Other Authorized Member Financed Activities Issue

Discuss questions around local unit policies for budgeting, reconciling, etc. This forum should not contain specific financial or membership information.
Post Reply
evlarson
New Member
Posts: 10
Joined: Sun Feb 12, 2017 6:38 am

Other Authorized Member Financed Activities Issue

#1

Post by evlarson »

I am the District Auditor helping a clerk in one of the branches. In this particular branch there are several "Other Authorized Member Financed Activities" accounts that I see as inappropriate because they are obsolete, example "Friends of Scouting 2013". On the mid year audit the clerk said he was going to zero out all of these obsolete accounts and delete them. When I did the year end audit last week I found that these accounts were still there with funds in them, but the funds were different amounts (less and more) than during the mid year audit. The clerk told me that he did in fact zero out all of the accounts after the mid year audit and has no idea how funds got back into them. In fact he told me that he did not know the purpose of these accounts. I directed him to the help section at https://www.lds.org/help/support/other- ... y?lang=eng and let him know the purpose of these accounts is for short term pass-through funds gained through activities like fund raising. He then told me that he had no idea how to even put funds into these accounts. Since as an auditor I do not have access to MLS and do not know the process to put funds into these accounts please let me know how this is done and if there has been anyone with this experience with funds showing up in these accounts unexpectedly without the clerk knowing about it. Any help would be appreciated.
russellhltn
Community Administrator
Posts: 34418
Joined: Sat Jan 20, 2007 2:53 pm
Location: U.S.

Re: Other Authorized Member Financed Activities Issue

#2

Post by russellhltn »

The clerk needs to run a report that shows all the transactions on that account. That would show where the funds came from/went to.

My knee-jerk thought is that someone made a donation to "Friends of Scouting" on their paper donation slip and the clerk doing the weekly data entry put it in "Friends of Scouting 2013". There is no automation (such as from on-line donations) that would be able to place anything in that account. Some clerk did that. Just maybe not the one you were talking to.

The only other thought is that perhaps a check got canceled - which might have returned money to that account.
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.
evlarson
New Member
Posts: 10
Joined: Sun Feb 12, 2017 6:38 am

Re: Other Authorized Member Financed Activities Issue

#3

Post by evlarson »

Once we get these accounts zeroed out how do we go about deleting them?
russellhltn
Community Administrator
Posts: 34418
Joined: Sat Jan 20, 2007 2:53 pm
Location: U.S.

Re: Other Authorized Member Financed Activities Issue

#4

Post by russellhltn »

I don't think you can delete them per se, but you should be able to deactivate them - that will prevent any donations from being added or checks written on that account.
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.
lajackson
Community Moderators
Posts: 11460
Joined: Mon Mar 17, 2008 10:27 pm
Location: US

Re: Other Authorized Member Financed Activities Issue

#5

Post by lajackson »

evlarson wrote:Once we get these accounts zeroed out how do we go about deleting them?
Hide them so that they do not display. After they are not used for the financial retention period for your country, they will be deleted automatically.
evlarson
New Member
Posts: 10
Joined: Sun Feb 12, 2017 6:38 am

Re: Other Authorized Member Financed Activities Issue

#6

Post by evlarson »

Can you outline the steps it takes to hide them so that I can advise the clerk I am working with? Thanks.
Hilohi
Member
Posts: 194
Joined: Sun Dec 26, 2010 8:22 pm

Re: Other Authorized Member Financed Activities Issue

#7

Post by Hilohi »

evlarson wrote:Can you outline the steps it takes to hide them so that I can advise the clerk I am working with? Thanks.
I'm interested in learning how to hide the Other accounts, too.
evlarson
New Member
Posts: 10
Joined: Sun Feb 12, 2017 6:38 am

Re: Other Authorized Member Financed Activities Issue

#8

Post by evlarson »

lajackson wrote:
evlarson wrote:Once we get these accounts zeroed out how do we go about deleting them?
Hide them so that they do not display. After they are not used for the financial retention period for your country, they will be deleted automatically.
How can I check the retention period for my country? Also how do you go about hiding them?
eblood66
Senior Member
Posts: 3907
Joined: Mon Sep 24, 2007 9:17 am
Location: Cumming, GA, USA

Re: Other Authorized Member Financed Activities Issue

#9

Post by eblood66 »

evlarson wrote:How can I check the retention period for my country? Also how do you go about hiding them?
I'm not aware of any list available. For the US it's 3 years but the current year. For other areas, if you know contact information for your area administration office they may be able to tell you. There is some information in the comments section of the help center article on filing expenses but there is no guarantee that those are correct and current.

To hide the category in MLS select the Finance > Budget > Add/Update Categories menu option, expand the option for Other and then Authorized Member Financed Activities, select the category in question and uncheck the Active checkbox. This will hide the category from the list shown when processing donations. For reports it will hide the category if there are no transactions for the time period of the report. But, for example, it will still show up in the Finance Income and Expense Reports for the current year if there have been any transactions in the category during the current year.
russellhltn
Community Administrator
Posts: 34418
Joined: Sat Jan 20, 2007 2:53 pm
Location: U.S.

Re: Other Authorized Member Financed Activities Issue

#10

Post by russellhltn »

For the US, it's 3 years plus the current year. Right now it's 2017, so anything before 2014 can be discarded. (2014, 2015, 2016 being the 3 years.)

I'm not sure what it is for other countries. I thought it was five years plus current, but I'm seeing reports of 10 for Europe and 7 for New Zealand. It's all dependent on local laws.
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.
Post Reply

Return to “Local Unit Finance”