Accessing the other category

I am new to this calling as Ward Clerk.
Can you advise of the procedure to access the other category so that I can see which accounts are in a negative balance to I can transfer funds from the accounts in credit

Michaeljefferyjones wrote:Can you advise of the procedure to access the other category so that I can see which accounts are in a negative balance to I can transfer funds from the accounts in credit

To see the status of the Other category, use an Income and Expense Report. You might want to start with a Summary by Subcategory version of the report to see the overall status; you may need some Detail by Subcategory reports to see exactly what transactions led to the current balances.

I'd also highly recommend that you read the Help Center article The "Other" Category. That article will help you understand that funds in the "Other" category are received for a specific purpose and spent for that specific purpose. So you need to be careful about simply moving funds around among the accounts; there are rules about when that may or may not be permissible. If, for example, you have a surplus in a Temple Trip subcategory (because someone paid some travel expense money, but then didn't go on the temple trip at the last minute), it would be completely inappropriate to transfer that surplus to cover a deficit in the Scout Camp subcategory.

We pay for a missionary so have to move monies from the ward missionary fund to reinmpurse the Church

Michaeljefferyjones wrote:We pay for a missionary so have to move monies from the ward missionary fund to reinmpurse the Church

I assume the family is supporting the missionary. In that case their donations should be put in the missionary's sub-category from the start. If the amount is still negative, then it's time to involve the bishop.

Michaeljefferyjones wrote:We pay for a missionary so have to move monies from the ward missionary fund to reinmpurse the Church

Your original question was about the Other category, but the report is the same for the Ward Missionary category -- the Income and Expense report is what you need. Note that in the Summary by Subcategory version of that report, you can check the box by the parent "Ward Missionary" category, and it will automatically check all the subcategories of Ward Missionary (you should have one subcategory for each missionary who is serving, or will serve soon, or returned recently).

I assume that when you say "We pay for a missionary" you mean that the ward is supporting this particular missionary, so you need to transfer funds accumulated in the parent Ward Missionary category to the subcategory for that missionary. That's fine, and can be done easily by using the Transfer feature in MLS.

Thanks everyone problem resolved

I thought I had cracked this item,but unfortunately I have not. So here goes. I have tried to access the Other account and sub categories so I can see what the balances are and print them off.( I can see them on the CUBS report) but that is a PDF report. I would like too see a up to date balance as now.
I can then use transfer to ensure that the negative balances are either zero or positive and can then see the immediate effective of the input. Can anyone give me a step by step guide for the UK, to access the other account and its subcategories please. The Stake Audit Chairman who was our old Finance Clerk and I have tried to find out how this is done without success. It would be better if there was a drop down box to access the other account and subcategories,but I suppose that would be too easy.

Any help would be greatly appreciated

Michaeljefferyjones wrote:I have tried to access the Other account and sub categories so I can see what the balances are and print them off.( I can see them on the CUBS report) but that is a PDF report. I would like too see a up to date balance as now.

How did you try to access the Other account? As I mentioned previously, the way to see current balances is to use the Income and Expense report. That is accessible in the Finance area of MLS, in the Reports/Reconcile panel.

In the upper left corner of the Income and Expense Report, there is a dropdown labeled "Report" that lets you choose what kind of report you want. The first report you should print is the Summary by Subcategory type. Once you select that option from the Report dropdown, you'll see a bunch of checkboxes on the left hand side of the list of categories. If you check the box by Other, it will automatically check all the boxes for subcategories of Other.

Once you have that report printed, you should be able to see all your current balances (and the current year's total income, expenses, and transfers) for each subcategory of Other. If you want to see all the transactions for a particular subcategory, you can change the Report dropdown to be Details by Subcategory; you will then be prompted to select a single subcategory. Note also that there is a Date Range dropdown that you may want to change, but the default of Current Year is probably a good choice to start with.