Budget Help

I am relatievly new to the role of finance clerk, and have never been trained on budget allocations etc. When I ran my year end budget reports for 2013 I can see many categories with balances, some that look like they are even from 2012 carryovers. So I tried to allocate expenses to these old budget items to "use" up those old funds. When my financial statement came out for December, it looks like I am now in the hole for the year 2013, and my 2014 first allocation is now reduced by that amount? The last budget report ran in mid December 2013, I had about 1000 total left in my various budget line items (YM, YW, etc), but now it looks like now only did the adjustments I made late in the year "double" dip the 2013 budget, I lost the carryover from 2013 and now start the year with a deficit? Where can I get some help? I have tried the old ward clerk, and have had no luck getting him to help, and I called the stake finance clark, and have yet to hear back from him. Any help? Or explanation? Thanks

dguaton74 wrote:I am relatievly new to the role of finance clerk, and have never been trained on budget allocations etc. When I ran my year end budget reports for 2013 I can see many categories with balances, some that look like they are even from 2012 carryovers. So I tried to allocate expenses to these old budget items to "use" up those old funds. When my financial statement came out for December, it looks like I am now in the hole for the year 2013, and my 2014 first allocation is now reduced by that amount? The last budget report ran in mid December 2013, I had about 1000 total left in my various budget line items (YM, YW, etc), but now it looks like now only did the adjustments I made late in the year "double" dip the 2013 budget, I lost the carryover from 2013 and now start the year with a deficit? Where can I get some help? I have tried the old ward clerk, and have had no luck getting him to help, and I called the stake finance clark, and have yet to hear back from him. Any help? Or explanation? Thanks

What exactly did you do when you 'allocated expenses' to the budgets? Were these new checks? Where they transfers from other accounts? If so, from what accounts?

I had some budget line items that were negative, for example, Ward Christmas Dinner was negative 400 for the year, but I had a positive balance in another budget line, so ai went in and edited the expense and assigned it from the ward dinner budget to the other budget line item that had a balance remaining to "use" those funds. But it looks like it had the opposite effect and double dipped the expense? Many of the budget line items have balances on them which I assume are from previous years, but they show a balance in them in my 2013 budget report, so I tried to assign expenses to them in an effort to erase any accounts that were negative, but this seems to have made a big mess of things and now it seems like I have not only lost my carryover, I start the year off in the hole?

dguaton74 wrote:I had some budget line items that were negative, for example, Ward Christmas Dinner was negative 400 for the year, but I had a positive balance in another budget line, so ai went in and edited the expense and assigned it from the ward dinner budget to the other budget line item that had a balance remaining to "use" those funds. But it looks like it had the opposite effect and double dipped the expense? Many of the budget line items have balances on them which I assume are from previous years, but they show a balance in them in my 2013 budget report, so I tried to assign expenses to them in an effort to erase any accounts that were negative, but this seems to have made a big mess of things and now it seems like I have not only lost my carryover, I start the year off in the hole?

You're profile doesn't say what country you're in. In the US and Canada at least, the budget categories all get reset to 0 at the beginning of each year. However, if you had a balance or deficit OVERALL then that will change how much you'll have available to use in the budget the next year. Making adjustments between different budget categories won't change that amount.

If you're in some other part of the world, it's possible that things work differently.

If you are in US or Canada, the first thing I would do is to view the Budget Allowance Summary Report for 2013:

1. On the Finances panel, click More.
2. On the Budget panel, click Budget Report.
3. In the Type field, select Summary.
4. In the Date Range field, select Previous Year.
5. To view the report, click Preview.

At the bottom of this report it will show you the balance at the end of 2012, the amounts of your budget allowances during the year, the amount you spent during the year and your balance at the end of 2013. This will tell you what the situation was at the end of the year.

