July Financial Statement Errors

I am both a stake and ward finance clerk. I reconciled both accounts today and found the beginning balance on the July "Other" category did not match the June ending balance. Also, on my ward statement, the July statement showed negative beginning balances in the "Tithing" and "Fast Offering" categories, which should always be zero. Am I just the "lucky" one, or are there others out there?

Ward account -- tithing and FO both had a negative balance, which matched the amounts from the deposit the 3rd Sunday of June.

Other was also off.

We had a negative ending balance in both the Tithing and FO categories. I'm glad to know that our ward wasn't the only one.

gpetersen wrote:I am both a stake and ward finance clerk. I reconciled both accounts today and found the beginning balance on the July "Other" category did not match the June ending balance.

I can't speak for a ward statement, but I reconciled our stake account this morning and found that the ending June balances were exactly the same as the July beginning balances, including the Other category.

I called HQ this morning and they have a recorded message specifically related to this problem. In summary:

There may be a problem with the July church unit financial statements. Specifically, the beginning balances may not match the June ending balances. Church HQ is aware of this and will be sending out corrected statements soon. Remove the incorrect statement from the list of financial statements in MLS. A corrected one should arrive shortly

For reconciling, you can either wait for the corrected statement, or you can adjust your July ending balance by the amount of the error as follows:

1. Subtract July beginning balance from June ending balance (for each category)
2. Add the result of #1 to the July ending balance (by category)
3. Enter these adjusted ending balances (result of #2) into the July reconciliation.

These errors are a combination of multiple June Stake Financial Summary Errors.

Our units also had July Beginning Balance problems for Tithing and Budgit. As noted these errors were amounts equal to the 3rd week of June. They appeared on the Stake Summary for June but not on the June UNIT Financial Statements.

Our Stake Account had errors in the Other Account on the Summary due to the monthly transfer credits being doubled, although the Unit Bank Statement was correct.

I would suggest waiting for the new statements to be sent out, but you can also use the "Temporay Adjustments" to track the errors until Headquarters has it corrected.

This give you a tracking path for the error and shows your auditers what actions were taken and when.

How do you know if you have the correct July statement.

Looks you can compare the beginning balance on the July "Other" category and see if it matches the June ending balance. If it's a match, you're good to go.

Mikerowaved wrote:Looks you can compare the beginning balance on the July "Other" category and see if it matches the June ending balance. If it's a match, you're good to go.

Thanks

I do accounting everyday and sometimes the simplest things slip by after doing all day long.

The July statements balance information were in error when they were sent down due to a back end database problem. The developers are working on the fix and we hope to have new statements sent down some time next week. Until then, I would disregard the July statement for now. It will be replaced by a correct statement hopefully by next week.

DJC wrote:The July statements balance information were in error when they were sent down due to a back end database problem. The developers are working on the fix and we hope to have new statements sent down some time next week. Until then, I would disregard the July statement for now. It will be replaced by a correct statement hopefully by next week.

If you haven't already, I would suggest broadcasting an MLS message to all finance clerks regarding the error and time frame of a possible fix so they don't end up pulling out the few hairs they have left.

Mike

Thought about it, but the worry was that the statement would come down before or at the same time as the announcement. We are diffusing calls and edocs for now and hoping the solution is in place soon.

Thank You All for helping me figure out what was wrong with the financial statements!! I will not worry about anything until I get the updated statement.

tcrowder wrote:Thank You All for helping me figure out what was wrong with the financial statements!! I will not worry about anything until I get the updated statement.

Thank YOU for joining the forum.

I just checked my statement and it's not correct either. I feel sorry for the multitude of clerks still in the dark, wrestling with this trying to make it work. If it doesn't get fixed soon, I would not want to be working in the CHQ call center in the coming weeks.

DJC wrote:Thought about it, but the worry was that the statement would come down before or at the same time as the announcement.

I do sincerely mean this in the most polite way, but...so what?

I think most of us would rather hear from CHQ, whether we caught the error in time or not. There is nothing to lose by communicating to us! Why keep so many in the dark? I don't see what problem is being avoided or what resource is being saved by not sending the announcement. Obviously in this case, it was the wrong assumption. It is taking a lot longer than you anticipated.

This isn't the only place we've seen this philosophy in practice (see this thread: http://tech.lds.org/forum/showthread.php?t=1293). I mean don't get me wrong, I am grateful for all the hard work you guys do to listen to us, fix bugs, and continually produce a great product. I just ask there be more frequent communication.

mkmurray wrote:I do sincerely mean this in the most polite way, but...so what?

