jdlessley - moderator
Alan_Brown wrote:
I've put those documents on the wiki under Church Unit Banking Services (CUBS) (with both those steps corrected) if you want a clean copy of the instructions.
Section 3.5 of the CUBS instructions (Donors) reads as follows:
"A Husband and Wife are donating together. Can they show on the same donation?" No. Donor names may only show a single name, rather than showing a couple's names. The donor name will be the same as the full name on the membership record and cannot be changed. Donations previously made under 'Smith, John and Jane' and associated with John's membership record will show as 'Smith, John.' (Misc. donors and unit donors will still be added when needed.)"
In my ward, at least 50% of the donors in MLS are "joint donors," i.e., husband and wife. We are wondering what will actually occur when CUBS becomes the default. Will the "separate" donor database still exist with CUBS? If so, does CUBS populate it with membership-associated names, or do we have to manually add individual donors and associate them to the membership database [standard process now] to prepare for CUBS in the near future?
Further, if the legacy donor database continues to be used, we wonder about the "dead wood" in there. Obviously, the "joint donors" names will continue to exist, along with "long gone" donor's names. We already understand the process of "hiding" these to make data entry easier in MLS, but will that [hiding] process continue to be the exclusion method?
Finally, what advice do you suggest we give to members regarding filling out donation slips? The direction in the past has always been to "fill in the donor name exactly as you want it to appear on the donation". It will take some time to break the members of the habit of including "joint names," and it will require intense focus on the part of the clerk during data entry to interpret a joint-donor donation slip ("who actually donated, the husband or the wife?").
- How do we justify the needed change to the way members write out a donation slip?
- How do we explain what will happen with EOY summaries at tithing settlement (multiple summaries for the same donor)? Will there be fears about IRS auditors becoming confused about these multiple EOY summaries?
-- mtbaker