Stake Finance Tools in MLS?

Discuss questions around local unit policies for budgeting, reconciling, etc. This forum should not contain specific financial or membership information.
Post Reply
moroni12
New Member
Posts: 7
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 11:24 am

Stake Finance Tools in MLS?

#1

Post by moroni12 »

I've been a stake finance clerk for almost 8 years now (once a clerk, always a clerk) and although I have found MLS a vast improvement over FIS, I wish it had more tools for stake level administration.

For instance, with 11 wards and a branch within our boundaries, it is quite an effort to maintain contact with all the ward finance clerks. Although I don't use or endorse the 'Big Brother' approach, it would be helpful to know that each unit has reconciled their monthly statement in a timely manner - a report showing which units have completed this monthly task would be very helpful.

Also, every year I am to submit the outstanding checks report for the stake, relying on the unit clerks to send me their report before the deadline. I cannot see outstanding checks for individual units unless I visit each one and request it. This past audit cycle I attended each audit by way of assignment from the stake president. During the audits I found more than half the units had outstanding checks from 2008, and two units had outstanding from 2007! They did not report these on their outstanding check reports. For the most part these are excellent clerks, many are long timers. I helped each one understand the legal implications for not reporting the outstanding checks. If I had a report showing outstanding check details by unit each month I could help nip this problem in the bud. Ditto NSF checks, and out of balance deposits.

Lastly, since each finance clerk as well as bishopric member is required to have reviewed the on-line training for church finances, it would also be very helpful to get a report showing who has completed the training so we can encourage those not on the list, especially prior to audit cycles. I know I had to log in to take the training, so the data should be available. Ditto for the audit committee training.

I fully realize that with more dedicated, passionate, knowledgeable, driven, (insert your own adjective here) clerks I would not have a need for the above reports. Maybe in the millennium...

Are any of these possible? MDC
User avatar
aebrown
Community Administrator
Posts: 15153
Joined: Tue Nov 27, 2007 8:48 pm
Location: Draper, Utah

#2

Post by aebrown »

Mike D Clerk wrote:I wish MLS had more tools for stake level administration.
...
it would be helpful to know that each unit has reconciled their monthly statement in a timely manner - a report showing which units have completed this monthly task would be very helpful.
I agree that this would be nice. In our recent round of audits, we found out that one ward had not reconciled since January. Had I known about that in March, I could have given more timely assistance and training. Now in September, it's a much bigger problem.
Mike D Clerk wrote:If I had a report showing outstanding check details by unit each month I could help nip this problem in the bud. Ditto NSF checks, and out of balance deposits.
If stake MLS simply had the ability to download ward/branch Church Unit Financial Statements, that would be a big help in this regard. It doesn't seem like this should be all that difficult to implement, since there is already a mechanism for downloading financial statements.
Mike D Clerk wrote:Lastly, since each finance clerk as well as bishopric member is required to have reviewed the on-line training for church finances, it would also be very helpful to get a report showing who has completed the training so we can encourage those not on the list, especially prior to audit cycles. I know I had to log in to take the training, so the data should be available. Ditto for the audit committee training.
On this one, I agree that it would be nice to have a record of the training completed. That would help not only those of us tasked with making sure that individuals complete the training, but also help those individuals in their good-faith efforts to take all the training.

However, it's not true that you have to login to take the training. Anyone in the world can go to lds.org under Serving in the Church and take the training without logging in, and of course without any record being kept of the completion of the training.

There is also no official list of who needs to take which course. I created a training matrix spreadhsheet to help track this in my stake, but that is purely based on my own judgment (and review by other clerks in my stake). And of course tracking of the training relies on voluntary compliance and communication from the wards to the stake, which can be problematic.

The FamilySearch training uses some sort of Learning Management System; perhaps that could be leveraged to improve tracking of training.
User avatar
mkmurray
Senior Member
Posts: 3266
Joined: Tue Jan 23, 2007 9:56 pm
Location: Utah
Contact:

#3

Post by mkmurray »

Alan_Brown wrote:The FamilySearch training uses some sort of Learning Management System; perhaps that could be leveraged to improve tracking of training.
This may be of interest to you then: https://tech.lds.org/wiki/index.php/EBu ... pplication
Post Reply

Return to “Local Unit Finance”