Temple construction - Temple (specific)

[elderlarryhawkes-p40]

On this Web-page https://tech.lds.org/wiki/index.php/Donation_categories it Says:
Temple (Specific) (charitable, not automatically transferred) - Funds contributed to Temple (Specific) are used only for the building of temples which have been announced by the First Presidency but not yet dedicated. Funds contributed to this category may be specified by the donor for any of these temples. Add a subcategory in Other: Temple (Specific) to receipt and disburse these contributions. Remit the funds by check, payable to Corporation of the President, with the purpose line identifying the specific temple for which these funds are intended. Mail the check to: Receipting Office, 15th Floor, 50 East North Temple Street, Salt Lake City, UT 84150. Funds in this category should be remitted monthly.

The Question is, how specifically is the subcategory in MLS created so MLS gives the member credit for the donation as a charitable contribution since it is being applied to the "other" category which is not typically credited as a charitable contribution when funds are put in the "other" category?

For examle, we created a sub-category under "Other" called "Temple (Specific) Brigham City" and applied the contribution. Or is it required that the subcategory specifically be named "Temple (Specific)" or "Temple (Brigham City)" or some other format, for the member to get credit as a charitable contribution?

[Mikerowaved]

Greetings,

You should already have an existing subcategory under Other named "Temple (Specific)". This special category can't be removed or renamed. You may, however, create additional subcategories under this (such as "Brigham City") to keep track of donations for individual temple construction projects. MLS is smart enough to know that donations to this special sub-category are indeed tax deductible, even though it resides under Other.

[elderlarryhawkes-p40]

Thanks for the reply Mikerowaved,

I went back to the church and pulled up a tithing settlement report for this member and it didn't show the amount that was donated under "Temple (specific) Brigham City" with the rest of the charitable contributions. So I re-alocated the donation to the built-in sub-category of "Temple (Specific)", did a send-receive and pulled up the tithing settlement report for that member again. It still didn't show the amount donated with the rest of the charitable contributions. It should, right?

[Mikerowaved]

Yes, it certainly should show up. Try going to Finance --> Finance Reports --> Donor Statements and pull up the YTD report for the donor. (If the adjustment you made was for a prior year, be sure to change which year you are viewing.)

Under "Additional Donations", you should see their donation to the Temple (Specific) fund and there should be NO asterisk by the donation. (An asterisk is used to indicate non-charitable contributions.)

[elderlarryhawkes-p40]

I looked up Finance --> Finance Reports --> Donor Statements and it did show the donation as a Charitable contribution. I also went back and pulled up a tithing settlement report for this member and I found I was previously mistaken in that it did not show on the tithing settlement report because I didn't notice that there was a page 2 for the report, it was really there I'm sure, but as a non-charitable contribution.

I attached a portion of a screen shot that shows where I had first put the donation under Other: "Temple (Specific): Brigham City" and note, it just showed up as Other on the report with an asterisk as a non-charitable contribution. Then you can see where I changed the donation to "Other: Temple (Specific)" and note, it shows it as such on the report, and it is now included as a charitable contribution.

Now the question/trick is, if possible, to know how to make an "Other" sub-category, for example "Temple (Specific):Brigham City", so contributions made to a particular temple can be tracked easier if you get several members contributing to more than one specific temple, and still be counted as Charitable by MLS on Donor statments.

[aebrown]

Now the question/trick is, if possible, to know how to make an "Other" sub-category, for example "Temple (Specific):Brigham City", so contributions made to a particular temple can be tracked easier if you get several members contributing to more than one specific temple, and still be counted as Charitable by MLS on Donor statments.

Yes, as Mikerowaved mentioned earlier, that is exactly what you need to do -- make a subcategory of "Temple (Specific)" for each temple. So you would have "Temple (Specific):Brigham City" and "Temple (Specific):Fortaleza", etc. Since these are subcategories of a charitable category, they will also be charitable subcategories.

[elderlarryhawkes-p40]

I sent a message to chruch HQ with MLS as follows.

If possible, see my question here.
http://tech.lds.org/forum/showthread.ph ... #post35629
And the all of the thread here
http://tech.lds.org/forum/showthread.php?t=3878

We would like to know if it is possible, to make an "Other" sub-category, for example "Temple (Specific):Brigham City", so contributions made to a particular temple can be tracked easier if you get several members contributing to more than one specific temple, and still be counted as Charitable by MLS on Donor statments. Or is using the "Temple (Specific)" sub-category under "Other" the only option for these kind of contributions?

We are using instructions from this process from here
https://tech.lds.org/wiki/index.php/Donation_categories
Temple (Specific) (charitable, not automatically transferred) - Funds contributed to Temple (Specific) are used only for the building of temples which have been announced by the First Presidency but not yet dedicated. Funds contributed to this category may be specified by the donor for any of these temples. Add a subcategory in Other: Temple (Specific) to receipt and disburse these contributions. Remit the funds by check, payable to Corporation of the President, with the purpose line identifying the specific temple for which these funds are intended. Mail the check to: Receipting Office, 15th Floor, 50 East North Temple Street, Salt Lake City, UT 84150. Funds in this category should be remitted monthly.

[Mikerowaved]

Now the question/trick is, if possible, to know how to make an "Other" sub-category, for example "Temple (Specific):Brigham City", so contributions made to a particular temple can be tracked easier if you get several members contributing to more than one specific temple, and still be counted as Charitable by MLS on Donor statments.

That's pretty easy. Just use Finance --> Budget --> Add/Update Categories and create a subcategory directly under "Temple (Specific)" called "Brigham City" and it will also be treated as a deductible category just like the parent.

[elderlarryhawkes-p40]

Now that my Brother Mikerowaved was exactly what I was hoping to learn. That worked just as I wanted and hoped it would. I created the new sub-category and re-assigned the donation to it, and MLS made it a charitable contribution specific to "Temple (Specific):Brigham City Temple Construction". See attached example for correct sub-category. Note the Category "Temple (Specific)test", that is the wrong place to create the the sub-category in this case.

Thanks a bunch for all your help, it is greatly appreciated.
Larry H.

[Mikerowaved]

Glad we could help.

Just a heads-up. Don't be alarmed if you can't delete your "Temple (Specific)test" category. Because it carried financial data (even for a short time), you must wait the required 3 years + the current year (5 years in Canada) for it to be eligible for deletion. That's assuming you're in the US. No worries though. Just uncheck the "Active" box in the Add/Update Categories screen and it will hide it during the aging process (and also keep clerks from accidentally putting donations there.)