Correcting online donations

Our ward and stake have not yet had the online donation system enabled to us.

A summer member of my ward asked me today if there is a way to correct a donation. Apparently he classified tithing as a fast offering. Any way to make the correction??

From the FAQs:

Q11. When I reviewed my previous donations, I noticed I made a mistake and put my donation in the Fast Offerings category instead of in Tithing, where I wanted it. Can I change a completed donation?

A11. No, completed donations cannot be edited. However, you can print a copy of your completed donation, take it to your ward or branch financial clerk, and ask him to correct the donation category for you on the ward or branch computer.

I had almost identical issue as I flip/flopped tithing and fast offering in a prior donation. The clerk was able to take care if it and I just confirmed the correction on-line. In this case it was just the category of the donations - no change in the total. I'd think changing the total could get ugly.

OK, so I guess to add to my question, this person as previously stated is a summer member of our ward who leaves to go back to school next week. I assume that because he came from a ward that already had access for online donations, that's why he was likely still able to contribute online throughout the summer even though our ward wasn't set up yet. He's been here since April, and we have had his records the whole time he was here.

Should we be able to see his summer donation records online on MLS since we've had his records all summer? And should our clerk be able to then make the adjustment?

Completely coincidental, or maybe NOT, in the roughly 40 minutes since I posted the original question, I received an email from our Stake President informing me that our stake and ward are now set up.

bballrob wrote:I assume that because he came from a ward that already had access for online donations, that's why he was likely still able to contribute online throughout the summer even though our ward wasn't set up yet. He's been here since April, and we have had his records the whole time he was here.

That's interesting. That would mean the flag has to be on the individual level, not the unit level. That strikes me as odd.

bballrob wrote:Should we be able to see his summer donation records online on MLS since we've had his records all summer? And should our clerk be able to then make the adjustment?

If the donations went to your ward, then yes. If the donations didn't go to your ward, then I wouldn't expect you to be able to see them, much less edit them.

I'd double-check that assumption you have this person's records. Verify it on-line since MLS does get out of sync.

russellhltn wrote:I'd double-check that assumption you have this person's records. Verify it on-line since MLS does get out of sync.

It wasn't an assumption. He's my son-in-law. I KNOW that the records have been in our ward since the week he and my daughter arrived for the summer. (But I did just verify too, and it shows them as having been in our ward since April 21st.)

I'll be at the church this evening, so I'll check MLS at that time and see if it shows donation history. I've already also already forwarded the notice from the SP to my Ward Clerk notifying us that we are now online so he can review the training videos and get ready for the influx of questions that are sure to start coming forward.

Last I checked, the ward where the donation was made will have to correct the donation, whether it was handed to the bishopric there or posted to that ward through Bill Pay or Online Donation.

I do not believe we are yet to the point where the current ward with the membership record is able to correct a donation (which is actually a batch) made to another ward.

bballrob wrote:It wasn't an assumption. He's my son-in-law. I KNOWthat the records have been in our ward since the week he and my daughter arrived for the summer. (But I did just verify too, and it shows them as having been in our ward since April 21st.)

I still find it very odd that he would still have access to on-line donations when the records moved. Enough so that I'd question if there might be a duplicate record.

OK, now here's the ultimate monkey wrench thrown into everything. He's been paying his donations online directly to Church Head Quarters since 2013. When he got home from his mission, his brother showed him how he could do it and he's been doing it ever since. He actually initiates the transaction online through Wells Fargo Bill Pay it sounds like. HE does have the ability to categorize the donations though, so WF has something set up right.

In the end, I told him to not sweat it. The fact that he put in a donation as Fast Offering that he had intended has Tithing isn't going to hurt anything. He knows what it was intended for. He can still consider himself a full tithe payer, and all's well that ends well.

It sounds as if he was using Wells Fargo Bill Pay. The bank would have been set up so that he made one payment (contribution) to Tithing and another to Fast Offering. He would still be able to do that when his record moved from an Online Donation capable stake to one that was not. The contribution that needs to be changed can be adjusted by the ward that received it from his WF Bank Bill Pay system.

Another thing he might easily do is make his next few contributions in a way that will compensate for the error. For example, if he sent something to Fast Offering and meant Tithing, he can donate extra to Tithing and less to Fast Offering until things are balanced out as he wishes.

lajackson wrote:Last I checked, the ward where the donation was made will have to correct the donation, whether it was handed to the bishopric there or posted to that ward through Bill Pay or Online Donation.

I think it also depends on the settings that the church donations department has for the member.

I've been making recurring, online donations via the "old" way for years (manually set up with the donations department and the electronic bill pay feature of my bank) and none of my donations appeared at the local unit level until April 2014. I emailed the donations department about it and they said that the "confidential" setting was such that my ward clerk could see the donations. They changed the setting such that donations are now "confidential" and my ward never see's the donations.

I know that this information is old (more than a year), but if the member had been making donations via the bill pay method (like me) AND your ward isn't setup for the new "Online Donations" (like my ward), it is possible (or highly likely?) that the ward can't change the categories at all... If the issue is still unresolved I'd recommend contacting the LDS Donations department/group directly.

Thank you~!

nathangg wrote:I've been making recurring, online donations via the "old" way for years (manually set up with the donations department and the electronic bill pay feature of my bank) and none of my donations appeared at the local unit level until April 2014. I emailed the donations department about it and they said that the "confidential" setting was such that my ward clerk could see the donations.

I had heard that everyone making bill pay donations for a long time (like you and me) automatically had the "confidential" flag set and that those who started bill pay recently (like the last year or two) did not have it automatically set. I was curious and checked with the financial clerk in my ward a few months ago and he did not see any of my bill pay donations in the system.

Now that our stake is live with the new donations, I do see my bill pay donations in the donations screen. I've meant to check with the financial clerk again to see if my bill pay donations are coming through on FIS or not. We discussed it one day, but we've never checked. We're just trying to figure out how things work so we can answer member questions about the donations tool.

mevans wrote:...coming through on FIS...

Showing our age, are we? I believe FIS was replaced by MLS just a tiny while ago (a dozen years or so).

mevans wrote:I had heard that everyone making bill pay donations for a long time (like you and me) automatically had the "confidential" flag set and that those who started bill pay recently (like the last year or two) did not have it automatically set. I was curious and checked with the financial clerk in my ward a few months ago and he did not see any of my bill pay donations in the system.

When I started using bank bill pay in July last year, I was not given the option. Everything showed up in MLS as a "Bill Pay" batch just as if I had handed an envelope to the bishopric. At that time, others posted here at the Forum that their previously established bill pay accounts were not showing up in MLS. I suppose I could have asked for the "confidential" setting, and that appears to have been the default. I suspect there was a change made last year.

I do not believe there is a "confidential" (headquarters-only) option for Online Donations. They all show up in MLS. My financial statements now have donations in three categories, "Ward", "Bill Pay", and "Online".

I have also discovered that the function to use a previous donation and copy it will only work with donations made through the Online system. I am able to copy and reuse one of those donations, but I am not able to copy a previous Bill Pay donation and use it again.

aebrown wrote:

mevans wrote:...coming through on FIS...

Showing our age, are we? I believe FIS was replaced by MLS just a tiny while ago (a dozen years or so).

I was a ward clerk in the days of the DOS programs. Now I'm an assistant membership clerk and don't really know what happens on the financial side.