Year End?

What will happen when units close out the year? Will budgets be cleared and returned to 0 (till the Q1 allocation transfer)?

wrigjef wrote:What will happen when units close out the year? Will budgets be cleared and returned to 0 (till the Q1 allocation transfer)?

No. Under CUBS, all balances carry forward. If a unit (ward or stake) wants its organizations to start the year fresh with a 0 balance, the clerk will need to make appropriate transfers (to or from some category such as Budget:Administration) to bring those balances to 0.

Alan_Brown wrote:No. Under CUBS, all balances carry forward. If a unit (ward or stake) wants its organizations to start the year fresh with a 0 balance, the clerk will need to make appropriate transfers (to or from some category such as Budget:Administration) to bring those balances to 0.

My understanding was that Budget:Administration was no longer supposed to
be used by units, much like the subcategories of Budget Allocations. That is,
they are accounts used by the transition and now retired. I could have
misread the various posts, but I would recommend creating an account like
Budget: PriorYearBalance and transfer funds there if you want to isolate
carryover (or carryunder) from the Q1 allocation and auxillary budgets. Of
course, it is only is a reporting issue - Budget surplus or shortfall still will
affect next year.

- Atticus

From what I understand, balances carry forward. But any budget the Ward sets for itself starts at zero. So it depends on if you run a income & expense report on the budget category or run a budget report.

atticusewig wrote:My understanding was that Budget:Administration was no longer supposed to be used by units, much like the subcategories of Budget Allocations. That is, they are accounts used by the transition and now retired.

What is your source for that claim? I see nothing in any of the documentation sent by the Church that says that, and although I didn't feel like sifting through all the posts on this topic, I couldn't find any post that suggested that Budget:Administration should not be used.

Alan_Brown wrote:What is your source for that claim? I see nothing in any of the documentation sent by the Church that says that, and although I didn't feel like sifting through all the posts on this topic, I couldn't find any post that suggested that Budget:Administration should not be used.

I was taught by my stake clerk to leave Budget:Administration untouched. Our understanding about that category is the same as atticuswig's -- that it is a catchall category specific to the conversion phase.

boomerbubba wrote:I was taught by my stake clerk to leave Budget:Administration untouched. Our understanding about that category is the same as atticuswig's -- that it is a catchall category specific to the conversion phase.

It's interesting that someone else thinks that. I still haven't heard any source for what seems like a rumor to me.

I concur with Alan's take on the "Budget Administrative" category. I saw nowhere that said we were not to use it.

We used to have a budget category "Stake Presidency" where we put all our expenses for actions directly attributable to the stake presidency. Since it was deleted with the CUB's transition I saw the "Administrative" category as a logical place to start placing those expenses. If we are not to use it I hope someone in LUS sees this thread and clarifies as I don't much feel like going back and doing another bunch of transfers!

If someone has seen direction that we are not to use the Administrative Category please speak up and point it out to us. AUB.

Alan_Brown wrote:It's interesting that someone else thinks that. I still haven't heard any source for what seems like a rumor to me.

Like I said, I could have misread the posts. I thought one of crislapi's
posts touched on this, but am probably remembering incorrectly.

In any event, I don't like mixing any transactions with the Budget:Administration account which is something created by
CHQ for the transition to CUBS. Perhaps it is just personal
preference, but I'm retiring local use of the account. There might
not be an outright prohibition, but using it does seem to group
transactions together that are unlike each other.

Perhaps, when (or should I say if ?) new documentation is provided,
a clear purpose of the Standardized accounts will be defined.

- Atticus

atticusewig wrote:In any event, I don't like mixing any transactions with the Budget:Administration account which is something created by CHQ for the transition to CUBS.

I certainly agree that for 2010 (and before) the Budget:Administration category is rather ugly, with all those transactions from the past, and possibly a variety of transfers related to the transition. But we're stuck with that ugliness for those years no matter what we do going forward.

