Deposit to Other: Stake & Ward Telephone

I recently learned that one of the phone bills we have been running through the other account was for a DSL line. We would like to reimburse headquarters for these charges with budget funds. Anyone ever try to make a deposit to the other account for telephone service?

mlh78 wrote:I recently learned that one of the phone bills we have been running through the other account was for a DSL line. We would like to reimburse headquarters for these charges with budget funds. Anyone ever try to make a deposit to the other account for telephone service?

A couple of years ago I tried to make a deposit to Other:Scout Registration (we got a refund from the Scout council for an overpayment), but it didn't work. There was no such subcategory listed when I tried to make the deposit, even though that subcategory is listed when I write checks. I ended up creating a separate subcategory called Other:Scout Registration Refund into which I deposited the funds, then called Local Unit Support and had them change the category on the deposit.

But perhaps things have changed since then. It wouldn't hurt to try to deposit funds to that subcategory; if it is allowed, it probably would have the effect you're hoping for.

mlh78 wrote:I recently learned that one of the phone bills we have been running through the other account was for a DSL line.

The first question I have is what is the DSL line for? The church should be paying (via the FM Group) for any official FHCs in your stake.

If this is just a "meetinghouse" line, then you would pay for it out of local funds.

Maybe I'm missing something, but the only expenses I've entered in this category are the ones for the phone bill that had already been paid and came with a big watermark to not pay the bill. It doesn't seem to me like this is a category where you assign what CHQ will pay. To me it seems this is just a way to enter expenses that CHQ has already covered. I guess I'm not sure that, just because you entered it in this category, CHQ automatically pays it.

Is it possible to go back and edit the entries you've made to reflect the correct amount?

crislapi wrote:Maybe I'm missing something, but the only expenses I've entered in this category are the ones for the phone bill that had already been paid and came with a big watermark to not pay the bill.

That may be dependent on the church being able to set up something with the telephone company. I don't know as that's true of all units in the US.

crislapi wrote:Maybe I'm missing something, but the only expenses I've entered in this category are the ones for the phone bill that had already been paid and came with a big watermark to not pay the bill. It doesn't seem to me like this is a category where you assign what CHQ will pay. To me it seems this is just a way to enter expenses that CHQ has already covered. I guess I'm not sure that, just because you entered it in this category, CHQ automatically pays it.

Here is the Wiki explaining use of the other account for telephone payments. https://tech.lds.org/wiki/index.php/Sta ... ne_service. I don't think it is necessary to enter charges into MLS where CHQ has already paid them; I would only use this account to pass through the cost of telephone lines you pay by check.

crislapi wrote:Is it possible to go back and edit the entries you've made to reflect the correct amount?

It is possible, but this goes back a couple years, which would cause some recordkeeping headaches.

mlh78 wrote:I recently learned that one of the phone bills we have been running through the other account was for a DSL line. We would like to reimburse headquarters for these charges with budget funds. Anyone ever try to make a deposit to the other account for telephone service?

Before you do anything about this, I would suggest that you speak (through your stake PFR) to the FM group about how they would like to handle this. They may simply suggest that you pay the bill for the rest of the year and not worry about previous charges.

At the very least, they probably will ask you how much the DSL line is costing you to help them prepare for their budgeting requirements. Unless they have already spoken with your stake technology specialist.

Again, it comes back to what the DSL is for. I don't think FM will help out if it's just for a meetinghouse that doesn't have a FHC.

Not unless something has changed.

RussellHltn wrote:Again, it comes back to what the DSL is for. I don't think FM will help out if it's just for a meetinghouse that doesn't have a FHC.

Not unless something has changed.

Correct - DSL is paid for by the stake if you don't have an "official" FHC.

techgy wrote:Correct - DSL is paid for by the stake if you don't have an "official" FHC.

You and Russell are correct that this is the current policy. So it is up to mlh78 to decide how to procede from this point.

lajackson wrote:Before you do anything about this, I would suggest that you speak (through your stake PFR) to the FM group about how they would like to handle this. They may simply suggest that you pay the bill for the rest of the year and not worry about previous charges.

At the very least, they probably will ask you how much the DSL line is costing you to help them prepare for their budgeting requirements. Unless they have already spoken with your stake technology specialist.

Are you suggesting that amounts put through the other category end up hitting the local FM group's budget and they therefore have discretion on how to fix this?

lajackson wrote:You and Russell are correct that this is the current policy. So it is up to mlh78 to decide how to procede from this point.

