Best Practice for Distribution Orders ?

Just wanted to field a question on the best way to handle
Distribution orders under the new system:

My understanding of the new process is:
1) Order is placed
2) Order is filled / shipped
3) Cost of order is deducted from unit bank account
4) Next send/receive deducts cost of order from MLS's BU-Distribution charges acct.

My question now involves what to do next ?

Is the best course of action, to

A) Transfer funds from the Budget Category you wish use to pay for
the order, bringing BU-Distro up to zero.

- OR -

B) "Adjust" the Expense / Transfer and change the categories to
whichever budget account you wish to pay for the order.


I'm particularly interested in how method A will work with the new Budget Report,
if method B is still possible, and which method would give me the best reporting
options. Also, I would prefer not do anything that would break MLS on either
end. (i.e. CHQ expects a certain method, so doing it differently would make
transmissions go bonkers).

In the past, I would use the Enter Expense, not-a-check option for Distribution
Orders, but it does not appear this will work any longer. It did have the
advantage of listing orders under expenses, which is how I like to think of them.

atticusewig wrote:
Is the best course of action, to

A) Transfer funds from the Budget Category you wish use to pay for
the order, bringing BU-Distro up to zero.

- OR -

B) "Adjust" the Expense / Transfer and change the categories to
whichever budget account you wish to pay for the order.


I'm particularly interested in how method A will work with the new Budget Report,
if method B is still possible, and which method would give me the best reporting
options. Also, I would prefer not do anything that would break MLS on either
end. (i.e. CHQ expects a certain method, so doing it differently would make
transmissions go bonkers).
.

The Budget Report has a "Transfers" column. If you were to transfer money from, say, "Young Women," to cover a Distribution Services Order, that amount would then show up as a negative number in that column, and the remaining budget would be reduced accordingly.

Method B is not only still possible, it was the method described in the "Additional Information" message we received shortly after the CUBS transition. For me, the hard part has been getting the Ward Clerk to print out the order page so that I know where the funds should come from.

atticusewig wrote:Just wanted to field a question on the best way to handle Distribution orders under the new system:

My understanding of the new process is:
1) Order is placed
2) Order is filled / shipped
3) Cost of order is deducted from unit bank account
4) Next send/receive deducts cost of order from MLS's BU-Distribution charges acct.

That's correct. I would note that only step 4 is new -- the rest has been the process for years.

atticusewig wrote:Is the best course of action, to

A) Transfer funds from the Budget Category you wish use to pay for the order, bringing BU-Distro up to zero.

- OR -

B) "Adjust" the Expense / Transfer and change the categories to whichever budget account you wish to pay for the order.

The Distribution Center Charges and other Expenses coming from CUBS portion of the October 26 message could be better worded, but it seems clear to me that option B is what is intended. It is much cleaner and simpler, and makes reports much more comprehensible. I definitely do Option B and advise all my ward financial clerks to do the same.

For years our ward has had a budget category called Dist Center. The Bishop budgets to this sub-category for all the ward auxiliaries. When CUBS rolled out we just continued doing it this way. Works well for us. When the automatic draft from the Distribution Center happens, it's already in the right place - no A) or B) to do.

Next one of you will tell me what's wrong with this method and ruin my afternoon. On second thought, that's not possible, I'm sitting here fighting MLS problems, it's already ruined!

ckmcdonald wrote:For years our ward has had a budget category called Dist Center. The Bishop budgets to this sub-category for all the ward auxiliaries. When CUBS rolled out we just continued doing this way. Works well for us. When the automatic draft from the Distribution Center happens, it's already in the right place - no A) or B) to do.

Next one of you will tell me what's wrong with this method and ruin my afternoon.)

That's certainly a reasonable approach, if it fits your ward's budgeting practices. It means that responsibility for that subcategory rests with the bishopric, rather than with the individual auxiliaries who are incurring the expense. But I have seen some wards do this successfully. Others choose to assign the distribution center charges to the auxiliary that incurs the expense. Either way can work.

In theory this method does expose the overall budget to some auxiliary going on DC shopping spree (how fun!) at the expense of everyone else. However, I have never seen anything like this happen. The auxiliaries tend to order what they need and the amount spent across the entire ward stays surprisingly constant and easy to budget for from year to year.

This method also relieves the common problem I hear clerks struggling with of tracking the ordering and paperwork trying to determine which auxiliary should be billed.