Youth conference deposit

How do you handle deposits for an out-of-state stake youth conference trip? Donation to Other and then reimburse after the conference?

adkinsjm wrote:How do you handle deposits for an out-of-state stake youth conference trip? Donation to Other and then reimburse after the conference?

"Donation to Other" confuses me. I'm assuming you need to pay the depot before you have sufficient funds in the other account to pay for it.

The simplest way is to cut a check from budget. Once you have enough funds in Other, then re-categorize the check.

Transferring funds from Other to Budget looks bad. An auditor would have to find other transactions to make sure it's not a case of using donations to fund the budget.

Clarification: Parents have to pay a deposit to secure a spot for their child. The deposit is not used to pay for anything on the trip, so the only money that will be paid out (returned deposits) will be money that has been collected.

adkinsjm wrote:Clarification: Parents have to pay a deposit to secure a spot for their child. The deposit is not used to pay for anything on the trip, so the only money that will be paid out (returned deposits) will be money that has been collected.

Parents should not be paying anything for youth conference. See Handbook 2, 13.4: "Youth conferences are to be funded from the stake or ward budget. Members should not be asked to pay for youth conferences."

I'm not sure I follow exactly what you're saying about deposits being returned. Are you saying that you have a system where parents are required to make a deposit, but ultimately get that money back? That seems like it is still contrary to the Handbook section I quoted. Presumably they get their deposit back if their child actually attends youth conference, but they don't get their money back if the child doesn't attend (if they get their money back no matter what, then there's not much point in the deposit). But if they forfeit their deposit, then how is that money accounted for? For what purpose is that money collected and subsequently used (which is what you have to be able to explain for all funds that passed through the Other account)? You can't use that money for youth conference without violating the Handbook provision I quoted, and you can't use it for any other purpose without violating the fundamental principles of the Other account, which would lead to an audit exception.

I'm not clear on the purpose of the depots if it's not going to be applied to an expense.

But any payments from members or other individuals should go to an appropriate category under Other. Any left over funds should be refunded. So, "other" would be the right place to do that.