I think most of us would rather hear from CHQ, whether we caught the error in time or not. There is nothing to lose by communicating to us! Why keep so many in the dark? I don't see what problem is being avoided or what resource is being saved by not sending the announcement. Obviously in this case, it was the wrong assumption. It is taking a lot longer than you anticipated.

This isn't the only place we've seen this philosophy in practice (see this thread: http://tech.lds.org/forum/showthread.php?t=1293). I mean don't get me wrong, I am grateful for all the hard work you guys do to listen to us, fix bugs, and continually produce a great product. I just ask there be more frequent communication.

I have to agree with mkmurray. I had to field several questions from financial clerks yesterday as they retrieved their July financial statements and tried to reconcile. They were baffled by the problem with opening balances, and had no idea what was going on. A simple message would have set their minds at ease (and saved them a lot of time). Since I knew about the problem, I could explain it and they will wait now. But what about the hundreds or thousands of stakes where no one knows about this forum? It seems like a lot of needless frustration.

The finance statements are now fixed and staged to come down to your units. We will also send an edoc giving specific instruction to disregard balance information for any July statements prior to today.

Please realize that our communication channels are somewhat limited to the majority of clerks as most don't read their edocs or if they do they read them months later. That could have caused more of a headache. Now that we have a firm date as to when the correct statements are going out, we will send it down.

It will overwrite any current July statements or be inserted if you have already deleted yours. The stake financial summary report will also be remailed to stakes beginning today.

DJC wrote:Please realize that our communication channels are somewhat limited to the majority of clerks as most don't read their edocs or if they do they read them months later.

I gather by "edoc" you are referring to MLS messages...

Boy, that really surprises me! Do you guys have some way to track the trend of MLS messages not being read in time (or at all)?

Perhaps it is worth a discussion to brainstorm a more effective way to reach clerks with important information, without it being lost or misplaced. To me, the MLS message system should be able to do the job just fine. Maybe the way the user is alerted about new MLS messages or even which users these alerts are shown to could be improved in some way?

I do mean MLS messages. We don't have a good tracking mechanism, but I know the only real way to track it will be sometime in the future. Currently, a ward membership clerk could be on the machine, receive a message about finances and close or delete the message and the finance clerk doesn't see it (or vice versa). We know some units don't read their messages (and I know it is hard as it seems messages are being sent quite often). The best mechanism we have is what we call a "pop up" message. The ones with a yellow background that appear when you do a send/receive. You have to at least look at these messages, but it still doesn't guarantee that it is getting the right audience.

mkmurray wrote:I gather by "edoc" you are referring to MLS messages...

Boy, that really surprises me! Do you guys have some way to track the trend of MLS messages not being read in time (or at all)?

Perhaps it is worth a discussion to brainstorm a more effective way to reach clerks with important information, without it being lost or misplaced. To me, the MLS message system should be able to do the job just fine. Maybe the way the user is alerted about new MLS messages or even which users these alerts are shown to could be improved in some way?

I share your surprise. Every time I see the "you have new messages" box pop up, I go and read the message(s), and make sure that anyone else who needs to see it hears about it as well. It is sad to hear that some units choose to ignore these often important messages.


Some suggested features that might help in getting the messages read:

1. Rather than (or in addition to) the one-time message "you have new messages", change MLS to prompt with "You have unread messages." Then you could prompt at other times (such as startup or exit) to make sure they are amply reminded. I know that the presence of unread messages is put on the Urgent Tasks list, and that users are reminded at startup when they have any urgent tasks, but if that's not getting people to read the messages, maybe you should hit people over the head with them.
2. Add a feature for marking messages as Unread. This is a standard feature in most e-mail applications. That way, if I read a message, but don't have time to route it to the proper people (or I don't know who should receive it), I can mark it as unread, and at least the next person to login will have an urgent task to read the message and may better know what to do with it. As it is, if I read a message and don't route it, no one else will have any notification that there is a new message.
3. Overhaul the rather pedestrian user interface of MLS to add a toolbar or status bar or something that would contain some alert indicator so that on the main screen you would have some eye-catching visual reminder that you have messages to read.

I sent an MLS message to the Membership Department. When I received an MLS message in response, the To field said "Membership Clerk." Could you key off of who the MLS message is sent to in order to pop up the alert to the right login tied to the right calling? Or perhaps even ask the user if they would like to print the MLS message?

That's along the lines I was thinking of - a "you've got mail" prompt based on your calling when you log in.

Those are exactly what I have suggested in the past. We are beginning a process to tie users to a calling and that will allow us to know if it is the membership or finance clerk. I will continue to look to enhance this area, thanks for the suggestions.

Bigger issue is that the July finance statements are staged to be sent down (corrected statements), but we are finding that units that are on an MLS version prior to 2.9 are not overwriting the bad statements. We are working on a solution, but for now I would not trust the statements unless you have deleted the statement and then a new one has appeared in the finance statement area for July of 2008.

