Transfer funds within ward

Discussions around using and interfacing with the Church MLS program.
Locked
drewsky48
New Member
Posts: 2
Joined: Tue Sep 30, 2014 8:40 am

Transfer funds within ward

#1

Post by drewsky48 »

Hello,

Our Ward was recently audited by the stake and they found we had too many funds in our 'other' account. The reason for that was we had income for young women's girl's camp and it got deposited into the "Other - YW girls camp" account. My understanding is I need to move those funds from the 'other' account and into the 'young women's' account; however, when I go into 'transfers' on the mls it only allows me to transfer funds between wards in our stake. So how do I do this, or who do I need to have do this?

I am currently serving as the 2nd couselor in the bishopric of that changes anything.

Drew Bahoravitch
eblood66
Senior Member
Posts: 3907
Joined: Mon Sep 24, 2007 9:17 am
Location: Cumming, GA, USA

Re: Transfer funds within ward

#2

Post by eblood66 »

drewsky48 wrote:Hello,

Our Ward was recently audited by the stake and they found we had too many funds in our 'other' account. The reason for that was we had income for young women's girl's camp and it got deposited into the "Other - YW girls camp" account. My understanding is I need to move those funds from the 'other' account and into the 'young women's' account; however, when I go into 'transfers' on the mls it only allows me to transfer funds between wards in our stake. So how do I do this, or who do I need to have do this?

I am currently serving as the 2nd couselor in the bishopric of that changes anything.

Drew Bahoravitch
Rather than transferring funds, it would be better to recategorize the appropriate expenses. Using the budget report identify expenses that should have been paid for out of the 'Other - YW girls camp' account but were instead paid from the budget. Identify sufficient funds so that you can zero out the camp account. Then find each of those expenses in the View/Update Expenses screen and click on the expense. In the popup dialog change the category from the budget category to the camp category. Do this for each expense. For the last expense, instead of changing the current category add a new category line for the camp account and put just enough on that line to use up the last of the camp account. Then adjust the budget line so that the total for the expense remains the same.

Effectively this will transfer funds from the camp to the budget account but it will leave a good audit trail of which expenses were actually camp expenses. This will show that the funds were used correctly and not just added to the budget. By policy funds in the Other account must only be used for their intended purposes.
drepouille
Senior Member
Posts: 2859
Joined: Sun Jul 01, 2007 6:06 pm
Location: Plattsmouth, NE

Re: Transfer funds within ward

#3

Post by drepouille »

It sounds like you are acting as a bishop's counselor, a membership clerk, and a finance clerk.

You may not transfer funds from an Other subcategory to a Budget category. Funds raised and collected for YW Camp should only be spent on YW Camp expenses.
Dana Repouille, Plattsmouth, Nebraska
User avatar
aebrown
Community Administrator
Posts: 15153
Joined: Tue Nov 27, 2007 8:48 pm
Location: Draper, Utah

Re: Transfer funds within ward

#4

Post by aebrown »

drewsky48 wrote:Our Ward was recently audited by the stake and they found we had too many funds in our 'other' account. The reason for that was we had income for young women's girl's camp and it got deposited into the "Other - YW girls camp" account. My understanding is I need to move those funds from the 'other' account and into the 'young women's' account; however, when I go into 'transfers' on the mls it only allows me to transfer funds between wards in our stake. So how do I do this, or who do I need to have do this?
First of all, even if you conceptually want to transfer funds between major categories, you can't use the MLS "Transfer" feature to do so -- you would have to write a check to your ward from the source category and deposit (most likely as part of a regular donation batch) into the destination category.

But in this particular case, I would be wary of simply moving funds from Other to Budget. If the amount in Other-YW Camp exceeds the amount actually spent on this year's camp, then you would be violating policy in moving those funds into Budget.

Regardless of whether the funds in Other exceed the expenses, eblood66 gave excellent counsel on how and why you should recategorize expenses, rather than making a transfer.
russellhltn
Community Administrator
Posts: 34422
Joined: Sat Jan 20, 2007 2:53 pm
Location: U.S.

Re: Transfer funds within ward

#5

Post by russellhltn »

drewsky48 wrote:Our Ward was recently audited by the stake and they found we had too many funds in our 'other' account.
I'm having a major "huh?" moment here. I assume it's not "too many categories", but rather left over funds. Please keep in mind there are polices about income from non-budget sources - they can only be spent on their intended purpose and any leftover can't just be rolled into the budget. I believe Handbook 1 covers what to do with any excess.

Transfers from "other" to "budget" is frowned upon - if for no other reason that it makes it difficult to see if policy regarding non-budget income has been followed. (There is no problem with transferring from "budget" to "other" as there is no restriction on budget funds.)
Have you searched the Help Center? Try doing a Google search and adding "site:churchofjesuschrist.org/help" to the search criteria.

So we can better help you, please edit your Profile to include your general location.
Locked

Return to “MLS Support, Help, and Feedback”