Quarterly Reports vs Quarterly Local Budget Allowance

I am new to the budgeting side of finance and had a question. It appears we get funds based on sacrament, yw/ym, primary and single adult Sunday attendance. When I look at the last Quarterly Budget Allowance deposit report, some of the attendance numbers match the corresponding quarterly report, and others do not. Sacrament and ym/yw attendance seem to match, but primary and YSA do not. Are these numbers on the quarterly reports supposed to match? I am using the following line items from the quarterly report:

Average Sacrament Meeting Attendance
Young Men Attending Priesthood and Sunday School Meetings
Young Women Attending Young Women and Sunday School Meetings
Children Ages 3 and Older Attending Primary (number does not match)
Young Single Adults Attending Priesthood, Relief Society, Sunday School, Young Women, or Primary (number does not match)

Thank You!

If you look at the very bottom of your Budget Allowance report you will see two footnotes that explain the difference. Basically the Primary allowance is supposed to be based on the number of primary children aged 7-10 who attended primary. But the quarterly report doesn't have this number so it is estimated by multiplying the entire primary attendance by the percent of children 7-10 compared to the entire primary membership.

Similarly, the YSA value is estimated based on the sacrament meeting attendance multiplied by the percentage of YSA members compared to the entire ward membership.

silus99 wrote: Tue Oct 19, 2021 11:49 am When I look at the last Quarterly Budget Allowance deposit report, some of the attendance numbers match the corresponding quarterly report, and others do not. Sacrament and ym/yw attendance seem to match, but primary and YSA do not.

The primary and YSA numbers are not the numbers you see in the quarterly report for primary attendance or for YSA attendance. How the primary and YSA numbers are calculated is found on the quarterly budget allowance notes. For example; "*The Primary attendance figure is calculated by multiplying the number of children (ages 7 to 10) from membership records by the percent of Primary attendance from line 22 of the Quarterly Report." Likewise, "** The Young Single Adult attendance figure is calculated by multiplying the number of single adults (ages 18 to 30) from membership records by the percent of sacrament meeting attendance from line 7 of the Quarterly Report." Note the numbers from membership records is the number on the last day of the quarter. You can find those numbers by running a custom report on the last day of the quarter. Running those custom reports on any other day most likely will not give you the correct number due to move-ins, move-outs, and birthdays that move the members inside or outside of the date range.

Great, thank you so much and I will try to remember to read the fine print in the future. I really appreciate the help!

I am struggling myself to reconcile Primary and YSA attendance numbers for the projected Q1 2025 budget allowance report based on the Q3 2024 quarterly report.

My interpretation of the formulas would be:
Primary attendance = Potential 7-10 count * % Primary attendance
YSA attendance = Potential YSA count * % Sacrament attendance

On both counts I am off. I don't know if there is rounding in the formulas I'm missing? Primary is as though we had 100% Primary attendance though we were at 92%. YSA is as though we were at 60% Sacrament attendance though we were at 67%.

I spent a week trying to setup a call time with the GSD and I'm now on hold for the second day in a row with an agent. It has been difficult to explain for some reason that I'm not focused on the amount per attendee, or the stake/ward split percentage, or the deposit amounts. I am trying to reproduce the attendance count.

EDIT: That second call with the GSD ended. The difference was attributed to "other factors" and the projected nature of the report, but I have the same symptom for Q4 2024 based on Q2 2024 data.

greenwoodkl wrote: Wed Dec 11, 2024 7:28 am YSA attendance = Potential YSA count * % Sacrament attendance

Are you using the old definition (18-31) or the new one (18-35)?

Since the attendance is in a past quarter, you might see if you can match the number by accounting for those aging in and aging out between then and now, as well as move-ins and move-outs.

I can't say what the discrepancy is for your case but usually the tricky part is knowing the member count. That has to be the member count on the last day of the quarter, not the current values which may have change from then. It's been a while since I've seen a quarterly report so I'm not sure if they show that number or not. The percentage, however, should be exactly what's in the report.

Still stumped and wish it were easier to just get a definitive answer from a programmer or someone with access to the formula behind the report. Being stuck indefinitely at Tier 1 support for advanced questions can get aggravating.

After a chat with a GSD agent yesterday, we got closer to the projected Q1 2025 numbers for Primary and YSA, by using current (end of Q4 2024) membership record counts multiplied by the historic (end of Q3 2024) attendance percentages with some rounding afterwards. I did use the 18-30 cutoff for YSA to get closer. At the moment we only have 1 YSA in the 31-35 range.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

EDIT: The proposed method of current numbers and historical percentages doesn't hold true going back to the Q4 2024 allowance. Back to the drawing board.

Thank you for the insights! I agree that Primary and YSA attendance numbers are estimated differently, which causes mismatches. The numbers rely on projections, not direct data from the quarterly reports. I’ve also faced similar issues, especially when membership updates affect these calculations.

I have to say that the budget numbers which come through are, as they used to say in the military, "good enough for government work." Don't sweat the little things.