Then look at the same report for the current year. It should be blank except for the balance from 2013, the first quarterly allowance and any expenses that have happened so far this year. Then you need to estimate how much you'll get for the next 3 quarters. The easiest thing is to assume the amounts will be the same as last year unless the size of your unit has changed significantly. Add those estimates to the 1st quarter allocation and the 2013 balance and that will tell you how much you have to use in 2014. You then need to work with the bishopric to determine how much to budget for each category. When you figure that out you go to Edit/View Budget and enter those amounts.

Only after all that will you really know what your 2014 budget situation is really like.

I really haven't kept up with the new system, but I did want to make one mention.

There are two things you may be looking at. First, there's income/expense reports. They shows how much budget money you really have. (Much like a checking account) Then there's the budget itself which shows how much has been allocated to each category but isn't really money - it's a goal. (Much like a household budget.)

Expenses show in both reports. But the end "totals" are different for each type of report. And the way money carries over between years is different as well.

russellhltn wrote:There are two things you may be looking at. First, there's income/expense reports. They shows how much budget money you really have.

Actually, those aren't available for budget categories any more.

russellhltn wrote:Then there's the budget itself which shows how much has been allocated to each category but isn't really money - it's a goal. (Much like a household budget.)

That's the only report available now for budget categories.

eblood66 wrote:

russellhltn wrote:There are two things you may be looking at. First, there's income/expense reports. They shows how much budget money you really have.

Actually, those aren't available for budget categories any more.

A budget report titled "Budget Allowance Summary Report" using the Income and Expense Report is available. To get that report go to the Income and Expense Report and select "Summary by Subcategory" in the Report dropdown on the top right of the Income and Expense Report page. Now click the "Budget Report" button at the bottom of the page.

jdlessley wrote:

eblood66 wrote:

russellhltn wrote:There are two things you may be looking at. First, there's income/expense reports. They shows how much budget money you really have.

Actually, those aren't available for budget categories any more.

A budget report titled "Budget Allowance Summary Report" using the Income and Expense Report is available. To get that report go to the Income and Expense Report and select "Summary by Subcategory" in the Report dropdown on the top right of the Income and Expense Report page. Now click the "Budget Report" button at the bottom of the page.

That's the same report I recommended in my initial response. This is just a different path to the report. It isn't actually an Income and Expense Report but it is the one place that any balance from the previous year shows up.

So if I undersdtand the last few strings, the Goal budgets that I was going off of, may not have been "real" money, just allocated funds that didn't really exist? Why would the syetm allow the previous clerk to allocate funds that didn't exist? If that is the case I have some exlpaining to do to the auxilliaries... Is there a number to call in the evenings or on Sundays to get some help while I am on the PC and in MLS? THnaks for all your help. Ive learned more in 1 day than in the last year...

dguaton74 wrote:So if I undersdtand the last few strings, the Goal budgets that I was going off of, may not have been "real" money, just allocated funds that didn't really exist? Why would the syetm allow the previous clerk to allocate funds that didn't exist? If that is the case I have some exlpaining to do to the auxilliaries... Is there a number to call in the evenings or on Sundays to get some help while I am on the PC and in MLS? THnaks for all your help. Ive learned more in 1 day than in the last year...

With Budget, it's important to understand the distinction between two sets of numbers:

• The amount of money remaining in the assigned budget. If you look in the Budget Summary Report, this will be the "Total" figure at the bottom of the column labeled "Assigned Budget Balance." It represents the difference between the amounts your ward/stake entered in the View/Edit Budget screen, and the net effect of the income, expenses, and transfers. I find it helpful to think of this top portion of the Budget Summary Report as our unit's "operating budget."
• The actual amount of money sitting in your budget category. This amount is shown on the Budget Summary Report at the bottom in the row labeled "Actual Available Budget." This may be quite different from your Assigned Budget Balance Total.

