aebrown wrote:Your proposal assumes that local subcategory balances at the ward level are known at CHQ (in CUBS). I don't think that's true.
The finance statement I receive each month at the Stake level shows me beginning balances and transactions (Income/expense/transfer) and ending balances, both monthly and year-to-date. In fixing these issues I've had numerous interactions with the Missionary department and they can pull up the balances of the missionaries accounts easily (that has been my experience).
aebrown wrote:You're also assuming that the local subcategory balance is correct. In my experience, clerks make all sorts of errors in crediting donation to the correct subcategory, which sometimes aren't fixed until tithing settlement time, or even later.
Yes, I imagine I am, I don't know any other way to do it. If I had to reconcile each donation over the last couple of years for a family each time a missionary family moved, that is even more cause for worry. At some point we have to trust that the balances are what we are working with. Yes, errors will be found and as stated earlier, fractional differences, or differences of a month or two are easily handled in both the positive and negative direction.
aebrown wrote:Some of the donations may have come from members of the ward who were happy to have their donations credited to a missionary from the ward, but they and the bishop might prefer to have that funding transferred to a current missionary from the ward, rather than going to a missionary who now is the responsibility of another ward.
Again, I'd say, that sure, this is certainly possible, however, I'd hope that when the Bishop designates the funds to a ward missionary that it remain a pretty permanent decision. If every time a missionary moved, the accounts were scoured for $10 and $25 dollar donations to 'keep back, and held for someone who remained loyal to the ward by not moving
How in the world will accounts ever be accurate, and why would a family all-of-a-sudden be hundreds of dollars in the hole because they moved? It seems an extremely unlikely event.
aebrown wrote:I have to agree with the basic principle that the bishop is the shepherd over those funds -- not some automatic system that depends on the state of the accounting at some particular point in time.
Nothing in my comments replaces a Bishop's position as shepherd of funds. Once the designation is made to transfer the 'funding' unit - approval is granted on both sides. The previous ward has all the time in the world to complete any or all of the above before the Bishops authorize the exchange (either by completing the steps before proactively pushing the transfer, or by completing the steps prior to agreeing to approve the receiving Bishop's request to transfer the funds).
aebrown wrote:In my experience (and I've done this personally multiple times), this "time consuming process" you refer to takes a couple of minutes -- 5 minutes tops. Look on the Income and Expense Detail Report for when the donations stopped, and how many payments have come out since then. The answer is generally 0, 1, or 2, but even if it's bigger, it's trivial to calculate.
Yes, as long as there remains no negative or positive balance, I consider it the same process and not two processes, though it must be complete in two processes. I have rarely seen a transfer that didn't have balances associated with it outside the $400 monthly transaction which is, I agree, easy to ascertain.
“A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defense of custom.”
― Thomas Paine, Common Sense