But I see no reason to assume that the Budget:Administration category was "created by CHQ for the transition to CUBS." In my opinion, the Budget:Administration category is one created by CUBS as a useful category going forward, no different from all the other standard categories we now have. For the transition to CUBS, the MLS developers had to choose which of the existing useful standard categories they would put transactions in; they chose Budget:Administration. I don't see how the fact that it was used for the transition purpose means that it can't be used for other useful purposes.

I don't know for certain, but I think it is highly likely that Budget:Administration is a category we will have going forward (just like Budget:Relief Society or Budget:Elders Quorum). Of course anyone is welcome not to use it, but that decision means that you will have an unused category with a zero balance and no activity showing up on all your reports for the Budget category.

boomerbubba wrote:I was taught by my stake clerk to leave Budget:Administration untouched. Our understanding about that category is the same as atticuswig's -- that it is a catchall category specific to the conversion phase.

You may be confusing Budget:Administration with Budget:Allocations. Budget:Allocations includes subcategories from all your pre-CUBS system budget categories that had a deposit made to them in the last 3 years. You should not use any subcategories in Budget:Allocations.

Budget:Administration would likely be used for office supplies or other general expenses.

Let's say the clerks office needs stamps. Which budget category should it come out of if not Administration?

Could there possibly be a word confusion here? My understanding is that Budget Allocation really should not be used other then to deliver allocations then for wards to distribute allocations.

wrigjef wrote:Let's say the clerks office needs stamps. Which budget category should it come out of if not Administration?

Could there possibly be a word confusion here? My understanding is that Budget Allocation really should not be used other then to deliver allocations then for wards to distribute allocations.

We would probably just use Budget:Other. We used to have a Budget:Bishopric for such stuff, and it effectively became the default for miscellaneous expenses not charged to quorums or auxiliary organizations. But that category got eliminated with the conversion.

I'm in accord with you on Budget: Allocations. Our instructions are to reserve that for income from the stake.

RussellHltn wrote:From what I understand, balances carry forward. But any budget the Ward sets for itself starts at zero. So it depends on if you run a income & expense report on the budget category or run a budget report.

Is this how it works? I can see how Auxilaries might want to keep carry-over funds in case they make a mistake and overspend or have a special expense and need the excess at the end of next year. At the same time they will get new allocations and should base their spending on the current budget. So if I run a budget report it will only show expendatures and balances based on the current year allocation, but if I run an I&E report it shows the total including carryover?. That's pretty slick if that's the way it works.

wrigjef wrote:Is this how it works? I can see how Auxilaries might want to keep carry-over funds in case they make a mistake and overspend or have a special expense and need the excess at the end of next year. At the same time they will get new allocations and should base their spending on the current budget.

The ward as a whole will retain its budget balance into the new year (unless the stake president asks the bishop to write a check to the stake).

But what happens to individual subcategory balances is entirely up to the ward. By default, balances will carry forward for subcategories, but I would guess that many units will choose to zero out the balance for the auxiliaries at the beginning of the year. It's a local decision.

wrigjef wrote: So if I run a budget report it will only show expendatures and balances based on the current year allocation, but if I run an I&E report it shows the total including carryover?. That's pretty slick if that's the way it works.

No, that's not exactly how it works. An I&E report will indeed show the total including carryover. But at this point, the Budget Report does not work as you described.

A Budget Report will show the balance forward, as well as any transfers (which will likely have been done to move a portion of the budget allocation to the subcategory). At this point, a Budget Report is more confusing than helpful.

However, as I mentioned in this post, the Budget Report might be changing for MLS 3.3 -- hopefully to correct this problem.

After the conversion to CUBS our ward has a negative balance in the Budget:Administration category. Are we supposed to transfer a budget amount from another category to offset this negative balance, or is it going to disappear when a future MLS version is downloaded?

Alan_Brown wrote:The ward as a whole will retain its budget balance into the new year (unless the stake president asks the bishop to write a check to the stake).

