Few questions regarding CUBS

I am a newly called finance clerk in a ward a recently moved into. I was the clerk in my previous ward, but that was before the CUBS fiasco so I'm in need of some help and this seems like the opportune place to receive it. I'll try and keep it as short and simple (for my sake) as I can.

1) The Unit Financial Statement for November shows that our Other account is overdrawn for the past 4 months and we are in the hole a pretty good amount. The Income/Expense Report shows that it is due to a large negative income from before November set off slightly by a much smaller positive income in November. What is this negative income?

2) Another action items says that there was a donation made for which there is no matching MLS report and another that says there is an MLS report with no matching donation. They are in fact one and the same but they are different by $500 (someone put in 3 where it should have been an 8 on the MLS donation report). How do I fix that?

3) At this point the Bishop just wants a clean slate moving forward. Am I correct in assuming that our current budget should be the amount the Stake gave us via check toward the end of last year plus the amount shown on the Projected Quarterly Budget Allowance?

jeffnye wrote:I am a newly called finance clerk in a ward a recently moved into. I was the clerk in my previous ward, but that was before the CUBS fiasco so I'm in need of some help and this seems like the opportune place to receive it. I'll try and keep it as short and simple (for my sake) as I can.

Welcome to the forum! This is generally a great place to receive general help, but you may need to contact Local Unit Support for some specifics.

jeffnye wrote:1) The Unit Financial Statement for November shows that our Other account is overdrawn for the past 4 months and we are in the hole a pretty good amount. The Income/Expense Report shows that it is due to a large negative income from before November set off slightly by a much smaller positive income in November. What is this negative income?

How does the balance and activity shown on the financial statement compare with MLS? Is that "large negative income" also appearing in MLS? If it is, then you can look into those transactions in MLS using detail reports to find out what they are. If it's only on the financial statement, but not in MLS, then that's a question for Local Unit Support.

jeffnye wrote:2) Another action items says that there was a donation made for which there is no matching MLS report and another that says there is an MLS report with no matching donation. They are in fact one and the same but they are different by $500 (someone put in 3 where it should have been an 8 on the MLS donation report). How do I fix that?

Are you saying the donation is correct in MLS, but wrong on the financial statement? If so, the only way to get it fixed is to call Local Unit Support.

jeffnye wrote:3) At this point the Bishop just wants a clean slate moving forward. Am I correct in assuming that our current budget should be the amount the Stake gave us via check toward the end of last year plus the amount shown on the Projected Quarterly Budget Allowance?

The income side of your current budget would be the amount of the check from the stake, plus any subsequent allocations. The Q1 allocation will probably match the Projected Quarterly Budget Allowance (but the stake had the ability to change their figures between the time the projection was created and the end of December). Of course, the budget balance will be reduced by any expenses that have occurred in the meantime.

As for a clean slate, that is a worthy goal, but if you have incorrect balances in any of your accounts, you have to figure it out and get it corrected. Under CUBS, balances carry forward, so you can't simply declare your Budget balance to be some number and move forward.

aebrown wrote: How does the balance and activity shown on the financial statement compare with MLS? Is that "large negative income" also appearing in MLS? If it is, then you can look into those transactions in MLS using detail reports to find out what they are. If it's only on the financial statement, but not in MLS, then that's a question for Local Unit Support.

It shows up on both the UFS and in MLS. I'll have to go through and check out all the details and try to piece them together. Obviously you can't fix my problem because you can't see everything, I guess all I'm hoping for is to know whether this is something that could be a bug from the transition or if it is something else.

aebrown wrote:Are you saying the donation is correct in MLS, but wrong on the financial statement? If so, the only way to get it fixed is to call Local Unit Support.

Well, right now the plan is to double check all the paperwork but at this point my guess is that we put the number in incorrectly on MLS and that the financial report from the bank is correct. Assuming that is the case (which I will verify before taking any action) how would I go about fixing it?

aebrown wrote:The income side of your current budget would be the amount of the check from the stake, plus any subsequent allocations. The Q1 allocation will probably match the Projected Quarterly Budget Allowance (but the stake had the ability to change their figures between the time the projection was created and the end of December). Of course, the budget balance will be reduced by any expenses that have occurred in the meantime.

My fault, question wasn't formed well. I was trying to ask: Am I correct in assuming that all we were suppose to spend from the time we received the check from the stake to the end of the year was the amount the check was made out for? Was there any carryover from before CUBS to after CUBS in the budget aside from the check?

aebrown wrote:As for a clean slate, that is a worthy goal, but if you have incorrect balances in any of your accounts, you have to figure it out and get it corrected. Under CUBS, balances carry forward, so you can't simply declare your Budget balance to be some number and move forward.

