Caution when Comparing CUBS income & expense report Sunday

Discuss questions around local unit policies for budgeting, reconciling, etc. This forum should not contain specific financial or membership information.
crislapi
Senior Member
Posts: 1267
Joined: Mon Jul 07, 2008 4:05 pm
Location: USA

Caution when Comparing CUBS income & expense report Sunday

#1

Post by crislapi »

Just received this little tip and thought I'd post it here for those who are interested.

The instructions we received were to print among other things the Income & Expense report before the CUBS transition and then again after the CUBS transition and compare the results. These reports will NOT match if the unit has even a single unreconciled item before the transition to CUBS on the 17th of October (that means any missionary commitments or distribution center charges etc). You can still compare the reports but would have to take into consideration any unreconciled items that the unit has.

A potential "fix" might be to just compare the donations/expenses and wait until you receive the new ‘Unit Financial Report’ to deal with the Income & Expense discrepancies. The unreconciled items will be listed in the Action Items section of the statement. Take the appropriate/suggested action on the items that CUBS identifies in their reconciliation process.
User avatar
aebrown
Community Administrator
Posts: 15153
Joined: Tue Nov 27, 2007 8:48 pm
Location: Draper, Utah

#2

Post by aebrown »

crislapi wrote:Just received this little tip and thought I'd post it here for those who are interested.
... and I added a similar note to the wiki article Church Unit Banking Services (CUBS).
Questions that can benefit the larger community should be asked in a public forum, not a private message.
crislapi
Senior Member
Posts: 1267
Joined: Mon Jul 07, 2008 4:05 pm
Location: USA

#3

Post by crislapi »

Ok, I just finished verifying all Stake donations (about 10 over 4 years) and expenses (a more respectable 1000 or so over the last 4 years. I have finally gotten them to match exactly. Here's what I've learned.

It appears that what the "conversion" did is essentially replace all the local financial data with CHQ's financial information. Check numbers, payee's and purpose now are exactly as they appeared on the CUFS. Because CHQ did not keep track of local sub-categories, all that information is gone.

At the stake level, we kept track of each ward's monthly expenses. It was a short-cut way to monitor their budget status. Because that information was purely local, we have lost all of it. However, that also artificially inflated our expense total in the pre-CUBS expenses report by over $320,000 (I printed out for all 4 years just to be safe).

Despite verifying monthly expenses for all 4 years using the SFS, I still found several credits that were not entered pre-CUBS, as well as many phone expenses (they were paid for by CHQ, so previous clerks just didn't enter them. We also didn't have the reimbursed Other category until more recently anyway)

All phone expenses now show up in the new category Reimbursed Expenses:Local Telephone Line. Most other expenses appear to have been placed in Budget:Administration, including DC charges.

All budget allocations for the past 4 years have been placed in Budget:Budget Allocations.

Credits I entered in the past now show up in the expenses screen.

One tip - if you printed your reports as PDF's AND have the full version of Adobe (NOT the reader), you can copy tables into excel. You do have to do it one page at a time, but it makes comparing pre and post reports much easier.
crislapi
Senior Member
Posts: 1267
Joined: Mon Jul 07, 2008 4:05 pm
Location: USA

#4

Post by crislapi »

I was given the following advice (again) while trying to figure out the pre- and post-CUBS Income and Expense report.

First was confirmation that yes, the local finance information was completely overwritten with CHQ's official information. There is therefore huge potential for wards that did not record their DC, Staples, and other EFT payments pre-CUBS to have a large number of new items in their post-CUBS expense reports. It also means that credits now appear in the expenses screen. Pre-CUBS these appeared as transfers and therefore will not appear on your pre-CUBS expense report.

Second was encouragement not to try and compare the Income and Expense report. In fact, they are so different pre and post CUBS that they don't really compare at all. In summary, "don't worry about the income/expense report; just compare donations and expenses. When you get the new financial report then you can review it. It's going to be a little bumpy but its going to be so much better to have all finance synchronized with HQ in real time"
User avatar
gregwanderson
Senior Member
Posts: 702
Joined: Thu Apr 15, 2010 10:34 pm
Location: Huntsville, UT, USA

#5

Post by gregwanderson »

This all sounds like a much bigger mass of confusion than I was led to believe it would be. (Insert pouting face.)
lajackson
Community Moderators
Posts: 11460
Joined: Mon Mar 17, 2008 10:27 pm
Location: US

#6

Post by lajackson »

GregAnderson wrote:This all sounds like a much bigger mass of confusion than I was led to believe it would be. (Insert pouting face.)
It is actually pretty simple, I think. We used to have to adjust MLS so that it showed what CHQ had. Now CHQ adjusts MLS for us. [grin]
User avatar
childsdj
Member
Posts: 258
Joined: Wed Feb 07, 2007 9:51 am

#7

Post by childsdj »

lajackson wrote:It is actually pretty simple, I think. We used to have to adjust MLS so that it showed what CHQ had. Now CHQ adjusts MLS for us. [grin]
That is the intention. It may be a bit bumpy trying to understand the two-way communication with CUBS. This was not possible previously. However, most international units outside of the U.S. or Canada have had this functionality all along so it won't be as confusing for them (hopefully).

FYI it appears the migration and data conversion is progressing on schedle so you should be able to process finances on Sunday.
happy1z
New Member
Posts: 13
Joined: Sat Sep 06, 2008 12:00 pm

#8

Post by happy1z »

Was the CUBS upgrade a phased approach? One thing I read made me think they didn't just put everyone on it overnight. Does anyone know?
crislapi
Senior Member
Posts: 1267
Joined: Mon Jul 07, 2008 4:05 pm
Location: USA

#9

Post by crislapi »

happy-one wrote:Was the CUBS upgrade a phased approach? One thing I read made me think they didn't just put everyone on it overnight. Does anyone know?
As I understand it, it has been rolling out over the last 3 years worldwide. They are not capable of just switching a couple stakes at a time, however. I don't know the specifics of what defines the "area", but when the US switched, the entire US had to switch at the same time. They couldn't do it by states or regions.
User avatar
jeromer7
Member
Posts: 228
Joined: Thu May 17, 2007 12:46 pm
Location: Bellevue, Nebraska

How to tell which allocations are white in the Stake MLS

#10

Post by jeromer7 »

crislapi wrote:All budget allocations for the past 4 years have been placed in Budget:Budget Allocations.
We have 10 units in the stake and indeed I see 10 entries on 7 Oct 2010 for the Q4 allocations. However, the comment "CFAR LUBA Standard allocation for Q4 2010" appears for each entry. How are we to discern which allocation is for which unit? I thought unit numbers might be imbedded in each individual Ref. No., but it isn't.
JLR
Post Reply

Return to “Local Unit Finance”