But what happens to individual subcategory balances is entirely up to the ward. By default, balances will carry forward for subcategories, but I would guess that many units will choose to zero out the balance for the auxiliaries at the beginning of the year. It's a local decision.


No, that's not exactly how it works. An I&E report will indeed show the total including carryover. But at this point, the Budget Report does not work as you described.

A Budget Report will show the balance forward, as well as any transfers (which will likely have been done to move a portion of the budget allocation to the subcategory). At this point, a Budget Report is more confusing than helpful.

However, as I mentioned in this post, the Budget Report might be changing for MLS 3.3 -- hopefully to correct this problem.

I'd like to hear your thoughts on this. I am a stake financial clerk and many of the ward and branch clerks are new. I am considering sending an email out to the clerks telling them that their unspent budget funds are going to carry over in their current subcategories. I will point out that while it is the Bishops choice to leave those funds allocated to the respective auxiliaries, my recommendation (in the interest of recordkeeping and tracking) would be to clear out the budget subcategories, transferring them to "Budget: Other", at some point between the time final expense checks are written and the new 1st quarter allocation is made. When new money shows up in the "Budget: Allocations" category, they start from scratch. The Bishop would then have a reserve (in Budget:Other) to allocate at a later time as he sees fit.

Is this reasonable

wrigjef wrote:I can see how Auxilaries might want to keep carry-over funds in case they make a mistake and overspend or have a special expense and need the excess at the end of next year. At the same time they will get new allocations and should base their spending on the current budget.

I'm not so sure as I agree. If auxiliaries are allowed to carry over, then they are less likely to go on a buying spree at the end of the year.

It's also a disincentive to overspend - it leaves them with that much less next year. That may be more effective than a "talking to" by the Bishop. I've seem some personalities that are quite willing to accept "a good talking to" if it results in more money to spend. Nor would they mind getting released.

Of course, this is a local Bishop decision. If someone does overspend, the bishop might have to empty out all other budget categories to keep the ward from going negative.

I don't think there's anything that says they have to stay within the current allocation if they've got the balance to cover it. (I'm assuming of course the carry over isn't a substantial portion of their annual balance. If the carry over would effectively double their balance, then that would be a different story.)

Alan_Brown wrote: No, that's not exactly how it works. An I&E report will indeed show the total including carryover. But at this point, the Budget Report does not work as you described.

A Budget Report will show the balance forward, as well as any transfers (which will likely have been done to move a portion of the budget allocation to the subcategory). At this point, a Budget Report is more confusing than helpful.

However, as I mentioned in this post, the Budget Report might be changing for MLS 3.3 -- hopefully to correct this problem.

In order to utilize both the I&E Report and the Budget Report (and until they change the Budget Report to correct this issue), we are going to leave all of the money received from the Stake in the Budget:Allocations category. As a year end process, we will make transfers to zero out each of the Budget categories so that the only balance that will carry over without a zero will be the Budget:Allocations category.

In preparing the ward budget, do I put our estimated annual budget figure into the Budget: Allocation window? or should only the real quarterly allocation amounts go in there. In the past we would estimate our budget for the year and plug in that number for the budget, but it's different now.

And if the real quarterly budget allocation amounts go into the Budget:Allocation window, do we just enter in the quarterly allocation as we receive them from the stake, into that window? or do we total them up?

aebrown wrote:But what happens to individual subcategory balances is entirely up to the ward. By default, balances will carry forward for subcategories, but I would guess that many units will choose to zero out the balance for the auxiliaries at the beginning of the year. It's a local decision.

Our Bishop changed his mind on this topic a few days ago. He now wants the 2010 year-end Auxiliary/Quorum budget balances NOT carried over. Posting the Transfers will be easy, it's the date I have a question about. I always start second-guessing myself when messing with those sticky Transfers that can't be edited/deleted.