That's the problem we're having at the moment. The Bishop isn't aware of what he can or should be spending because all of our accounts are out of whack thanks to the huge negative balance in the other category. I guess I should note the overall balance is positive thanks to the Ward Missionary Fund. By clean slate I just meant we want an accurate reflection of what we currently have in our budget, is that so much to ask ?

On a side note, I'll be meeting with the Stake Financial Clerk soon to try and straighten everything out. More than anything I'm just trying to glean some knowledge from the abundance that is present here. I've read the tutorials and reviewed the trainings but they just don't explain how to fix a lot of these problems. I like to know how things work rather than just what I'm suppose to do, unfortunately my knowledge of accounting and finances is severely lacking (as if that isn't obvious).

jeffnye wrote:It shows up on both the UFS and in MLS. I'll have to go through and check out all the details and try to piece them together. Obviously you can't fix my problem because you can't see everything, I guess all I'm hoping for is to know whether this is something that could be a bug from the transition or if it is something else.

There have been some problems with balances in the transition. It's usually something that can be corrected locally, but some of the problems need to be fixed by Local Unit Support.

jeffnye wrote:Well, right now the plan is to double check all the paperwork but at this point my guess is that we put the number in incorrectly on MLS and that the financial report from the bank is correct. Assuming that is the case (which I will verify before taking any action) how would I go about fixing it?

If a donation was incorrectly entered, you can go to View/Update Donations, find the batch, find the specific donation, and then edit the donation amount.

jeffnye wrote:My fault, question wasn't formed well. I was trying to ask: Am I correct in assuming that all we were suppose to spend from the time we received the check from the stake to the end of the year was the amount the check was made out for? Was there any carryover from before CUBS to after CUBS in the budget aside from the check?

The beginning balance for the Budget category as of the CUBS transition was zero. The only money that will have come into your budget account is that first check from the stake and then additional automatic budget allocations that will happen near the beginning of each quarter.

jeffnye wrote:That's the problem we're having at the moment. The Bishop isn't aware of what he can or should be spending because all of our accounts are out of whack thanks to the huge negative balance in the other category. I guess I should note the overall balance is positive thanks to the Ward Missionary Fund. By clean slate I just meant we want an accurate reflection of what we currently have in our budget, is that so much to ask ?

It's not too much to ask. You're not the first person to wish that these accounting messes would magically be cleaned up. But I haven't seen a lot of magic happening.

jeffnye wrote:On a side note, I'll be meeting with the Stake Financial Clerk soon to try and straighten everything out. More than anything I'm just trying to glean some knowledge from the abundance that is present here. I've read the tutorials and reviewed the trainings but they just don't explain how to fix a lot of these problems. I like to know how things work rather than just what I'm suppose to do, unfortunately my knowledge of accounting and finances is severely lacking (as if that isn't obvious).

That's certainly a good next step. It's very helpful to have someone who can look at the actual numbers (and who probably has a fair amount of experience, now that he has had to work through similar issues with other wards in the stake).

jeffnye wrote:1) The Unit Financial Statement for November shows that our Other account is overdrawn for the past 4 months and we are in the hole a pretty good amount. The Income/Expense Report shows that it is due to a large negative income from before November set off slightly by a much smaller positive income in November. What is this negative income?

While there are some issues with balances showing incorrectly in CUBS, the UFS does show the correct balance (at least in my stake). So while my MLS shows a negative balance in Other:AMFA, my UFS shows the correct balance of $0. Where your UFS is showing negative, I'd look to see what donations have been made to your Other account.

I'd use the view/edit expenses screen and look at a details by category report for each AMFA category. Verify that funds were deposited to those AMFA categories to cover the expenses.

jeffnye wrote:2) Another action items says that there was a donation made for which there is no matching MLS report and another that says there is an MLS report with no matching donation. They are in fact one and the same but they are different by $500 (someone put in 3 where it should have been an 8 on the MLS donation report). How do I fix that?

Is this the Oct 24 batch? If so, it's a known mistake. Ignore it. It was placed there in error.

Now a question of my own. Do you know if the former clerk did the post-conversion clean up? This was transferring all positive balance forward/income amounts in the budget to Budget:Budget Allocations as well as in all zeroed-out Other categories to Other:AMFA? If not, I'd recommend doing so. To know how much to transfer, run an I&E report from 1 Jan 2010 to 20 Oct 2010. Any budget category with income/balance forward should be a sub-category under Budget:Budget Allocations. Back date the transfer to 20 Oct 2010 at least. Once they are all $0, make these old categories inactive (Finances > Budget > add/update categories).

