CUBS is live

Discuss questions around local unit policies for budgeting, reconciling, etc. This forum should not contain specific financial or membership information.
crislapi
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Location: USA

CUBS is live

#1

Post by crislapi »

CUBS is now live. It should come down on your very next send/receive. You will notice a very long send/receive with the status "updating finances". After a couple minutes, you should receive a popup saying
The transition to the new financial system at Church headquarters is complete. You can now use MLS finance functionality.
At first glance, things are pretty similar. No surprises there. I thought I'd make a list of the new financial categories for the curious. None of these were there before. The categories we had before are now sub-categories under Budget:Budget Allocations and are still prepended with the "BU-" from the old system. The budget categories are:
Budget:Administration
Budget:Budget Allocations
Budget:Curriculum
Budget: Distribution Center Charges (have to add space or I get a smiley)
Budget:Elders Quorum
Budget:High Priests Group
Budget:Library
Budget:Other
Budget:Primary
Budget:Relief Society
Budget:Single Adults
Budget:Sunday School
Budget:Young Men
Budget:Young Women

Fast Offering categories have some slightly different wording (none of these are in the stake MLS. They weren't before either):
Fast Offerings: Fast Offerings Expenditures Food
Fast Offerings: Fast Offerings Expenditures Housing
Fast Offerings: Fast Offerings Expenditures Medical
Fast Offerings: Fast Offerings Expenditures Other
Fast Offerings: Fast Offerings Expenditures Utilities

The other categories appear to have kept more of the original categories. There are some new ones, however:
Other:Payable to Local Unit (every Other subcategory now has "Payable to Local Unit" as well.
Other:Payable to Local Unit:Cash over
Other:Payable to Local Unit:Misc

Plus some others
Reimbursed Expenses:Utah Sales Tax
Ward Missionary Fund
Ward Missionary Fund:Missionary Commitment Transfers (not in Stake MLS)

Additional fields unique to the stake are:
Payable to Local Unit
Reimbursed Expenses:Computer Equipment Repair
Reimbursed Expenses:Local Telephone Line
Reimbursed Expenses:Missionary Housing
Reimbursed Expenses:Priesthood Leader Phone/Travel
Reimbursed Expenses:Scout Registration

Besides our local sub-categories, that is everything listed on the drop down menu in the category section of the Enter Expenses screen (and the Income and Expense report: Summary by Sub-Categories).

Some additional observations:
Budget Report screen shows all 0's except it appears the YTD total of my expenses are now lumped into the Budget:Administration category. Sub-category balances will need to be recreated. That was covered in the instructions sent to each unit.

View/Edit budget screen still gives me the functionality to hand-enter starting balances for each budget subcategory. They are currently all 0's. There is still a spot on the bottom to enter a yearly budget allocation total as well.

The add/update donors screen appears to be the same as well.

***A unit running MLS 3.3.0b did NOT convert correctly. Here are some of the errors:
I got some database errors (a database error has occurred) when trying to open the Income and Expense report. It did open, however.

I get a database error (there was an error while reading the database) when I select view/update donations although it does still open. This unit is missing all donations prior to Jul 25 2010.

View/update expenses screen opens and appears to be ok. I do get a database error again when I try to view prior year info. If opens, but I'll have to actually compare reports to see if I'm missing anything.
crislapi
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Posts: 1267
Joined: Mon Jul 07, 2008 4:05 pm
Location: USA

#2

Post by crislapi »

An important side note here. The computer I was on in my previous post is running Windows 7 and MLS 3.3.0b. I have updated that post to reflect a good transition. I just did the send/receive on the stake computer (XP Pro and MLS 2.3.2) and I noticed a second pop-up I never got w/ MLS 3.3.0b:
The file CUBSMLS20101022_<unit#>.<some more numbers>" was processed successfully. #### records were processed.
If you are on MLS 3.3.0b, I would hold off on transmitting. I contacted LUS and was told a team lead would be giving me a call back in a bit. It does seem to be a 3.3 issue and not a 3.2.3 issue.

Similar playing around in the stake finances revealed no database errors and apparently no missing data as best I can tell for now.

For those curious, the Budget Allocation screen does have default values in it.
Sacrament meeting %: 80
Young Men %: 90
Young Women %: 90
Primary %: 100
Young Single Adults %: 70

The stake is of course free to change this, but in case they forget there are default values in there that will ensure the wards get a disbursement in January.
crislapi
Senior Member
Posts: 1267
Joined: Mon Jul 07, 2008 4:05 pm
Location: USA

#3

Post by crislapi »

I have one other unit running MLS 3.3.0b. I was told to definitely hold off on transitioning them until I hear back from LUS.
allenjpl
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Joined: Wed Apr 08, 2009 9:26 am
Location: Las Vegas, NV, USA

#4

Post by allenjpl »

When you look at the categories, does it show the history of expenses? For example, we had several different sub-categories under Primary, and I was just wondering if all the expenses that were under all of the various subcategories will show up under the general Primary category.
crislapi
Senior Member
Posts: 1267
Joined: Mon Jul 07, 2008 4:05 pm
Location: USA

#5

Post by crislapi »

LVAllen wrote:When you look at the categories, does it show the history of expenses? For example, we had several different sub-categories under Primary, and I was just wondering if all the expenses that were under all of the various subcategories will show up under the general Primary category.
There is no history. Just a lump total under Budget:Administration. You can step through it month my month, but that still just gives you total monthly expenses. All other subcategories are all 0's. You will likely have to recreate your subcategories and transfer funds to get the history if you want it. Your other option is to use your income and expense report from the 17th and just create starting balances for these subcategories equal to what their balances were on the 17th.
nmecantwin73
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Posts: 213
Joined: Thu Oct 11, 2007 9:36 am
Location: Utah

oh great...

