Deposit greater than call.

Recently I recieved notification that there was a mistake on a weeks batch. In my CUFS statement the error is showing up as "Deposit greater then call" with a positive balance of $500 in the Other catgory. Has anyone else made this mistake and can help with the best way to resolve it? -Thanks

sklamm wrote:Recently I received notification that there was a mistake on a week's batch. In my CUFS statement the error is showing up as "Deposit greater than call" with a positive balance of $500 in the Other category. Has anyone else made this mistake and can help with the best way to resolve it?

This means that the amount deposited in the bank was $500 more than the amount of the donation batch in MLS. There are a few ways this could happen:

1. A check was submitted to the bank, but was not included in the batch.
2. The amount of a check was incorrect (e.g., it was for $2500, but recorded in MLS as $2000)
3. The bank made an error, or read the amount on a check differently. This can happen if the written amount on the check (which the bank tends to trust) is different from the numeric amount on the check (which clerks tend to look at).

Each of these can be a bit tricky to track down. If your bank is helpful, they will help you by providing some details as to how they processed the deposit. They can certainly tell you what the check, currency, and coin totals were according to their records. This would help you narrow down the problem area. They can even provide details on the checks that were processed, which is probably what you ultimately need. Armed with that information, you can compare each check in the deposit with the bank's records and determine where the difference lies.

Once you have identified the problem, you'll probably need to make an adjustment to the batch. When that adjustment is processed by CHQ, the $500 currently credited to Other will go away. If it is determined to be an actual bank error, then the bank would make the adjustment and you would need to call Local Unit Support to inform them of the correction.

Interesting. We recently had the opposite problem where the deposit was less than call in the amount of $10. I had assumed that because neither we or the bishop had recieved any notification from the stake or bank we must not have needed to do anything about it. We only noticed it when we went to reconcile the CUFS.

Now I'm wondering if there is more to it than that, and where I might find the steps we need to go through. We already tried tracking down the error, but it is still even a guess as to which donation batch it applies to.

Can you provide any additional insight?

jbh001 wrote:Interesting. We recently had the opposite problem where the deposit was less than call in the amount of $10. I had assumed that because neither we or the bishop had received any notification from the stake or bank we must not have needed to do anything about it. We only noticed it when we went to reconcile the CUFS.

Now I'm wondering if there is more to it than that, and where I might find the steps we need to go through. We already tried tracking down the error, but it is still even a guess as to which donation batch it applies to.

Can you provide any additional insight?

If you are using Deposit Concentration, you will never be notified by the bank. All communication will come from the Church. I don't think that there is usually a separate communication, other than the line item on the CUFS, but I'm not sure about that.

"Deposit less than call" can have most of the causes I mentioned above, except for the first option, rather than including a check that was not in the batch, somehow a check or $10 bill was not included in the bank deposit but was included in the MLS batch. In that case, you might want to look around the desk to see if a $10 bill fell behind the desk, or something like that.

It's been a while since I've had to deal with one of these, but as I recall, there is something in the "deposit less than call" line item on the CUFS that ties it back to the reference number of the donation batch. If that's not the case, generally such problems are reported by the bank fairly quickly, so if the date of that line item is say, June 25, then it was probably the June 21 batch.

It doesn't really matter whether the deposit is less or greater than the call; the process for resolving it is pretty much the same. As you reconcile the month in question, you'll have to create a Temporary Item until you resolve the issue. You do need to resolve it, or you'll not be able to reconcile without the Temporary Item (which of course you do not want to carry forward eternally -- auditors tend to take a dim view of such practices).

sklamm wrote:the best way to resolve it?

In addition to the excellent advice Alan has given, you might just get out the envelope with all of the yellow slips from that deposit and review them with the batch to see that everything got recorded, or recorded properly.

Perhaps someone thought the yellow slip and check were recorded, but they got placed in the wrong pile and the check was added to the deposit but not recorded in MLS. A careful line by line review of the check list normally would catch that before the deposit went in.

Perhaps a donation envelope came in late in the process and got included, but not recorded. There are any number of ways that a distraction in the process could result in a mismatched deposit.

And, it is quite possible that the problem has nothing at all to do with the clerk and counselor who prepared the deposit.

Happy hunting. That is why there are two of you.

Thank you for the insight into solving this problem. The information was just what I hoped for. Thanks again.

lajackson wrote:... with all of the yellow slips from that deposit ...