I wonder if problem 1 and 2 are one in the same. PRE-CUBS, when a donor check was returned, CHQ would debit the other account until the clerk notified CHQ about the details of the canceled donation.

So it makes sense if CHQ needed to stick an unknown donation somewhere, it would be in the other account until things got worked out.

crislapi wrote: Now a question of my own. Do you know if the former clerk did the post-conversion clean up? This was transferring all positive balance forward/income amounts in the budget to Budget:Budget Allocations as well as in all zeroed-out Other categories to Other:AMFA? If not, I'd recommend doing so. To know how much to transfer, run an I&E report from 1 Jan 2010 to 20 Oct 2010. Any budget category with income/balance forward should be a sub-category under Budget:Budget Allocations. Back date the transfer to 20 Oct 2010 at least. Once they are all $0, make these old categories inactive (Finances > Budget > add/update categories).

Nope, the former clerk didn't do any of that. I was thinking I would approach the problem in that fashion if I had to try and figure it out on my own, but I'll wait and see what the stake clerk tells me. After browsing the forum it seems that is a workable solution.

RussellHltn wrote:I wonder if problem 1 and 2 are one in the same. PRE-CUBS, when a donor check was returned, CHQ would debit the other account until the clerk notified CHQ about the details of the canceled donation.

Over the phone the stake clerk thought it might be something along these lines, however there would have to be much more to it as the amount in question in #1 is many times greater the amount in #2. In case the problem is something like this, how would I go about checking to see which check bounced or was cancelled? Is there a way I can do that in MLS locally?

jeffnye wrote:the amount in question in #1 is many times greater the amount in #2.

Something to be aware of, in the CUBS conversion, all the expenses when to the top-level "Other" while the income stayed in the sub-accounts. The overall total has not changed, but did affect your ability to see what was going on.

Of course the first issue is to look the balance from CHQ prior to the CUBS conversion. See if the problem was pre-existing, or came about because of the conversion.

Well after some combing over of the financial records and with the help of the stake clerk I was able to figure out exactly what is causing my problems and I am working with CHQ on the solution right now. For those that are curious, let me just say it involves all of the checks from a rather large donation, the bank, and a paper shredder. I have a few follow up questions somewhat unrelated to the original problem, but that I thought ought to be kept in the same thread.

Due to the error that occurred with the bank the church withdrew a rather large sum of money from our Other account. CHQ is in the process of figuring out how to straighten that all out, but I am suspecting the end result will be that we will have a decent amount of surplus money in the Other account (can't remember the CUBS name) from 2010. My question is, what should I do with this money? The clerk wiki says I should refund it to the Office of the President if I can't identify the specific purpose for which it was originally intended, is that still the policy with CUBS? Is it possible to use the transfer tool and just zero out the Other category by moving the surplus to a budget account? If so, which account serves as the best as a "holder of funds?"

jeffnye wrote:...we will have a decent amount of surplus money in the Other account (can't remember the CUBS name) from 2010. My question is, what should I do with this money? The clerk wiki says I should refund it to the Office of the President if I can't identify the specific purpose for which it was originally intended, is that still the policy with CUBS? Is it possible to use the transfer tool and just zero out the Other category by moving the surplus to a budget account? If so, which account serves as the best as a "holder of funds?"

It's the "Authorized Member Financed Activities" category. The policy about returning surplus Other funds to the Church if you can't identify the purpose is still in effect. CUBS is mostly a change in accounting, not a change in policy.

Even if you could keep the money, it's impossible to transfer from Other to Budget using a transfer. I won't even touch your last question, since it really doesn't matter.

In any case, thanks for following up and posting the next episode of your rather unusual story.

Exactly what I needed to know, thank you.

aebrown wrote:In any case, thanks for following up and posting the next episode of your rather unusual story.

I realize this thread is rather old, but alas, these problems still plague us to this day. I was recently released as financial clerk and put in as ward clerk. The very first thing the Bishop told me was to do whatever it takes to get this financial fiasco straightened out. To that end, I have a question.

