Entering budget for new year

luvmy8dz wrote:I'm still in my first year as Ward Clerk and the Bishop just gave me the budget allocations for each auxiliary for 2009 and asked me to put them into MLS. So far I have not found the way to do that. Please pardon my ignorance and help me out with this.

No need to apologize -- we're here on this forum to help!

The place to enter budget allocations in MLS is View/Edit Budget, which is under Finance, Budget. There you can enter the Amount for each specific subcategory of Budget. You can also enter the total budget allocation at the bottom of the screen, and MLS will add up the subcategory allocations as you go and compare the sum to the total allocation you entered at the bottom.

If your 2009 budget includes any additional or modified Budget subcategories, you can make those changes in the Add/Update Categories screen.

However, you do have a problem with timing. Budgets are done on a calendar year basis. You can only enter 2008 budgets at this point; you cannot enter 2009 budgets until the 2008 year has been closed and the new 2009 financial year has begun. This cannot happen until January 1. So at this point, you just need to hang on to the numbers and be prepared to enter them right after the 2008 year has been closed.

Not that it really matters, but I have often wondered why MLS is set up so we can only enter the new budget after the new year starts. For those of us who like to get ahead of the game it is slightly frustrating to have to wait. It seems like there should be some manner of fix to MLS that would allow you to plan ahead with the budget. It is a very minor inconvienience and not really worth a major retooling of MLS but I do wonder how much it would take to fix the program to allow early entry.

So I guess my question (since I have zippo experience in programing) is how much effort or work would it take to give MLS the option of entereing a new years budget in early?

Just wondering.

Depend on the original database design. Since this is the 1st year I use it, and I'm at home, I don't know if records are kept in per year basis (es: expenses) or not. If so there will be no much work to do adding balance too, otherwise it require to rearrange the database design. This could take a lot of work.

I can't speak for the church but to me it's more a matter of avoiding problems with the finance systems. If we had the ability to put next years budget into the system early it opens up the possibility of someone making the mistake of putting that money into the wrong budget year and causing all kinds of money problems. We need to remember that not all of the clerks or asst. clerks have a strong computer and or finance back ground. Letting us only do one year at a time helps to avoid problems.

But like I said this is only my thoughts on the subject.

fergie34 wrote:I can't speak for the church but to me it's more a matter of avoiding problems with the finance systems. If we had the ability to put next years budget into the system early it opens up the possibility of someone making the mistake of putting that money into the wrong budget year and causing all kinds of money problems. We need to remember that not all of the clerks or asst. clerks have a strong computer and or finance back ground. Letting us only do one year at a time helps to avoid problems.

But like I said this is only my thoughts on the subject.

Good point!
With the large turn over of ward clerks, finance clerks, etc in our stake that staying with only one year probably is the wise thing to do.

Alan_Brown wrote:No need to apologize -- we're here on this forum to help!

However, you do have a problem with timing. Budgets are done on a calendar year basis. You can only enter 2008 budgets at this point; you cannot enter 2009 budgets until the 2008 year has been closed and the new 2009 financial year has begun. This cannot happen until January 1. So at this point, you just need to hang on to the numbers and be prepared to enter them right after the 2008 year has been closed.

For years now our ward has kept track of its budget in a spreadsheet completely separate from MLS. I just recently noticed that MLS has the capability to do this. Now I would like to be able to put the information into MLS. The problem I have is that because it hasn't been done for so long, a given budget category shows a balance in the negative thousands of dollars.

Does anyone know of a way to correct this? I suppose I could enter in allocation amounts in large enough numbers to balance out the negatives, but would this cause problems down the line?

be_done

be_done wrote:For years now our ward has kept track of its budget in a spreadsheet completely separate from MLS. I just recently noticed that MLS has the capability to do this. Now I would like to be able to put the information into MLS. The problem I have is that because it hasn't been done for so long, a given budget category shows a balance in the negative thousands of dollars.

Does anyone know of a way to correct this? I suppose I could enter in allocation amounts in large enough numbers to balance out the negatives, but would this cause problems down the line?

The nice thing about the Budget category is that it starts fresh at 0 every year. The process of closing out the year will reset all Budget figures to 0. Unless it's really important to you to fix up previous years, I would recommend that you simply wait until 1 Jan 2009 and input your numbers then.

Then make sure you look at all the Budget subcategories using the Budget reports. Using Income and Expense reports for Budget subcategories can be a bit confusing and doesn't show the true picture for such categories. Budget subcategories can only be accurately accounted for if you consider the Budget Allocation, which is included only on the Budget reports.