There is no question that this DSL line should be paid out of budget. Sorry to have not included that information up front. I will post again when I figure out a solution.

mlh78 wrote:Are you suggesting that amounts put through the other category end up hitting the local FM group's budget and they therefore have discretion on how to fix this?
...
There is no question that this DSL line should be paid out of budget. Sorry to have not included that information up front. I will post again when I figure out a solution.

They were just theorizing that perhaps the DSL line was connected to an official FHC and thus should be paid by the FM group. But you've made it clear that this is not the case.

So the only question is how to get money back into that special subcategory of Other so that it will be funded from Budget and not reimbursed to your stake. I gave my best suggestion for that in my first post in this thread.

mlh78 wrote:Are you suggesting that amounts put through the other category end up hitting the local FM group's budget and they therefore have discretion on how to fix this?

No. I am only suggesting that they may share some things with you that I am not at liberty to tell you.

Returning to your original plan, if you manage to get the money put back into the other account, it will return to Church headquarters (if you ask them to take it out of your other account once you get it there).

If you figure out how much you wish to return, and you just don't spend that amount from your budget and return it at the end of the year, you have accomplished the same objective. The accounting is different, but the end result is the same.

Ultimately, it all comes from the tithing funds managed by the Church. But the accountants would not like me for suggesting such a thing. [grin]

lajackson wrote:If you figure out how much you wish to return, and you just don't spend that amount from your budget and return it at the end of the year, you have accomplished the same objective. The accounting is different, but the end result is the same.

That's not generally true for stakes (which is what we are talking about here -- this is clearly not a ward-level question). Stakes retain all unused budget funds at the end of the year, unless they explicitly decide to send a check into Church headquarters. And if they do send a check to the general funds, it won't help the Church track telephone expenses properly.

But this is fundamentally a question of getting the accounting right. The Church is clearly concerned about making sure that various expenses are paid from the correct account, or we wouldn't have all the audit questions and documentation about Other versus Budget.

Alan_Brown wrote:Stakes retain all unused budget funds at the end of the year, unless they explicitly decide to send a check into Church headquarters.

Right. Which is why I said "and return it at the end of the year".

Alan_Brown wrote:But this is fundamentally a question of getting the accounting right. The Church is clearly concerned about making sure that various expenses are paid from the correct account, or we wouldn't have all the audit questions and documentation about Other versus Budget.

Right again. The assignment I completed two weeks ago for the FM group (providing them information from the stake that they did not have) made this very clear.

And I commend mlh78 and his stake for wanting to get the accocunting right.

This is probably not the best way to handle it, but we had a similar situation where we were refunded a sizable amount from the phone company for accidental overpayment a couple of years ago. What we ended up doing was depositing that amount in a "Other:Phone Refund" category we created. From that point on, anytime we entered phone expenses in MLS, we took it from our "Other:Phone Refund" category instead of "Other:Stake and Ward Telephone" until we zero-ed out that category. Then we went back to business as usual.

DavidCarter wrote:This is probably not the best way to handle it, but we had a similar situation where we were refunded a sizable amount from the phone company for accidental overpayment a couple of years ago. What we ended up doing was depositing that amount in a "Other:Phone Refund" category we created. From that point on, anytime we entered phone expenses in MLS, we took it from our "Other:Phone Refund" category instead of "Other:Stake and Ward Telephone" until we zero-ed out that category. Then we went back to business as usual.

This is actually a pretty good way to do it. About the only other way I can think of is to cut a check and send it to CHQ.

lajackson wrote:This is actually a pretty good way to do it. About the only other way I can think of is to cut a check and send it to CHQ.

The other way is what I suggested way back at the beginning of the thread, which I have actually done: have Local Unit Support change the category on the deposit. That way you clean up the issue in one transaction and don't have to worry about monitoring the balance of another subcategory.

aebrown wrote:A couple of years ago I tried to make a deposit to Other:Scout Registration (we got a refund from the Scout council for an overpayment), but it didn't work. There was no such subcategory listed when I tried to make the deposit, even though that subcategory is listed when I write checks. I ended up creating a separate subcategory called Other:Scout Registration Refund into which I deposited the funds, then called Local Unit Support and had them change the category on the deposit.

It looks like CUBS now allows deposits to these reimbursement accounts.