As you close out one fiscal year and move to the new year, it's the Actual Available Budget from the end of the old year that becomes the Carry Forward Balance for the beginning of the new year. The individual (or even the total) balances in the Assigned Budget Balance column have no effect whatsoever on the new year, so there's no point in trying to adjust them at year end.

dguaton74 wrote:So if I undersdtand the last few strings, the Goal budgets that I was going off of, may not have been "real" money, just allocated funds that didn't really exist? Why would the syetm allow the previous clerk to allocate funds that didn't exist? If that is the case I have some exlpaining to do to the auxilliaries... Is there a number to call in the evenings or on Sundays to get some help while I am on the PC and in MLS? THnaks for all your help. Ive learned more in 1 day than in the last year...

Yes, budgets are just allocated funds. You'd have to look at the Budget Allowance Summary Report to determine if you were allocating more than you received.

I'm not sure why the system allows you to budget more than your estimates for how much you will receive. But it does.

Your first line of support should be your stake financial clerk and stake clerk. They are the ones responsible for providing your training. If you have questions they can't answer then they can try calling Local Unit Support. But for many common questions LUS may refer them back here to the forums and/or to the on-line support site: https://www.lds.org/callings/melchizede ... t?lang=eng

Is there a phone number to call in the evenings or weekends when we are in the clerks office to get some help via phone?

dguaton74 wrote:Is there a phone number to call in the evenings or weekends when we are in the clerks office to get some help via phone?

LUS can help if something isn't working right in MLS. But you need to talk to your stake clerk for questions about how to use MLS and how to handle the budgeting process.

eblood66 wrote:LUS can help if something isn't working right in MLS. But you need to talk to your stake clerk for questions about how to use MLS and how to handle the budgeting process.

I agree with this. This seems to be more a need to give you a broad view and understanding of the process and tools rather than understanding a specific issue. There are a number of quirks to church finances that need to be understood.

Your sources for training is the stake and the training area of lds.org (found under callings). This forum is useful for specific questions, but for training it's best to go to those sources. Training can also prevent problems by making sure you have all the information you need up front rather then run into problems later.

I took the online training andit outlines the donations and expenses portions and handling of funds very clearly, but the actuall budgeting and handling of year end processes are nowhere to be found? I called the stake clerk, and he told me to call HQ, I asked some of the other clerks, and they are hesitant to help me. They looked at my year end budget balance and also think we had a $800 carryforward, but it looks like we have started the year 1100 in the hole, so now I have auxiliaries bretahing dowbn my neck asking for answers and unfortunately Idon't have any good ones for them. I can run the ship going forward, but the errors of the past clerk look to be set. I have asked to meet with the bishopric to try and explain why we are negative, but who knows how it will go over with the various auxiliaries... Can any one tell me if all distribution charges trigger a IROP? If so can I reconcile those back to a person? I am sruggling to reconcile purchases made at Deseret Book and distribution centers.

dguaton74 wrote:I called the stake clerk, and he told me to call HQ,

I'd suggest talking to your Bishop and talking to the Stake President. You need local help. Someone to sit down and look over the books and figure out what's wrong.

dguaton74 wrote:I called the stake clerk, and he told me to call HQ ...

Did he even take a look at your MLS and explain how the system works? If he didn't then it is indeed sad since that is one of his responsibilities. He is by policy the first stop when you are having problems. LUS is your second stop when the stake clerk cannot help you.

dguaton74 wrote:Can any one tell me if all distribution charges trigger a IROP?

Charges made using the ward account are sent to the ward in an IROP.

dguaton74 wrote:If so can I reconcile those back to a person?

Not likely.

dguaton74 wrote:I am sruggling to reconcile purchases made at Deseret Book and distribution centers.

There is not much you can do about past purchases using the unit account. Those charges should appear in the Budget:Distribution Center Charges category. It is very likely that the previous clerk was not monitoring the budget and those expenses showing up in the Budget:Distribution Center Charges category. I would not be surprised to hear that most of the negative balance problem can be traced to expenses in the Budget:Distribution Center Charges category and that the former clerk was not monitoring budget expenditures for all categories.

dguaton74 wrote:I took the online training andit outlines the donations and expenses portions and handling of funds very clearly, but the actuall budgeting and handling of year end processes are nowhere to be found?

