the end of a year anymore, but I local stakes still control the overall budget and may set local policies.

In our stake we have mulled over the idea of just having the wards send a check to the stake for the balance of their budget at the end of the year. I sure hope that this new system affords stakes continued flexibility in how they allocate budgets.
ddurocher-p40
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Canada specific Tax Question

#27

Post by ddurocher-p40 »

The documentation says:
For units in Canada, half of the amount of the tax will be left in the unit's account. The other half of the tax amount plus the expense will be deducted from the account."
Does anyone know if this allocation of "half the tax" needs to be done manually or if we should be putting the full amount of the tax in the tax account ...

David
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aebrown
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#28

Post by aebrown »

ddurocher wrote:The documentation says:

"For units in Canada, half of the amount of the tax will be left in the unit's account. The other half of the tax amount plus the expense will be deducted from the account."

Does anyone know if this allocation of "half the tax" needs to be done manually or if we should be putting the full amount of the tax in the tax account ...
The instructions say (just before what you quoted):
For those units that are required to record sales tax with each disbursement, this will no longer be recorded in a Tax field on the Expense screen. Instead, the amount of the expense will be split between the expense and the tax on the expense. Both will be entered under the "Category" and "Amount" columns.
It could have been worded a bit better, but it seems pretty clear to me that we will be entering the full amount of the expense and the tax. But then there will be a reimbursement of part (Canada) or all (Utah/NC) of the tax portion. It only makes sense to say "half of the amount of the tax will be left in the unit's account" if the full amount is recorded.

So if I understand it correctly, if you purchase something with a base price of $100 and tax of $6 for a total of $106, you would record a total expense of $106 and the categories would be $100 for the appropriate budget category (say, Budget:Activities), and the remaining $6 would be in some new special category for tax. Then for units in Canada the net expense would be $103 (I don't know if this is done via an automatic reimbursement transfer of $3 or if it will just be the way the expense shows up), and for units in Utah and North Carolina the net expense would be $100. For all other units, they would not need to use the special tax category, and the total expense would be $106.
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crislapi
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#29

Post by crislapi »

mlh78 wrote:In our stake we have mulled over the idea of just having the wards send a check to the stake for the balance of their budget at the end of the year.
I'm curious why you would do this. Is this for the case if wards are allowed to keep their excess budget? However, I see no point. Ultimately, all budget money resides in the stake, not the ward. There is no need to have them cut you a check. Just tell them that as of Jan 1 their new budget is $X.
edit: I'm slow, but get it now. If it does roll over, they'll get the new disbursement added to the carryover. I guess you could play w/ percentages, but that's more work. I sure wish we could get some more details about this system.
mlh78 wrote:I sure hope that this new system affords stakes continued flexibility in how they allocate budgets.
One of my greatest frustrations with what I understand about CUBS is how our hand is somewhat limited when it comes to budgets. From the instructions:
The stake determines the distribution of the entire budget amount for the stake and all its wards unless directed otherwise by area authorities. Stakes manage this by assigning budget distribution percentages between the stake and each ward...
You still have full control over the percentages to assign, but it might take a little more creativity on your part now to figure out just what the percentages need to be to assign the budget the way you intended. I've already created a spreadsheet to compute percentages from our current way of assigning the budget.
ddurocher-p40
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#30

Post by ddurocher-p40 »

Alan_Brown wrote: Then for units in Canada the net expense would be $103 (I don't know if this is done via an automatic reimbursement transfer of $3 or if it will just be the way the expense shows up),

OK, so I guess we still don't know if in Canada, we should be entering $100 in the budget account and $6 in the tax (and the system automatically re-allocates $3), or if we manually have to split the tax amount between the two - $103 and $3.

BTW, in Ontario that would be more like $100 and $13, OR $106.50 and $6.50.

Sometimes I think if I had lived in King Noah's kingdom and only had to pay a 1/5, it might not have been so bad ...
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