#6

Post by nmecantwin73 »

crislapi wrote:There is no history. Just a lump total under Budget:Administration. You can step through it month my month, but that still just gives you total monthly expenses. All other subcategories are all 0's. You will likely have to recreate your subcategories and transfer funds to get the history if you want it. Your other option is to use your income and expense report from the 17th and just create starting balances for these subcategories equal to what their balances were on the 17th.
:confused:
So, let's say, hypothetically, of course, that a unit did not print these reports on the 17th? Is this ward essentially up a river without a paddle, so to speak? Are they having to basically start over and have to try to remember what their budget sub-category allocations were, or the specific names of the budget subcategories that they would want to re-include? And hope that all donation batches have been included?

I imagine that this will not be an uncommon occurrence during this transition. If a ward clerk was not as diligent as he should have been by actually following through on the nine-page MLS message, and no urging was given by a Stake clerk, what to do.... oh, what to do....

I guess those affected in this way just have to live with it and move on. My heart is sinking the more I read about this changeover.... but, I'll try not to be bitter... :eek:
allenjpl
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Posts: 341
Joined: Wed Apr 08, 2009 9:26 am
Location: Las Vegas, NV, USA

#7

Post by allenjpl »

njcant1 wrote::confused:
So, let's say, hypothetically, of course, that a unit did not print these reports on the 17th? Is this ward essentially up a river without a paddle, so to speak? Are they having to basically start over and have to try to remember what their budget sub-category allocations were, or the specific names of the budget subcategories that they would want to re-include? And hope that all donation batches have been included?
Well, hypothetically, I think you could try to get MLS installed on another computer, restore from the backup on the 17th, and print the reports that way. See this post. At least, I'm hoping you can. Else, I'll have to have a long and sheepish hypothetical discussion with the Bishop and Ward clerk about how I can't tell each organization what amount of their budget remains...
crislapi
Senior Member
Posts: 1267
Joined: Mon Jul 07, 2008 4:05 pm
Location: USA

#8

Post by crislapi »

njcant1 wrote::confused:
So, let's say, hypothetically, of course, that a unit did not print these reports on the 17th? Is this ward essentially up a river without a paddle, so to speak? Are they having to basically start over and have to try to remember what their budget sub-category allocations were, or the specific names of the budget subcategories that they would want to re-include? And hope that all donation batches have been included?
I wouldn't say all is lost. Perhaps visit this post for some ideas. I will admit the one week of lead time on the conversion was a bit short notice. If you do attempt the approach suggested there, do NOT restore your current version of MLS. While I don't know exactly what will happen, I'm afraid it might undo the whole conversion to CUBS.

I do need to clarify. The unit I was looking at was the one with the glitch. I have now converted 8 more units over w/o any more glitches. It appears that the sub-category names in these units has carried over. However, the financial information has not. Some categories do have limited financial information, but it is no where near complete. It'll take more digging to see exactly where things are, but quick observation is that the financial information at the sub-category information has been lost. Most of the information appears to have been combined/lulmped into the Budget:Administration and Budget:Budget Allocations sub-categories, thus loosing sub-category specific information. Restoring balances to their pre-CUBS values will involve using the Income and Expense report printed on the 17th and transfers. I'll post the instructions from the MLS message in a second..

The other option is, of course, to just finish out the year with what money the stake gives you as best you can and then restart in earnest on Jan 2011.
crislapi
Senior Member
Posts: 1267
Joined: Mon Jul 07, 2008 4:05 pm
Location: USA

#9

Post by crislapi »

LVAllen wrote:Well, hypothetically, I think you could try to get MLS installed on another computer, restore from the backup on the 17th, and print the reports that way. See thispost.
You can't restore the backup from the 17th. That one "remembers" the finances lock-out. However, any backup earlier than that should work.
crislapi
Senior Member
Posts: 1267
Joined: Mon Jul 07, 2008 4:05 pm
Location: USA

#10

Post by crislapi »

As for how to "recreate" sub-category balances post-transition, here's some info from the MLS message (the 9-page one)
Q. All my balances in budget, other, and ward missionary are different than they were. How can I get them
back to normal? Can you give me step-by-step instructions on how to fix these?
A. When viewing the Income and Expense Report, select All as the date range and focus on the ending
balance.
Balances in subcategories can be re-created by using the finance document printed out prior to the transition and using the Transfers function in MLS. To access the Transfers function in MLS:
1. Go to the Finances menu and click More. Then click Enter Transfers.
2. Add a reason for the transfer, such as "Re-creating subcategory balances."
3. Move amounts from categories in "Transfer source" (left side) to categories in "Destination" (right side).
4. The category totals at the bottom should match.
5. Click Save to save the transfer.
6. Saved transfers cannot be undone. An opposite transfer must be entered to reverse the previous incorrect transfer.
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