I will update this information as soon as I get any more information from the developers.

DJC wrote:Bigger issue is that the July finance statements are staged to be sent down (corrected statements), but we are finding that units that are on an MLS version prior to 2.9 are not overwriting the bad statements.

Thanks for the heads-up. I will swing by our clerk's office today and make sure the earlier statement is deleted.

DJC wrote:We are beginning a process to tie users to a calling and that will allow us to know if it is the membership or finance clerk.

Please remember that all clerks and many assistant clerks do both membership and finance.

DJC wrote:Bigger issue is that the July finance statements are staged to be sent down (corrected statements), but we are finding that units that are on an MLS version prior to 2.9 are not overwriting the bad statements.

Well, that's most of us. [grin]

Do send a message or something if we need to delete the old statements. Although, as I write that, I hesitate to do it, because about the time we get to all of the computers to delete the old statements, someone will surely delete the new one that managed to get through.

In any event, thanks for keeping us posted.

If the balance is wrong on the July statement, then delete it and you will get the correct one. Even if a correct one is deleted, it should come down again for about a month.

DJC wrote:If the balance is wrong on the July statement, then delete it and you will get the correct one. Even if a correct one is deleted, it should come down again for about a month.

Good to know. Thanks.

I just downloaded the updated statement - and the Beginning Balance and Net Funds Available for Tithing, Fast Offer and Budget are now all zero - as expected. Thanks!:)


But I still have a problem with Section (VIII) Year To Date Summary. The final line (Total Amount Transfered) is still incorrect - just as it was in the June Statement. Is anyone else seeing this same problem? Is it being looked into? In my case it appears to be off by the same amount that used to be in the "NET FUNDS AVAILABLE" columns before they were fixed with this change.

The new statements for July 2008 have been sent out as of August 11th, 2008. However, you have to first delete the old July statement do a send/receive changes and the new and improved July 08 statement will be sent with the correct balances. Just thought I would add my 2 cents!

leimana wrote:The new statements for July 2008 have been sent out as of August 11th, 2008. However, you have to first delete the old July statement do a send/receive changes and the new and improved July 08 statement will be sent with the correct balances. Just thought I would add my 2 cents!

My stake and ward computers had two July 2008 statments, but with different dates. You just have to delete the earlier version.

leimana wrote:The new statements for July 2008 have been sent out as of August 11th, 2008. However, you have to first delete the old July statement do a send/receive changes and the new and improved July 08 statement will be sent with the correct balances. Just thought I would add my 2 cents!

I did delete the old and got the new one down, but the last line in both my June and July statements are incorrect. This is in the summary section. Is anyone else seeing this problem? What can I do at this point to get it corrected?

The July financial statements do indeed contain errors. To get the correct statement, remove the July statement from your copy of MLS (there is a "Remove" button). The next time you transmit, you should get the correct one over the wire.

David_Reid wrote:I did delete the old and got the new one down, but the last line in both my June and July statements are incorrect. This is in the summary section. Is anyone else seeing this problem? What can I do at this point to get it corrected?

Ok So the Stake Summary for July 2008 has the correct year to date totals for each individual ward page but when you get to the Summary part it is off again. The reason being is because for some reason when they went to fix the original problem which was around the first few weeks of August. They corrected the problem on each individual page but when you get to the Budget Summary page it adds on some of the budget checks that were written and cleared in August. SO....(sigh) for now please just stick to the individual pages that show the year to date totals for each unit in your stake and when August comes out we hope to have it back to normal.

leimana wrote:Ok So the Stake Summary for July 2008 has the correct year to date totals for each individual ward page but when you get to the Summary part it is off again. The reason being is because for some reason when they went to fix the original problem which was around the first few weeks of August. They corrected the problem on each individual page but when you get to the Budget Summary page it adds on some of the budget checks that were written and cleared in August. SO....(sigh) for now please just stick to the individual pages that show the year to date totals for each unit in your stake and when August comes out we hope to have it back to normal.

My August report was good - all of it. Yeah!

I've just noticed that for at least 2 wards in my stake, a new July statement seems to download every week. One ward had probably 12 of them. Both wards still had the incorrect July statement (received July 1 2008) listed in their finance statements. I have removed the incorrect one and all but one fo the corrected ones. I'm curious if corrections are still being made to the July statement or if just kept downloading because they still had the incorrect one in MLS.

They should not continue to come down. Check this week and see if they come down again.

DJC wrote:They should not continue to come down. Check this week and see if they come down again.

It appears the last time they were downloaded was Sep 7. I'll keep checking my other wards, but it does appear the downloading stopped once the August statement was downloaded.