Correcting "Other" account

Previous to CUBS our Stake Other account balanced with the Financial Statements with no problem. We had two Other subcategories that had negative balances in them.

In correcting the Other subcategories after the transition, the proper transfers (dated 2010) were made between the subcategories and the parent category to arrive back at the correct balances. The two Other subcategories were brought to the correct negative balances, which also balanced with the latest CUFS Other amount.

The issue is that after the transfers the parent Other category now shows the same amount remaining as the total of the two negative subcategories, but as a positive. Effectively giving a zero balance of all Other accounts, when it should be a negative balance. The correct negative balance is also shown on the CUFS statement.

What am I missing, support has not been able to give an answer to this one.

I'm just guessing on this one, but it sounds like somehow your Other account got zeroed out by the conversion. I'm also guessing the transfer was between the parent account and the sub-account. The result would be as described - Other is still zero while the sub accounts have the correct balance.

Just to be clear, we are talking about "Other" and not what used to be called "Budget:Other" (now "Budget:Miscellaneous")

Yes, we are talking about the "Other" account. Ideally, the result of the transfers should have been a parent account with zero balance, sub-account with the correct negative balance. Instead the result was a parent account with a positive balance, the sub-accounts with the correct negative balances. The balance of the parent account amount and the sub-accounts would equal zero, instead of the negative amount of the sub-accounts.

I had one small branch in our Stake when adjusting the after conversion "Other" accounts ended up with $312.00 in the parent account, when all "Other" accounts were zero before the conversion.

mschlechter wrote:Yes, we are talking about the "Other" account. Ideally, the result of the transfers should have been a parent account with zero balance, sub-account with the correct negative balance. Instead the result was a parent account with a positive balance, the sub-accounts with the correct negative balances. The balance of the parent account amount and the sub-accounts would equal zero, instead of the negative amount of the sub-accounts.

I had one small branch in our Stake when adjusting the after conversion "Other" accounts ended up with $312.00 in the parent account, when all "Other" accounts were zero before the conversion.

To track down such problems, you need to do some systematic detective work. Here's how I would approach it:

1. Focus first on the parent "Other" account. You may need to continue your investigation with subcategories, but let's start here.
2. Do an Income & Expense Summary by Subcategory report. Observe the row that has the "Other" account. You mentioned that it has an unexpected positive balance. But what about the balance forward, income, expense, and transfers? I assume they add up properly. But which one of those items looks off to you? Do you have a beginning balance that is strange, or unexpected income, expense, or transfer amounts?
3. The default date range for the Income & Expense report is current year. Depending on what you found in #2, you will probably want to do the same report but with Previous Year as the date range. Ask yourself the same questions.
4. Keep going back until you have an expected balance forward but an unexpected ending balance. That shows the year in which the problem occurred.
5. Once you've narrowed down the date range where the strangeness appears, do a Income & Expense Detail report for the Other category for that date range. That should show you every single income, expense, and transfer. The odd balance must be caused by one of those transactions.
6. Depending on what you find, you might want to repeat some of this process for subcategories that seem to be involved.

After doing some looking at the past year account, came across what had happened to the Stake account:

In July a check was written from the "Other:subcategory" for an expense.
In January of 2011 CHQ noted that this check put the "Other" account into a negative balance, so they recategorized the check as a "Budget" expense.
After doing so they notified the Stake President about the change.
As this change was done in January of 2011, all the 2010 statements reflected the "correct" balance whereas the MLS showed the July corrected balance done by CHQ.
I am assuming that when the January Statement comes out it will reflect this "correction" and show the "Other" account balance to be zero as the MLS reflects.
It would have been nice to have message through the MLS on this change rather then just notifying the Stake President via a phone call, which did not get communicated to the clerk.

The Branch Other account difference is due to negative balance that happened pre 2006 and was zeroed out with a deposited check in 2008. After the conversion the negative balance was not shown forward at all, but the deposit in 2008 was. Causing the account to show a balance which should not be there.

How did you solve your second problem, "The Branch Other account difference is due to negative balance that happened pre 2006 and was zeroed out with a deposited check in 2008. After the conversion the negative balance was not shown forward at all, but the deposit in 2008 was. Causing the account to show a balance which should not be there."?

We have a similar problem.

fixitsean wrote:How did you solve your second problem, "The Branch Other account difference is due to negative balance that happened pre 2006 and was zeroed out with a deposited check in 2008. After the conversion the negative balance was not shown forward at all, but the deposit in 2008 was. Causing the account to show a balance which should not be there."?

We have a similar problem.

That will require help from Local Unit Support. But since you have analyzed it so well, it should be very easy to correct.

fixitsean wrote:How did you solve your second problem, "The Branch Other account difference is due to negative balance that happened pre 2006 and was zeroed out with a deposited check in 2008. After the conversion the negative balance was not shown forward at all, but the deposit in 2008 was. Causing the account to show a balance which should not be there."?

We have a similar problem.

In calling Local Unit Support they said an audit would be done on the account to correct the balance. I have yet to see the results of this action as it was stated that it would take at least ten days.