There is some information on the RKATS site. This is probably the most relevant page: https://www.lds.org/callings/melchizede ... lang=eng#2. However, it is more heavy on how to use MLS rather than an overview of how to deal with the budgeting process.

dguaton74 wrote:I called the stake clerk, and he told me to call HQ, I asked some of the other clerks, and they are hesitant to help me. They looked at my year end budget balance and also think we had a $800 carryforward, but it looks like we have started the year 1100 in the hole, so now I have auxiliaries bretahing dowbn my neck asking for answers and unfortunately Idon't have any good ones for them.

The stake clerk doesn't seem to have taken his responsibility seriously. HQ does not provide this kind of training to wards via phone or email. The stake clerk may not know how to help you himself but it is his responsibility to find someone who can provide you the training you need. That could be an assistant stake clerk, another ward clerk or even a experienced former clerk who knows the current procedures. If the stake clerk isn't being helpful, then maybe you need to ask your bishop to talk to the stake president to communicate that you aren't receiving the training and help you need.

dguaton74 wrote:I can run the ship going forward, but the errors of the past clerk look to be set. I have asked to meet with the bishopric to try and explain why we are negative, but who knows how it will go over with the various auxiliaries... Can any one tell me if all distribution charges trigger a IROP? If so can I reconcile those back to a person? I am sruggling to reconcile purchases made at Deseret Book and distribution centers.

Yes, every distribution charge should trigger an IROP. The IROP should include the name of the person who make initiated the order.

Thnaks, I have learned more on these message boards in the last few weeks than in the last few months...

eblood66 wrote:The IROP should include the name of the person who make initiated the order.

That is not my experience for orders made through the distribution center online. I have several IROPs that I am looking at for purchases at the distribution center online on which the the customer block is the unit ID and the "Name of requestor:" block is empty. There is no place on the IROP identifying who placed the order. Unless the person making the order inputs their name in one of the two fillable blocks there will be no record of who made the order.

I don't know if that is true for orders place with Deseret Books because my current unit and my previous three units did not have an account with Deseret Books.

jdlessley wrote:

eblood66 wrote:The IROP should include the name of the person who make initiated the order.

That is not my experience for orders made through the distribution center online. I have several IROPs that I am looking at for purchases at the distribution center online on which the the customer block is the unit ID and the "Name of requestor:" block is empty. There is no place on the IROP identifying who placed the order. Unless the person making the order inputs their name in one of the two fillable blocks there will be no record of who made the order.

Unfortunately, I don't have any IROPs in front of me right now. In generally I know that orders made in stores do include the name of the person who made the order. I've seen this many times. Are the orders you're looking at from store.lds.org or from the Staples eWay site? I can understand why Staples orders wouldn't include a name since that site isn't directly connected to lds account. But I thought that orders from store.lds.org did include the name since the person making the order has to be logged onto their lds account to make the order. In either case, however, the number of people who can charge directly to the ward online is much smaller, generally only bishopric members and clerks. Of course, that doesn't help for orders that are old but if you keep on top of them it usually isn't hard to figure out who made the order.

dguaton74 wrote:but it looks like we have started the year 1100 in the hole,

If you really are $1100 in the hole, and it didn't just happen in the last few weeks, then it would appear that the stake hasn't done a good job of monitoring the ward.

dguaton74 wrote:They looked at my year end budget balance and also think we had a $800 carryforward, but it looks like we have started the year 1100 in the hole

The only way to tell where you really stand with your budget is to run a Budget Summary Report. Several people in this discussion have recommended that you run it. It may well be that you have run that report, but I can find no post from you that specifically says that you have.

