Tithing Settlement

A new notice today at the Official Communication Library shows that tithing settlement may begin as early as October 15 this year. Less year-end stress for busy bishops.

Awesome.

One little tidbit in the letter points clerks to http://lds.org/tithing-settlement, which supposedly redirects to help files for clerks. Someone must have been a little too greedy with the wildcard on the redirect filter, because that URL redirects to the new donation application... Feedback sent.

I'm a stake clerk and I was discussing tithing settlement with one of our bishops recently. Do you know if there will be any change this year with online donations being accepted? We were curious if individual or family financial summaries would look any different given the new online procedures. I'm inclined to think it would be the same as in previous years but I figured now would be a good time to prepare the bishops if there are going to be any changes due to the new online donation system. Thanks for any feedback.

sdrakulich wrote:Do you know if there will be any change this year with online donations being accepted? We were curious if individual or family financial summaries would look any different given the new online procedures.

Online donations are treated as if they were handed to the bishopric in an envelope. I think the reports will all look the same. They should be individual summaries (some with the spouse named also), just as in the past.

One thing new to the Tithing Settlement announcement is the note that members can print out their own annual donation summaries at the LDS.org Donations site. While that is true, the clerk is still responsible to see that they get them. So unless a member tells the clerk they will print their own, I suppose he should print the whole lot.

I can confirm that Online Donations show on the Ward's MLS. We have had quite a few in our ward (to the delight of the Bishopric) and each one is visible when you look at the View/Update Donations option in MLS.

Note: you cannot update any of the online ones, but you can view them. The Online Donation Number starts with "ON"

davesudweeks wrote:Note: you cannot update any of the online ones, but you can view them.

I hope you are referring to the member not being able to update a donation. The online help states donations can be edited to correct donation categories, but not total donation amount, in MLS by those with finance permissions.

I am currently serving as Assistant Clerk - Finance. I am not in front of MLS right now, but I did pull up several Online Donation records in MLS last Wednesday. As I recall, everything was greyed out - I could not change anything on the online Donation Record.

I can edit Donations processed in MLS by the Clerks/Bishopric. I will check again the next time I am at the church and will update this thread with my findings.

Perhaps you cannot edit an Online Donation that was just made until the funds have actually transferred from the bank to the Church. So if I donated on a Thursday, it would show up in MLS on Friday but probably not be editable until the transaction completed after the funds transferred on Monday.

I suggest this as a guess. As you look at the dates of the donations, which will be the date the member initiated it, you may find a pattern there. Then again, it could be something totally different.

davesudweeks wrote:I am currently serving as Assistant Clerk - Finance.

Just as a thought, you might ask the Ward Clerk to pull it up.

The FAQ for the on-line donation system says that you have to work with the local clerks to fix any problems with past donations, so that seems to be the plan. There's certainly no way I can see to fix my prior donation in the webpage.

russellhltn wrote:Just as a thought, you might ask the Ward Clerk to pull it up.

Our Ward Assistant Clerk -- Finances can edit them. He has just never checked closely to the date the member made the actual contribution.

And no, the member cannot do any editing at all at the Online Donations website.

lajackson wrote:

russellhltn wrote:Just as a thought, you might ask the Ward Clerk to pull it up.

Our Ward Assistant Clerk -- Finances can edit them. He has just never checked closely to the date the member made the actual contribution.

OK, so it might be a date thing, or maybe davesudweeks isn't set up right in his calling. MLS will frequently grant fiance rights based on the local setup in MLS. But this new feature might be looking at the actual calling.

russellhltn wrote:MLS will frequently grant fiance rights based on the local setup in MLS. But this new feature might be looking at the actual calling.

Not any longer. This went away months ago. You now need both the proper calling in LCR and financial rights in MLS to take care of any financial activities in MLS.

lajackson wrote:

russellhltn wrote:MLS will frequently grant fiance rights based on the local setup in MLS. But this new feature might be looking at the actual calling.

Not any longer. This went away months ago. You now need both the proper calling in LCR and financial rights in MLS to take care of any financial activities in MLS.

And the calling will need to be synced from LCR down to MLS (use send/receive changes)

OK, I was trying to figure out how a clerk might have finance rights in MLS and yet be unable to edit a on-line transaction. We have had cases where people had finance rights but couldn't sign batches. Of course, I am assuming this was on-line with the new system and not the old billpay system.

I should be at the church tonight or tomorrow night and will check. I think I only opened one or two very recent ones when I saw them so they may have been too soon to be editable. I thought I saw somewhere on this forum that the local ward would not be able to make changes to online donations, but maybe I was dreaming...
With General Conference and National Guard duty, I have not been at the MLS computer since mid-week last week.

Thanks for all the ideas and checking.

davesudweeks wrote:I thought I saw somewhere on this forum that the local ward would not be able to make changes to online donations, but maybe I was dreaming...

That's probably true about other kinds of donations. In some cases, the local ward doesn't even see it.

davesudweeks wrote:I think I only opened one or two very recent ones when I saw them so they may have been too soon to be editable. I thought I saw somewhere on this forum that the local ward would not be able to make changes to online donations, but maybe I was dreaming...

Dream on. According to the help instructions at Online Donations, a member is directed to the local clerk if any corrections are needed. Congratulations!

Help > FAQs > Q11 . . . I made a mistake . . .
A11. . . 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.

This discussion is beginning to fork the thread from tithing settlement so I started a new thread with my results from this evening here: https://tech.lds.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=46&t=23089