Transfers of Ward Missionary Funds to other units

What is the rationale for not allowing Ward Missionary transfers to units outside of the stake but in the same county? For some reason, those funds must only be transferred within the ward or stake. When missionaries return early for a variety of reasons with prepaid funds, the families would like to transfer prepaid funds to missionaries in their extended families living in other stakes. I understand limiting the transfers within the country but don't understand the rational for not allowing inter unit transfers outside of the stake as authorized by the families and the bishops.

General Handbook 34.3.3 indicates that unneeded funds should first go to the stake, and then the stake can send to others in the same coordinating council. I'm sure that thought process guided the "business rules" given to the developers.

You could try talking to support and see if they'd be willing to do the transfer.

For future reference prepay is discouraged. From 24.3.4.1: "Funds beyond the monthly amount should not be contributed in advance. Funds contributed in advance cannot be refunded if a missionary returns home early."

Another way of thinking about the "prepaid funds", is to replace that with the word "donations". The Church is quite clear that once any member makes a donation to support a missionary, the Church has sole discretion on the use of those funds, and the family relinquishes control over how/where/when those donations are used.

That said, the family's desires are quite understandable, we all naturally think of our "missionary's fund" as belonging to us, essentially considering it as money that the church is holding onto for us. Unfortunately there's still members who make prepaid donations, and this runs the risk of a missionary ending their service unexpectedly early, and the members then not having access to how the "extra funds" are used.

What about if the funds are for the same missionary?

We have a missionary whose parents are divorced and they live in different stakes. They agreed to transfer financial responsibility mid-way through the mission. I went ahead and changed the missionary’s funding unit, but there is a positive balance in the old ward. How should I go about transferring those funds to the new ward? I’m the ward clerk, and I’ve reached out to the stake finance clerk, but he hasn’t done this before either.

In hindsight, the best thing to do would have been to make sure the old ward had zero balance before changing the funding ward. But to my credit, the missionary charges for that month came a month late, for all the missionaries from our ward, and I assume the missionary’s old ward as well, hence the positive balance.

Go back though the process of changing the responsible unit. Update the effective date of the transfer. (Apparently it was later then the actual date.) That should take care of it.

If the missionary portal does allow you to adjust the effective date for the transfer then that does work best.

If that doesn't work, the stake does have the ability to transfer Ward Missionary funds to units (including wards and branches) outside the stake. So it is possible to transfer the funds to the stake and then have them transfer them to the correct ward. The receiving ward would then need to transfer them into the correct missionary's account.

I don't see any effective date options in the Missionary Online Recommendation System, even when initiating a unit transfer.

I'll ask the stake finance clerk whether he can support the inter-stake transfer. If not, I'll try transferring the missionary back to his old ward until the funds are depleted, then make the transfer back into the new ward, with the consent of the old ward, of course.

Thank you for your help!

I'd contact the missionary department. That used to be an option, but I guess they didn't put that in when they created the webpage.

Just closing the loop on this:
The other stake ended up contacting the missionary department and they made the transfer.

Thanks for reporting the result! It helps us know what works.