CUBS: Other: Balances not what they used to be - How do I fix?

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 »

coloradotechie wrote: I'm left with -$192.13 in "Other:Payable to Local Unit".

How am I going to fix this? I do not know.
Maybe I can save you some time. I plowed through all my Other data and found that I actually need 2006 data or earlier to fully reconcile the error. Without it, I'm blind. I put a link above, but the detailed explanation is here.

In summary, I tracked my discrepancy to a difference between my 2006 balance forward and my expenses cut in 2007 from donations received in 2006. The discrepancy is either due to an error computing the balance forward or an error from pre-2007 that was cleverly masked and therefore overlooked. CUBS has just unmasked it. I don't know which case is true. All my other "Other" expenses were fully covered by the income shown post-CUBS.

As for what to do, I would first wait to receive the October statement and follow the Action items. If that doesn't work, I'd wait for all the patches MLS is sending down - there should be some this week. If after that it still doesn't go away, I would call LUS.
coloradotechie-p40
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#22

Post by coloradotechie-p40 »

crislapi wrote:As for what to do, I would first wait to receive the October statement and follow the Action items. If that doesn't work, I'd wait for all the patches MLS is sending down - there should be some this week. If after that it still doesn't go away, I would call LUS.
THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU! I'm going to take your advice and just wait and see. I'm finally feeling confident enough to move forward with this CUBS stuff and just wait for help to get rid of my negative balances in "Budget:Allocations" and "Other:Payable to Local Unit" (even after following the instructions to zero out old budget categories and re-establish "Other:" category balances).

Thanks again for all your help!
ralitaco
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#23

Post by ralitaco »

coloradotechie wrote:Yesterday I followed the instructions from the 9 page email and I transferred money out of the "Other:Payable to Local Unit:<sub-category-name>" to "Other:Payable to Local Unit" to re-establish all balances that were in their previously.

(Note: Since I waited to do this until Oct 31 I had to take special care for any income or expenses to each of these categories during the Post-CUBS update and Oct. 31).

I'm left with -$192.13 in "Other:Payable to Local Unit".

Colorado,
You may have already done these things, but I figured I'd put it out there anyway.

I suggest you look at the 2 sets of reports that you printed. You need to compare the totals of the "Other" accts (main and subs) from the 17th match the total of the "Other: Payable to Local Unit" accts (main and subs).
If the totals match, you are in great shape.
You just need to do transfers in the amounts that will make the 24th mirror the 17th.

I believe you can do an Income & Expense Report for a custom date and use the 18th so you don't see the data you posted on the 31st.
If not, they use a pen and paper and add / subtract the amounts you entered on the 31st.

I hope that helps,
Jim
ralitaco
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#24

Post by ralitaco »

crislapi wrote:As for what to do, I would first wait to receive the October statement and follow the Action items.

Because the Other:Payable to Local Unit accts are local, will they be on the Financial statements?
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ffrsqpilot
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#25

Post by ffrsqpilot »

I believe I finally have the stake computer up to speed with transfers in the Other and Budget accounts so I have moved on to help one of the ward computers where the clerk is relatively new dealing with finances.

In trying to zero out the Payable to Unit in Other I have come up with a shortfall that I can't reconcile. I compared the balances between the 17th and 24 and checked to make sure there were no transactions since the 24th but I have found that there seems to be a $32 error. I need to transfer another $32 out of one of the subcaterories to make the Payable to Unit category zero out). Part of the problem may be that the unit computer has a bunch (and I mean a bunch) of subcategories in the Other Account that had negative balances. I tallied all the numbers up on a hand held calculator and for some reason there just seems to be a lingering $32 shortfall. See if the following example makes sense:
Other Boy Scouts - Cub Scouts 17th report shows a -$131.00. The Other Boy Scouts - Cub Scouts 24th report shows a balance of $50.00. So I am thinking that to get the new report to read the correct negative balance of $131.00 I would actually transfer from that category $181.00 so after the transfer it would read a -$131.00

I have to do this with four of their categories (add the 24th balance to the 17th negative balance) to transfer to the Payable to Unit Category. I have done this but no matter how many times I go through the numbers I still come up $32 short. Perhaps this is one of those cases where something way back in 2006 is making the shortfall but how do you find it - and is it worth it trying to back it that far or just take an extra $32 out of one of the positive categories and use that to make the Payable to Unit zero out?

Or, should we just be leaving this type of problem alone and see what shows up on the Unit Finance report when it comes out?
ralitaco
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#26

Post by ralitaco »

Pilotfly,
does the total of ALL the "Other" categories and subs from the 17th EQUAL the total of ALL the "Other:Payable..." categories and subs from the 24th?

If so, then the -32 has to be an error in the amounts transferred. On my report I had 1 Other subcategory on page 2 of the report and missed it at first.

If the totals are off by the 32, then I would think the issue was pre 2007.

Also, your math seemed right to me.

Hope it helps,
Jim
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ffrsqpilot
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#27

Post by ffrsqpilot »

Ralitaco,

I left all the paperwork on the units desk. I will go back in the morning and check the balances. However, I never did the transfers as I couldn't make the numbers jive. So it makes me think that the issue is something back in 2006 that just doesn't show up in the pre-CUB's reports.
ralitaco
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#28

Post by ralitaco »

Alan_Brown wrote:Those categories are fine to use. Because they can't be deleted or changed at this point, they are definitely what you should use. If you were to create fresh subcategories, then your reports would look like they had duplicate categories.

The categories themselves are not "greyed out" or disabled -- it's only the deletion and renaming of them that is disabled. So go ahead and use them.
Not trying to be hard headed, but I can't make them inactive by unchecking the box next to active. This makes me think that they will be taken care of much like the Budget:Allocations:<subcategories> that crossed over too.
I would like to inactivate all but 3 Other:Payable... accounts so they stop showing on the list when I write checks.

If I could inactivate the accounts I would be happier. I think I may go ahead and create Fresh accounts with slightly different names in the hopes that the rest of the accounts are deactivated or dissappear.

One last thing for now, why did they created a budget category called other instead of miscellaneous? That was part of my confusion early on.
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aebrown
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#29

Post by aebrown »

ralitaco wrote:If I could inactivate the accounts I would be happier. I think I may go ahead and create Fresh accounts with slightly different names in the hopes that the rest of the accounts are deactivated or dissappear.
You're welcome to do that, but I don't have much hope that the rest of the accounts will be deactivated. They have activity in them. It seems extremely likely that they will thus follow the normal rules and stick around for 3+ years.

I'm pretty sure that if you create fresh accounts, you'll just have that many more accounts to deal with -- not fewer.
ralitaco wrote:One last thing for now, why did they created a budget category called other instead of miscellaneous? That was part of my confusion early on.
Just remember that it is under Budget, so it has nothing to do with the top level Other. But I can see how using the word "Other" in two contexts could be confusing.
Questions that can benefit the larger community should be asked in a public forum, not a private message.
ralitaco
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#30

Post by ralitaco »

Alan_Brown wrote: but I don't have much hope that the rest of the accounts will be deactivated. They have activity in them. It seems extremely likely that they will thus follow the normal rules and stick around for 3+ years.

I certainly hope that we can make those accounts inactive b/c I have a ton and it is irritating having to look through all the categories to find the 3 that I use. If I create new ones, I can at least name them something so they will be at the top of the list.

I will let this issue rest, but thanks for all the input.
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