Year End?

Discuss questions around local unit policies for budgeting, reconciling, etc. This forum should not contain specific financial or membership information.
daveywest
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#11

Post by daveywest »

boomerbubba wrote:I was taught by my stake clerk to leave Budget:Administration untouched. Our understanding about that category is the same as atticuswig's -- that it is a catchall category specific to the conversion phase.
You may be confusing Budget:Administration with Budget:Allocations. Budget:Allocations includes subcategories from all your pre-CUBS system budget categories that had a deposit made to them in the last 3 years. You should not use any subcategories in Budget:Allocations.

Budget:Administration would likely be used for office supplies or other general expenses.
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wrigjef
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#12

Post by wrigjef »

Let's say the clerks office needs stamps. Which budget category should it come out of if not Administration?

Could there possibly be a word confusion here? My understanding is that Budget Allocation really should not be used other then to deliver allocations then for wards to distribute allocations.
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#13

Post by RossEvans »

wrigjef wrote:Let's say the clerks office needs stamps. Which budget category should it come out of if not Administration?

Could there possibly be a word confusion here? My understanding is that Budget Allocation really should not be used other then to deliver allocations then for wards to distribute allocations.

We would probably just use Budget:Other. We used to have a Budget:Bishopric for such stuff, and it effectively became the default for miscellaneous expenses not charged to quorums or auxiliary organizations. But that category got eliminated with the conversion.

I'm in accord with you on Budget: Allocations. Our instructions are to reserve that for income from the stake.
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wrigjef
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#14

Post by wrigjef »

RussellHltn wrote:From what I understand, balances carry forward. But any budget the Ward sets for itself starts at zero. So it depends on if you run a income & expense report on the budget category or run a budget report.

Is this how it works? I can see how Auxilaries might want to keep carry-over funds in case they make a mistake and overspend or have a special expense and need the excess at the end of next year. At the same time they will get new allocations and should base their spending on the current budget. So if I run a budget report it will only show expendatures and balances based on the current year allocation, but if I run an I&E report it shows the total including carryover?. That's pretty slick if that's the way it works.
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aebrown
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#15

Post by aebrown »

wrigjef wrote:Is this how it works? I can see how Auxilaries might want to keep carry-over funds in case they make a mistake and overspend or have a special expense and need the excess at the end of next year. At the same time they will get new allocations and should base their spending on the current budget.
The ward as a whole will retain its budget balance into the new year (unless the stake president asks the bishop to write a check to the stake).

But what happens to individual subcategory balances is entirely up to the ward. By default, balances will carry forward for subcategories, but I would guess that many units will choose to zero out the balance for the auxiliaries at the beginning of the year. It's a local decision.
wrigjef wrote: So if I run a budget report it will only show expendatures and balances based on the current year allocation, but if I run an I&E report it shows the total including carryover?. That's pretty slick if that's the way it works.
No, that's not exactly how it works. An I&E report will indeed show the total including carryover. But at this point, the Budget Report does not work as you described.

A Budget Report will show the balance forward, as well as any transfers (which will likely have been done to move a portion of the budget allocation to the subcategory). At this point, a Budget Report is more confusing than helpful.

However, as I mentioned in this post, the Budget Report might be changing for MLS 3.3 -- hopefully to correct this problem.
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carlscpa
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Budget Administration

#16

Post by carlscpa »

After the conversion to CUBS our ward has a negative balance in the Budget:Administration category. Are we supposed to transfer a budget amount from another category to offset this negative balance, or is it going to disappear when a future MLS version is downloaded?
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wrigjef
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#17

Post by wrigjef »

Alan_Brown wrote:The ward as a whole will retain its budget balance into the new year (unless the stake president asks the bishop to write a check to the stake).

But what happens to individual subcategory balances is entirely up to the ward. By default, balances will carry forward for subcategories, but I would guess that many units will choose to zero out the balance for the auxiliaries at the beginning of the year. It's a local decision.


No, that's not exactly how it works. An I&E report will indeed show the total including carryover. But at this point, the Budget Report does not work as you described.

A Budget Report will show the balance forward, as well as any transfers (which will likely have been done to move a portion of the budget allocation to the subcategory). At this point, a Budget Report is more confusing than helpful.

However, as I mentioned in this post, the Budget Report might be changing for MLS 3.3 -- hopefully to correct this problem.
I'd like to hear your thoughts on this. I am a stake financial clerk and many of the ward and branch clerks are new. I am considering sending an email out to the clerks telling them that their unspent budget funds are going to carry over in their current subcategories. I will point out that while it is the Bishops choice to leave those funds allocated to the respective auxiliaries, my recommendation (in the interest of recordkeeping and tracking) would be to clear out the budget subcategories, transferring them to "Budget: Other", at some point between the time final expense checks are written and the new 1st quarter allocation is made. When new money shows up in the "Budget: Allocations" category, they start from scratch. The Bishop would then have a reserve (in Budget:Other) to allocate at a later time as he sees fit.

Is this reasonable
russellhltn
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#18

Post by russellhltn »

wrigjef wrote:I can see how Auxilaries might want to keep carry-over funds in case they make a mistake and overspend or have a special expense and need the excess at the end of next year. At the same time they will get new allocations and should base their spending on the current budget.
I'm not so sure as I agree. If auxiliaries are allowed to carry over, then they are less likely to go on a buying spree at the end of the year.

It's also a disincentive to overspend - it leaves them with that much less next year. That may be more effective than a "talking to" by the Bishop. I've seem some personalities that are quite willing to accept "a good talking to" if it results in more money to spend. Nor would they mind getting released.

Of course, this is a local Bishop decision. If someone does overspend, the bishop might have to empty out all other budget categories to keep the ward from going negative.

I don't think there's anything that says they have to stay within the current allocation if they've got the balance to cover it. (I'm assuming of course the carry over isn't a substantial portion of their annual balance. If the carry over would effectively double their balance, then that would be a different story.)
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elbarto00-p40
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#19

Post by elbarto00-p40 »

Alan_Brown wrote: No, that's not exactly how it works. An I&E report will indeed show the total including carryover. But at this point, the Budget Report does not work as you described.

A Budget Report will show the balance forward, as well as any transfers (which will likely have been done to move a portion of the budget allocation to the subcategory). At this point, a Budget Report is more confusing than helpful.

However, as I mentioned in this post, the Budget Report might be changing for MLS 3.3 -- hopefully to correct this problem.
In order to utilize both the I&E Report and the Budget Report (and until they change the Budget Report to correct this issue), we are going to leave all of the money received from the Stake in the Budget:Allocations category. As a year end process, we will make transfers to zero out each of the Budget categories so that the only balance that will carry over without a zero will be the Budget:Allocations category.
rexgj
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#20

Post by rexgj »

In preparing the ward budget, do I put our estimated annual budget figure into the Budget: Allocation window? or should only the real quarterly allocation amounts go in there. In the past we would estimate our budget for the year and plug in that number for the budget, but it's different now.

And if the real quarterly budget allocation amounts go into the Budget:Allocation window, do we just enter in the quarterly allocation as we receive them from the stake, into that window? or do we total them up?
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