When you run that report, there are two very important numbers to look at:

• For the year 2014, look at the Carry Forward Balance (first line in the bottom section). That will tell you what your end of 2013 overall Budget balance truly was.
• Look at the bottom in the row labeled "Actual Available Budget." That is the amount you truly have in your account now. It should be the sum of the Carry Forward Balance and your Q1 allocation, less any expenses incurred thus far in January.

You will see plenty of other numbers on that report, but they all have to do with your assigned budget allocations. Those numbers are very helpful in tracking your organizations' spending, but you can adjust assigned budgets as needed, and they don't affect how much money you really have. If you're looking anywhere else hoping to see your actual budget balance, you may well be misled and make an incorrect assumption about where you stand.

As I read through this discussion I was dismayed at all the badmouthing of stake finance clerks who "weren't doing their job" because they didn't know what happens to funds you thought you had at EOY when MLS closes the fiscal year and everything is zeroed out in the BASR. I was a ward financial clerk for five years (this last time) before becoming stake financial clerk three years ago. I take the available training at least twice every year, and yet there are major areas of MLS (like using and interpreting the BASR) that are nowhere to be found. Instead of bashing us hard working ward and stake financial clerks, you should try answering our questions. If you don't know, just admit it, but, please, stop insinuating we aren't doing our jobs. At the end of each year MLS zeroes out everything and I'm at a loss to figure out where all the money went. There is no rhyme or reason to it that I can see. And I've been fighting with MLS for many, many years. END OF RANT.

susan0246 wrote:As I read through this discussion I was dismayed at all the badmouthing of stake finance clerks who "weren't doing their job" because they didn't know what happens to funds you thought you had at EOY when MLS closes the fiscal year and everything is zeroed out in the BASR.

I'm sorry you feel that way. As I have reviewed this discussion, I have seen many very helpful, very detailed responses. There are only a couple of responses that were at all critical, and they both seemed to me to be conditional -- along the lines of "if" a stake clerk had done or not done something, then he wasn't doing his job. I would agree that those statements could have been worded more sensitively. It's unfortunately all too easy with online communications to be hasty in making a response without taking time to be empathetic. We all can use a reminder to be kinder in our responses and more grateful for the help that all the volunteers here take the time to give.

susan0246 wrote:I take the available training at least twice every year, and yet there are major areas of MLS (like using and interpreting the BASR) that are nowhere to be found.

The Help Center document Local Unit Budget Instructions has a section titled Budget Reports which explains the BASR, providing an explanation for each of the labeled entries. That should help quite a bit in interpreting that particular report. If, after reading that help document, you still have questions, please feel free to post your specific questions here and people will be happy to help you.

susan0246 wrote:Instead of bashing us hard working ward and stake financial clerks, you should try answering our questions.

I believe that just about every question that has been asked has been answered. If there are still unanswered questions in this discussion, I'd appreciate it if you could point me to those and I'll try to answer them or find someone who can.

susan0246 wrote:At the end of each year MLS zeroes out everything and I'm at a loss to figure out where all the money went. There is no rhyme or reason to it that I can see.

I tried to address this in my previous post, but I could have done a better job. MLS doesn't zero out everything in the Budget category at year-end. It does zero out all the budget subcategory balances, but the total remaining budget (labeled "Actual Available Budget" on the BASR) at the end of the year is not zeroed out -- it is carried forward to the new year to become the "2014 Carry Forward Balance" (which may be a positive or a negative number).

Then for the new year's Budget, the clerk (in consultation with the priesthood leader) estimates the quarterly allocations (the Q1 allocation is known, but the other 3 quarters are estimates) and adds in the Carry Forward Balance to obtain the total available budget funds for the new year. Following the instructions in Handbook 1, Section 14.7.1 (which are also in the Policy and Principles section at the beginning of the article I linked to earlier), the priesthood leader and clerk then develop an annual budget that allocates a portion of the anticipated available funds to each budget subcategory.

What part of that process is confusing? Or were you referring to something else as having "no rhyme or reason"?