First, a little background to fill in what has transpired over the last year. Our general AMFA account has swung from positive 5 digits to negative 5 digits multiple times without us doing anything. We (possibly) figured that problem out and fixed it. Then all of our AMFA subcategories, our ward mission fund, YM budget, YW budget and a couple of others duplicated themselves. About half had a positive balance and the other half had a negative balance (but they didn't zero each other out). Next, anytime we tried to do anything with finances it asked us which type of currency we wanted to use and gave the options of "Ward Name (US)" or "Ward Name (US)." Depending on which one we chose we would see different numbers as if we had two totally separate budgets (each complete with duplicate categories). CHQ finally fixed that problem and we no longer get asked what kind of currency we want to use, but we still have all the duplicate categories. If we go to the categories option it doesn't show the duplicates and won't let me deactivate most of the categories because it says they have a negative balance. I am also not allowed to delete categories that haven't been used in over a year and have a balance of $0 because "that category is in use." We have multiple checks that show up as having been written for $0 on our system, but the check cleared and CHQ says it shows up with the proper amount on their system. Our balance forward from 2011 on some MLS screens is some crazy high number and on other screens is a much more modest number.

Anyway, I explain all of that so I can ask you this: I was reading the MLS installation page and noticed that

occasionally an installation of MLS has so many problems that it is necessary to completely remove the current installation and do a new clean installation.

If we did a clean installation of MLS can we refresh our information just using what they have at CHQ? Every time we have called CHQ they say they see totally different numbers, categories, etc. then what we see. We have been calling them at least once every other week for the past six to eight months or so and we don't seem to be getting anywhere in solving anything. This is, obviously, frustrating for the Bishop because he hasn't known how much money we have actually had for over a year.

So, does a clean install sound like a viable option here? If not, is there a nuke finances button I am missing ?

jeffnye wrote:If we did a clean installation of MLS can we refresh our information just using what they have at CHQ?

Good question. Keep in mind that MLS is more then just finances. It also includes memberships. So if you go that route, you may find you'll lose things on the membership side. I'm not sure what you may lose, but I'm guessing it would include HT/VT. Not just companionships, but the visit history.

I think it might be better to approach CHQ and ask them to do the nuke since I think they have more control about what can changed.

jeffnye wrote:So, does a clean install sound like a viable option here? If not, is there a nuke finances button I am missing ?

Local Unit Support can analyze the financial side of your MLS database and send you what is called a Setup File. When that is processed, your financial records will match the records at CHQ. You may have to do some transfers between subcategories to get the opening balances correct, but your overall balances in each of the major categories will be correct.

Another option if your database problems are even more severe is for LUS to grab a copy of your database on a transmission, have a developer fix it, and then send it back to you. If you need to go that route (and I have done this), it's good to start early in the week so that the whole process can be done before the next Sunday arrives.

I will second aebrown on this resolution. I have had at least 2 wards and our stake finances have similar issues. Ward Missionary Accounts, Other, and Budget accounts all with duplicates and offsetting values. It took a call to CHQ, they took a backup of the MLS in a send/receive window, and verified they were seeing what I was seeing. It is ALWAYS going to be an escalation from the helpdesk (if they try and tell you something other than that, insist they check again, I've had to patiently work through a couple of front-line people, letting them know this wasn't my first rodeo). But usually is completed in less than a week. I agree that going in on Monday if you can to work with MLS support should get you fixed by Sunday.

It also helps to get your Stake Clerk involved, the church, in fact, just sent a notice basically saying that clerks should contact the stake clerk, then the stake clerk contacts MLS.

This forum is great for being able to get quick results and answers from the community at the ward level, when you need to get SLC involved, the Stake Clerks should at least know or be informed of what is going on.

In addition to what has been said here, I would certainly involve your stake financial clerk and possibly your stake technology specialist. The helpdesk at the church gives priority to stake clerks so when I have called on behalf of one our the wards in our stake, I have always gotten right through and gotten a helpful response.

aebrown wrote:Local Unit Support can analyze the financial side of your MLS database and send you what is called a Setup File. When that is processed, your financial records will match the records at CHQ.

Took your advice and, just as you said, CHQ sent a setup file. Well, I think they did. I was told it would be ready Thursday evening so I went in today and did a send/receive and it gave some messages about updating membership and then updating finance. I was also told to call them today so I did that as well. The budget numbers were changed, but they still weren't matching up to what CHQ had in their system. He said he would dig into it and call me when he figured it out.

wrigjef wrote:In addition to what has been said here, I would certainly involve your stake financial clerk and possibly your stake technology specialist. The helpdesk at the church gives priority to stake clerks so when I have called on behalf of one our the wards in our stake, I have always gotten right through and gotten a helpful response.

We notified our Stake Clerk a year ago when this all started. After the first few weeks (months?) it just made more sense for us to work directly with CHQ and cut out the "middle man." We have just been calling CHQ directly since that time--with the Stake Clerk's blessing.