Tech Forum Archive

Check writing cutoff: December 30 at noon

15 postsstarted by aebrown 3,998 viewsoriginal topic

aebrown
Community Administrator
#1
UPDATE: See this post for the official message. Check cutoff is at noon on December 30; adjustment cutoff is midnight on December 29 (both times MST).

Please be aware that the cutoff date for writing checks against the 2009 Budget is December 30 at midnight, MST. According to the December 30 entry on the Clerk and Technology Support Calendar:
Today [December 30] at midnight is the last day checks can be issued and posted to be on the Church Unit Statement for December. The checks need to be transmitted and received by midnight. Any checks received after this will be posted on the January 2010 statement and not counted as a 2009 expense. Please look at your December statement to see if it posted.
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Mikerowaved
Community Moderators
#2
Thanks for the heads-up. Just for clarification, is this midnight local time to the individual clerk, or midnight at CHQ (MST)?
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aebrown
Community Administrator
#3
Mikerowaved wrote:Thanks for the heads-up. Just for clarification, is this midnight local time to the individual clerk, or midnight at CHQ (MST)?
As near as I can tell from the calendar item, and from previous years' practice, it is MST, as I mentioned in my post.
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Mikerowaved
Community Moderators
#4
Alan_Brown wrote:As near as I can tell from the calendar item, and from previous years' practice, it is MST, as I mentioned in my post.
I saw MST in your post, but I was unsure how you came to that from reading the calendar item. Prior years' practice makes sense, but it would nice if CHQ made the distinction in their calendar item, being as we ARE a worldwide organization.
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aebrown
Community Administrator
#5
Mikerowaved wrote:I saw MST in your post, but I was unsure how you came to that from reading the calendar item. Prior years' practice makes sense, but it would nice if CHQ made the distinction in their calendar item, being as we ARE a worldwide organization.
It wasn't so much a direct reading, as a reasonable inference. Any cutoff is going to be based on some operation done on Church servers containing financial records. Those servers are located in the Mountain Time Zone, so the cutoff must occur at a specific time MST, not a variety of times depending on the time zone for units where various transactions originated. But I also recall a specific clarification of this issue sometime in the past.

In any case, I edited the calendar event to make it clear.
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RossEvans
Senior Member
#6

This message says the deadline is noon 30 Dec for checks

I just saw a new MLS message, which reads:
Summary:

The deadline for checks to be counted for 2009 is noon on December 30th.

Description:

The deadline for checks to be counted for 2009 is noon on December 30th. To ensure local unit checks will be recorded for 2009 financial statements, the check must be written and transmitted BEFORE noon on December 30th. Checks written and transmitted after that time will count towards 2010's budget.

Also, for a financial adjustment to appear on the December 2009 Church Unit Financial Statement, the adjustment needs to be completed and transmitted BEFORE midnight December 29th.
aebrown
Community Administrator
#7
boomerbubba wrote:I just saw a new MLS message, which reads:
That's what I get for trusting the calendar :o. Thanks for posting the message, which given the source and timeliness is surely more trustworthy.
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lajackson
Community Moderators
#8
Alan_Brown wrote:That's what I get for trusting the calendar :o. Thanks for posting the message, which given the source and timeliness is surely more trustworthy.
We can still give you credit for deciding it should be Mountain Time. [grin]
aebrown
Community Administrator
#9
lajackson wrote:We can still give you credit for deciding it should be Mountain Time. [grin]
Thanks!

I did go and edit the calendar event for checks on Dec 30, and added a new event for adjustments on Dec 29.
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russellhltn
Community Administrator
#10
Noon is probably a better choice anyway. When you say "midnight", the question naturally comes up, is that the midnight between 12/29 and 12/30 or the one between 12/30 and 12/31?
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aebrown
Community Administrator
#11
RussellHltn wrote:Noon is probably a better choice anyway. When you say "midnight", the question naturally comes up, is that the midnight between 12/29 and 12/30 or the one between 12/30 and 12/31?
I suppose, but we're pretty used to midnight deadlines being at the end of the day specified -- think filing taxes by April 15 at midnight, or postmarking your tithing check by midnight on December 31. I really doubt anyone would be confused. I certainly hope it's not confusing, because we still have a midnight deadline -- the December 29 midnight deadline for financial adjustments.
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lajackson
Community Moderators
#12
RussellHltn wrote:Noon is probably a better choice anyway.
To establish the exact time, yes. On the other hand, I would personally suggest being done with all check writing and transmitting on the 29th, so that you will be able to run reports. You will not be able to select morning and afternoon in any of the MLS drop down boxes I have seen. [grin]

But if it is the morning of the 30th and you want it to hit the 2009 budget, go for it.
aebrown
Community Administrator
#13
lajackson wrote:To establish the exact time, yes. On the other hand, I would personally suggest being done with all check writing and transmitting on the 29th, so that you will be able to run reports. You will not be able to select morning and afternoon in any of the MLS drop down boxes I have seen. [grin]

But if it is the morning of the 30th and you want it to hit the 2009 budget, go for it.
There's no problem at all writing checks on the morning of the 30th. The only problems with reports occur if you make adjustments or write checks after the respective deadlines. Unless you have an urgent need to do such transactions after the deadline, I would strongly recommend that you avoid it. Because if you do, you'll have a situation where the CUFS will say that certain transactions occurred in January, but MLS will say that they occurred in December. That can get confusing.
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steve_zackrison-p40
New Member
#14
What about non-check expenses (ie. missionary costs and Distribution Center expenses)? Do these need to be entered by the Dec. 30 deadline? I typically enter these expenses when I reconcile the month so I wanted to confirm that this would still be okay for the month of December.
aebrown
Community Administrator
#15
steve_zackrison wrote:What about non-check expenses (ie. missionary costs and Distribution Center expenses)? Do these need to be entered by the Dec. 30 deadline? I typically enter these expenses when I reconcile the month so I wanted to confirm that this would still be okay for the month of December.
You can enter those at any time (even in January) with no problem. Those are expenses that have already happened at CHQ, and you are simply entering them into MLS.

The deadline is for transactions (adjustments and expenses) that are initiated in MLS and then have to be processed at CHQ. It's that processing at CHQ that has to be completed before CHQ does its year-end procedures.
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