It's picking nits here, but the donor slips are white. The donors should be keeping the yellow copy for their own records. (Oh, and reviewing them is a great idea.)

As quick update on my circumstance. While waiting to contact the bank tomorrow for the specific information they could provide. I decided to take the suggestion of going through the tithing and offering slips and comparing them to the batch. I did find a slip in the amount of $50.00 that was not recorded on the printed batch report.


(Yes, the discrepancy was in fact $50.00 and not the $500.00 I had recalled when I made the initial post from home.):o


So if I understand correctly, I will go into that batch and make the edit/correction and transmit the change to CHQ. I will keep the temporary adjustment until I see an indication that it has been cleared from a future CUFS, and then clear the temporary item.


Again, to all. I appreciate your time and help in resolving this issue.

... and Matt, you can rest easy. The slips were white.

sklamm wrote:As quick update on my circumstance. While waiting to contact the bank tomorrow for the specific information they could provide. I decided to take the suggestion of going through the tithing and offering slips and comparing them to the batch. I did find a slip in the amount of $50.00 that was not recorded on the printed batch report.

That's why we keep lajackson around -- he's great at suggesting the obvious when some of us are lost in the details. I'm glad the simple solution worked for you in this case.

sklamm wrote:So if I understand correctly, I will go into that batch and make the edit/correction and transmit the change to CHQ. I will keep the temporary adjustment until I see an indication that it has been cleared from a future CUFS, and then clear the temporary item.

All you have to do is go into the batch and add a new donation. You're exactly right about how you handle the Temporary Item.

Alan_Brown wrote:That's why we keep lajackson around -- he's great at suggesting the obvious when some of us are lost in the details. I'm glad the simple solution worked for you in this case.

I will have to work on my colors, though. If the slips are yellow instead of white, they have probably been stored in the clerk's office a few years longer than they should have been. [grin]

Alan_Brown wrote:It doesn't really matter whether the deposit is less or greater than the call; the process for resolving it is pretty much the same. As you reconcile the month in question, you'll have to create a Temporary Item until you resolve the issue. You do need to resolve it, or you'll not be able to reconcile without the Temporary Item (which of course you do not want to carry forward eternally -- auditors tend to take a dim view of such practices).

Hmmm. We reconciled just fine by adding the "Deposit Less Than Call" entry as an expense instead of a temporary item. I didn't see anything on the CUFS that would tie the "Deposit Less Than Call" entry to a particular donation batch.

lajackson wrote:In addition to the excellent advice Alan has given, you might just get out the envelope with all of the yellow slips from that deposit and review them with the batch to see that everything got recorded, or recorded properly.

We did that with the closest batch preceding the "Deposit Less Than Call" entry on the CUFS. All the donations slips matched the entries in that batch. We were unable to find any discrepancies. Without knowing the actual denominations used for currency in the batch it is imposible to locate which cash donation a might have been recorded or counted wrong. At this point I think all we can do is wait for tithing settlement to see if a member notifies us of a $10 difference between their financial records and MLS's records.

If there is more that we should be doing than just waiting for tithing settlement, then I would expect and MLS message from CHQ or something from the stake providing instructions, or notification from the bishop that there was a problem. So far, the bishop reports not being notified of this until we brought it to his attention, and the stake and CHQ have apparently been silent on the matter.

Any other ideas?

jbh001 wrote:Hmmm. We reconciled just fine by adding the "Deposit Less Than Call" entry as an expense instead of a temporary item. I didn't see anything on the CUFS that would tie the "Deposit Less Than Call" entry to a particular donation batch.

Of course, making an actual expense would allow you reconcile just fine, but where did the funds for that expense come from? You would have to make an expense in the Other category (or one of its subcategories) in order to reconcile. But funds in the Other category are supposed to be deposited for a specific purpose and then spent for that specific purpose.

I suppose you could use Budget funds to pay the expense, depositing them into Other to make up the shortfall. But that's an odd use of Budget funds. What if the shortfall had been $100? $500? $1000? Nonetheless, if you can't track down the actual problem, I would agree that your options are limited.

jbh001 wrote:We did that with the closest batch preceding the "Deposit Less Than Call" entry on the CUFS. All the donations slips matched the entries in that batch. We were unable to find any discrepancies. Without knowing the actual denominations used for currency in the batch it is imposible to locate which cash donation a might have been recorded or counted wrong. At this point I think all we can do is wait for tithing settlement to see if a member notifies us of a $10 difference between their financial records and MLS's records.

