Missionary vs Ward Missionary

In our Income and Expense Report, we show a "Missionary" category, and a "Ward Missionary" category.

1. What is the difference, why do both appear?
2. The "Missionary" category shows a fairly large negative "Balance Forward" plus an $800 "Transfers" amount; but the Ward Missionary category shows a fairly large positive "Balance Forward", plus "Donations" and "Transfers" amounts.

Why are there two missionary categories? and what do they mean? and why do both have activity? Can they be combined? or the "Missionary" eliminated?

The "Missionary" category is a legacy from an earlier version of
MLS. They discuss exactly how to clear balances remaining
in this account in another thread (help me out with the thread please
moderators).

Basically, once cleared, it should never be used again, unless
directed by Church HQ.

"Ward Missionary" holds money donated for support of missionaries
serving from your ward.

And to add even further confusion, some units use
"Budget: Ward Mission" to allocate budget funds for the
purchase of materials in membership-missionary activities
such as pass-a-long cards and Missionary videos.

- Atticus Ewig

These two are essentially the same category. The Missionary category came about through the FIS to MLS transition. When MLS 3.1 is released later this year the Missionary category is "scheduled" to go away. The balance will automatically be combined with the Ward Missionary category. The Ward Missionary category and it's subcategories will remain.

birdld, thanks for that info, that is what I was looking for. I will just wait for the new MLS update. I find it interesting that we have had MLS for, what, 10 years now? and this old "missionary" category is still hanging around. Glad they're taking care of it.

If you'd like to clean it up sooner, you can move the money from Missionary to Ward Missionary yourself. You can then deactivate the Missionary category. See this post for instructions on how.

In my opinion, the easiest way is to go back through all donations/expenses to the Missionary category and change them to donations/expenses to/from Ward Missionary. It's clean, simple, and won't mess up anything. You can use a detailed Income and Expense report within the specific time period you are interested in to identify all transactions you need to change.

crislapi wrote: You can then deactivate the Missionary category.

Unfortunately, since this category is created by the Church and not by the unit, it cannot be deactivated.

rexgj wrote:I find it interesting that we have had MLS for, what, 10 years now? and this old "missionary" category is still hanging around.

Actually, MLS has only been out since February 2002 (MLS 1.0), and in wide-spread use since June 2003 (MLS 2.0.4). It is interesting to see how MLS has developed since then.

Curious though that the screen-shot for MLS Development Build shows both Ward Missionary and General Missionary gategories instead of just a Missionary category. But the screen-shot for MLS 2.8.2 (between January and June of 2008) shows just the Missionary cartgory. Then again it looks like the MLS 2.8.2 screen-shot is using the test database (of course).

I found this thread from some responses I received to a similar question. Our MLS has been update to the new 3.1 version and these two categories did not merge. I wish they did because it woul've partially fixed my problem.

I too was disappointed that the 3.1.1 upgrade did not merge the "missionary" and the "ward missionary" categories. I also tried just moving the money from one category to the other, but it would not allow that either. I may have do it by going back and changing the individual donations, but that seems like a big pain, since this issue for us, has existed for at least a couple of years.

rexgj wrote:I also tried just moving the money from one category to the other, but it would not allow that either.

You're right that simply moving money from Missionary to Ward Missionary does not work (MLS does not allow transfers from one major category to another).

But this post was mentioned a bit earlier in this thread. It does explain how the transfer can be done. Have you tried that technique yet?

rexgj wrote:I may have do it by going back and changing the individual donations, but that seems like a big pain, since this issue for us, has existed for at least a couple of years.

I would personally go back and change at least the current year's donations to the correct category, then use Alan's helpful suggestion in resolving prior years. It may not be necessary, but that's what I would do.

Just a followup and correction on this issue. The finance clerk training says to write a check to the ward from one category, and deposit it into the other. I was nervous about this, and didn't really see how that would work. So I called Church Finance in SLC, and no, it cannot be done that way. There instructions are to go back into the "Reconcile" screens and change any "Missionary" items to "Ward Missionary"; it only took a few minutes and worked like a charm. When I was finished, the "Missionary" category disappeared from the Income and Expense Report, it just wasn't there anymore, because it was zeroed out.

To get a report on where all the "Missionary" problem are, go to Income and Expense Report, select "All" from the menu, then "Details," then click on "Missionary" and hit enter; all the "Missionary" problem appear and you can print it out and work from that page.