Transfer money from Budget to "other"

[surf40]

We need to transfer money from the budget to an other category. Reason: Bishop wrote a check for scout camp from the designated other category, but we didn’t have enough money to cover the full cost. So now our “other” category is in the red.
Can I do the transfer in MLS, or do we need to write a check from budget and deposit it in other? I looked at the transfer section on MLS, but it didn’t give a choice of budget for the “from” line.

Thanks
Danny

[jdlessley]

Without getting into the details of funding for summer camps, the technical procedure to get funds from one major category (budget and Other as discussed here) to another major category is to write a check and then deposit the amount in the same manor as any other donation.

The topic of moving funds between major categories has been discussed in the threrad Policies on Moving Funds Between Two Major Cateogories.

[Gary_Miller]

All that needs done is to do a category adjustment to the original expense.

No reason to write another check and then deposit it into the other account.

[RossEvans]

All that needs done is to do a category adjustment to the original expense.

No reason to write another check and then deposit it into the other account.

Yes indeed. And if you need to move only a portion of the expense to Budget, the revised categories can be split with part of the expense charged to Budget and the rest of it charged to Other.

This procedure also works in reverse to transfer expenses from Budget to Other. Our bishop is agent bishop for our building, and at the suggestion of our stake clerk we maintain an Other:Agent Bishop escrow account for this purpose. But sometimes expenses for the library from the Distribution Center or its Staples e-commerce partner get charged to Budget: Distribution Center automatically. We have learned just to recategorize such an expense to the Other:Agent Bishop account without writing a check to transfer funds.

[gregwanderson]

Yes indeed. And if you need to move only a portion of the expense to Budget, the revised categories can be split with part of the expense charged to Budget and the rest of it charged to Other.

I was going to suggest this but then I remembered that MLS wouldn't allow you to write one check that took from Budget and "Other" in the same check. At least, that's how it used to be. Have they changed this? So, if you can't write a check that way I would think you can't revise an expense that way either. If you changed the check from 100% "Other" to 100% Budget then it would work, even if you changed it to multiple categories that were all budget categories. But you couldn't change it from 100% "Other" to 50% Other and 50% Budget.

[Gary_Miller]

Yes indeed. And if you need to move only a portion of the expense to Budget, the revised categories can be split with part of the expense charged to Budget and the rest of it charged to Other.

I was going to suggest this but then I remembered that MLS wouldn't allow you to write one check that took from Budget and "Other" in the same check. At least, that's how it used to be. Have they changed this?

MLS will let you write a check taking funds from the Budget account and the Other account. It will as so allow an adjustment to an existing check also using those accounts.

Last year we wrote the check for scout camp from the budget funds and as the individual payments came in and the money from the fund raiser I adjusted the check categories. It was very simple to do.

[aebrown]

I was going to suggest this but then I remembered that MLS wouldn't allow you to write one check that took from Budget and "Other" in the same check. At least, that's how it used to be. Have they changed this?

Yes, the ability to charge an expense to multiple major categories was added for the US/Canada when we switched to CUBS back in 2010 (other countries had this capability even earlier than that).

[gregwanderson]

Then, yes, I agree that the best solution in this situation is to go back and change the categories of the original check using "View/Update Expenses." The update is immediate and the record is cleaner than the "write a check to yourself" method. Plus, you save the trouble of the extra paperwork and signature-gathering of writing another check.

[surf40]

Thanks for all the help with this. So the question is now this. We wrote the check for (using round numbers) $1000. We only had $200 in the "other camp" account. So we were -$800. Then last week we received $300 from a parent towards the scout camp, so we put that in the "other camp" So now we are only $500 in the red. Is it possible to go into MLS and re-catagorize the original check for $500 Budget (YM) and $500 "other camp", and then we'll be even?

Thanks

Danny

[aebrown]

Is it possible to go into MLS and re-catagorize the original check for $500 Budget (YM) and $500 "other camp", and then we'll be even?

Yes. That recategorization will change the amount from Other:AMFA:Camp from $200 to $500. That change will cause a $300 transfer out of Other:AMFA:Camp, which will set your new balance to 0. It will also cause a $300 transfer back into Budget:YM (because that category amount on the check will change from $800 to $500).