So did you actually contact the bank to determine if the discrepancy was in currency, coin, or checks? It seems like that might help narrow down the problem. It sounds like you are assuming that it was cash. If that indeed is the case, then you're right that it is very difficult to track down.

Aside from doing additional training on proper procedures for verifying donations using the Companionship Principle, I would agree that there's not much else you can do except hope that someone will notify you of a difference in their records. But even that seems unlikely. After all, the batch records do match the donation slips. It's just that someone put $10 less in the envelope than was recorded on the slip, or $10 was misplaced while counting donations, or the bank miscounted the money.

jbh001 wrote:If there is more that we should be doing than just waiting for tithing settlement, then I would expect and MLS message from CHQ or something from the stake providing instructions, or notification from the bishop that there was a problem. So far, the bishop reports not being notified of this until we brought it to his attention, and the stake and CHQ have apparently been silent on the matter.

The stake receives no notification of such issues. An auditor should catch it and report it (since auditors are required to check all deposits to make sure that the deposited amount matches the amount on the CUFS), at which point the stake would be involved. CHQ did notify you by putting the item on the CUFS; I have never seen a separate notification other than that.

Alan_Brown wrote:CHQ did notify you by putting the item on the CUFS; I have never seen a separate notification other than that.

But, for example, when there is a returned check, CHQ provides instructions on how to properly proceed. I was expecting somthing similar. We had quite a discussion over this and no one (not even the bishop) could answer the question: "If the bank needed to contact someone in the ward about a deposit (or any other reason), how would they know whom to contact?" The bank doesn't necessarily know who the current bishop or ward members are.

This is an example of not knowing what the proper procedure is. I'm not even sure we could contact the bank because how would they verify that any of us (in the bishopric) are even authorized to discuss the matter? That is a security/fraud prevention measure I'd hope they would have in place. For that matter are we (the bishopric, any of us) really authorized to discuss anything with the bank directly, from a CHQ standpoint?

Again, if there is a proper procedure for this, my expectation is that it would be communicated via some channel or other. To-date, yours are the only procedures anyone has offered.

Maybe I'm making this more complicated than it needs to be, and I just need to send and MLS message requesting direction along the lines of:

On our XX/2009 CUFS there is an expense dated XX/XX/2009 listed as "Call less than deposit" in the amount of $10. We assumed this corresponds to deposit batch number XXXXX, and have verified that all the donation slips are accounted for and match the entries on that batch's summary report, and we have not been able to locate any discrepancies. Please advise us on the proper steps to resolve this.

And now having just typed that out, I already know I'm likely to get a boilerplate response back telling us to contact the stake clerk first. I guess I just answered my own question.

jbh001 wrote:We had quite a discussion over this and no one (not even the bishop) could answer the question: "If the bank needed to contact someone in the ward about a deposit (or any other reason), how would they know whom to contact?" The bank doesn't necessarily know who the current bishop or ward members are.

If you are on Deposit Concentration, then the simple answer is that the bank doesn't know how to contact you, and doesn't need to know how to contact you. Just as with returned checks, CHQ is the only entity the bank will contact on any deposit irregularities, and you then need to work with CHQ.

You do raise a good question, though, as to how you could get detailed information on a deposit from the bank. The deposit bag should have included your unit number, but still it is not at all clear how the bank would be able to authenticate that you actually are an authorized representative of that Church unit.

So if detailed bank information is needed, I think you're right that the correct course is to contact CHQ (working through your stake clerk, of course, as you noted).

I've been down this road a few times. Yes, contacting CHQ is the right way to go to get more info from the bank. The help desk at CHQ will turn you over to the person there responsible for the particular bank the deposit was made at. They have all the tools and contacts needed to obtain whatever bank information you may need. Sometimes this involves getting photocopies of every check in a particular batch. Whatever it takes to resolve your issue.

In our July CUFS we had a deposit less than call for $6.00, however nothing was transfered to or taken out of our "other" account. Do I still need to track this down?

drp wrote:In our July CUFS we had a deposit less than call for $6.00, however nothing was transfered to or taken out of our "other" account. Do I still need to track this down?

Was the deposit amount recorded on the CUFS in the Deposits section the same as the amount in MLS and on your copy of the deposit slip? If those all match, then it sounds like the bank gave you full credit, even though they say you were $6 short. But that would be unusual, in my experience.

If those numbers don't all match, then you would have a hard time reconciling. But if you were able to reconcile with no temporary items, and everything matching up, then you don't have to do anything else.