I want all reports going forward to show there never was a carry-over to 2011 for Auxiliaries/Quorums - so I should date the Transfers last year, correct? I'm planning to date them 31Dec2010.

On the Transfer topic - I thought I read here in the forum a time or two that Transfers are editable/deletable. Is this true? I couldn't find a way to do it.

ckmcdonald wrote:Our Bishop changed his mind on this topic a few days ago. He now wants the 2010 year-end Auxiliary/Quorum budget balances NOT carried over. Posting the Transfers will be easy, it's the date I have a question about. I always start second-guessing myself when messing with those sticky Transfers that can't be edited/deleted.

I want all reports going forward to show there never was a carry-over to 2011 for Auxiliaries/Quorums - so I should date the Transfers last year, correct? I'm planning to date them 31Dec2010.

Yes, that's the best date to use. However, be aware that as long as you are working off of Budget Reports, all the subcategory balances will automatically be zero anyway, even if you don't do transfers. Budget Reports are probably the best way to operate now, and when 3.3.1 comes, they will unquestionably be the best way to operate. So this little bit of cleanup isn't really needed.

ckmcdonald wrote:On the Transfer topic - I thought I read here in the forum a time or two that Transfers are editable/deletable. Is this true? I couldn't find a way to do it.

No, there's never been any way to edit or delete transfers. Your only option for "deleting" a transfer is to create an opposite transfer (reverse the direction of the categories involved) using the same amount and the same date. Similarly, to "edit" a transfer, you can create an additional transfer of the same date using the same categories, with an amount and direction that nets to the the desired result.

aebrown wrote: No, there's never been any way to edit or delete transfers. Your only option for "deleting" a transfer is to create an opposite transfer (reverse the direction of the categories involved) using the same amount and the same date. Similarly, to "edit" a transfer, you can create an additional transfer of the same date using the same categories, with an amount and direction that nets to the the desired result.

I just made a bunch of transfers to 0 out my budget subcategories (only Budget:Allocations has funds). I made mistakes with a few of them and forgot to change the date to 31 Dec. Are you saying I can reverse the transfers using the same bad date, the create new transfers date 31 Dec and that will correct reports?

wrigjef wrote:I just made a bunch of transfers to 0 out my budget subcategories (only Budget:Allocations has funds). I made mistakes with a few of them and forgot to change the date to 31 Dec. Are you saying I can reverse the transfers using the same bad date, the create new transfers date 31 Dec and that will correct reports?

Yes, that's correct. When you create a transfer from category A to category B for X dollars on date D, if you then create another transfer from category B to category A for X dollars on date D, every summary report will look exactly like it did before you created the first transfer, since the +X and -X on that same date will cancel each other out for both categories.

On a detail report, of course, you'll see both transfers. But since they have the same date and opposite directions (and a clarifying comment on the second one), it should be pretty obvious what happened.

aebrown wrote:Yes, that's correct. When you create a transfer from category A to category B for X dollars on date D, if you then create another transfer from category B to category A for X dollars on date D, every summary report will look exactly like it did before you created the first transfer, since the +X and -X on that same date will cancel each other out for both categories.

On a detail report, of course, you'll see both transfers. But since they have the same date and opposite directions (and a clarifying comment on the second one), it should be pretty obvious what happened.

Hypothetically, if the above is done in a sub-category that otherwise has no transactions in it for 2011, will MLS now not let me inactivate this sub-category?

ckmcdonald wrote:Hypothetically, if the above is done in a sub-category that otherwise has no transactions in it for 2011, will MLS now not let me inactivate this sub-category?

MLS will let you deactivate a subcategory as long as its balance is zero (and it's not a built-in category). Your ability to deactivate a subcategory you added is not affected by the presence of transactions -- only the current balance.

The only long-term effect of having transactions in 2011 for such a category is that it can't completely go away until 2015 rolls around (three-year record retention period in the US). But since you can deactivate it, it won't bother you much.