Quarterly Reports

1) Due dates: The 1st Qrtr, 2011 report is due April 15th, correct? This report covers data from Jan-March 2011, correct?
2) What attendance numbers should a unit report? An average sacrament mtg attendance for the entire quarter? Or, only the last month's attendance numbers?
3) We understand that budget allocations are based off a unit's quarterly reporting data. Is this correct?
4) What happens if a unit misses the due date for reporting? Is there a grace period? If a unit submits the data a week or so late, will it still count?

thank you

colbyj wrote:1) Due dates: The 1st Qrtr, 2011 report is due April 15th, correct? This report covers data from Jan-March 2011, correct?

Correct.

colbyj wrote:2) What attendance numbers should a unit report? An average sacrament mtg attendance for the entire quarter? Or, only the last month's attendance numbers?

All attendance figures are based on the last month of the quarter. You can click on the blue question mark icon by any item on the quarterly report screen in MLS to see the exact definition of what is to be reported. In those definitions you will almost always see the phrase "the last month of the quarter."

colbyj wrote:3) We understand that budget allocations are based off a unit's quarterly reporting data. Is this correct?

Yes. It's based on the report submitted in the previous quarter. So the figures you will report on April 15 will cover the month of March, and will then affect the 3rd Quarter allocation, which will arrive in July.

colbyj wrote:4) What happens if a unit misses the due date for reporting? Is there a grace period? If a unit submits the data a week or so late, will it still count?

Nothing happens if you're only a week late. There is definitely a grace period, although I've never seen it documented. However, at the beginning of June, the notifications of the upcoming Q3 budget allocation will be sent out. If the Q1 Quarterly Report has not yet been submitted, then that unit's contribution to the proposed allocation will be 0. Then if the report has still not been submitted by the end of June, the actual allocation for that unit will be 0.

The stake is most likely trying to gather the reporting data from all the wards and branches (which is transmitted to stake MLS automatically from each ward's MLS) for its own reporting and analysis purposes, so you may get some "encouragement" from the stake if you are late.

perfect, thank you very much.

Also, you can update the data throughout the month. For example, if the HT numbers are missing a HT District report, you can enter what you have so you can transmit the report on time. As long as the month has not passed, you can open the current Quarterly report and Update the numbers, then re-transmit.

I don't know how this works from a budget standpoint, but there have been times when I submitted the report on time (knowing that I was missing some of the most correct information) and then updated the report before the end of the month. Once the report "locks" at the start of the next month, my updated data showed from then on.

The name can be slightly misleading if you're not familiar with the definitions. All that's "quarterly" about the report is the frequency with which it's submitted.

The data itself will only ever relate to the last month in the quarter and not the entire quarter (except for a few one-offs like convert callings, convert priesthood ordinations etc).

Correct. I have to remind the Organizational Leaders and Secretaries almost every time that their attendance data is only for the last month of the Quarter.

Can anyone tell me WHY the church data is only submitted for the last month of the quarter? I have had people tell me that they should report a child in primary as active as attending primary if they attended ONE primary meeting in the quarter - which is inflating numbers and not helpful for tracking inactive/less active children, but the quarterly report clearly wants only the last month reported which is DEFLATING numbers and does not help for tracking less active / inactive children.

I need to explain to my Bishop and leadership what is really happening (not only that the Church Handbook says so, but try to help them understand the WHY of it).

Thanks
Jim Jones

jonejam2 wrote:Can anyone tell me WHY the church data is only submitted for the last month of the quarter?

Since the Handbook does not mention a reason, we could only speculate. Clearly it is important to have standardization so that all units are using the same guidelines for reporting. It seems logical to me that what is wanted is a monthly snapshot -- a report of the activity levels for a time period of one month. But so that the burden of reporting these monthly statistics is not too great, we are only asked to submit these monthly statistics for one month per quarter; the month chosen is the last month of the quarter.

jonejam2 wrote:I have had people tell me that they should report a child in primary as active as attending primary if they attended ONE primary meeting in the quarter - which is inflating numbers and not helpful for tracking inactive/less active children, but the quarterly report clearly wants only the last month reported which is DEFLATING numbers and does not help for tracking less active / inactive children.

Using one month of statistics does not deflate the numbers. If what is wanted is a monthly statistic (and that is clearly what is requested), then counting attendance for one month is exactly correct. Doing anything else is inaccurate and inconsistent.

But in any case, the responsibility to minister to those who are less active is independent of the statistics on the Quarterly Report. Those with stewardship over other members should be vigilant in noticing when there are activity challenges as quickly as possible. Waiting for a Quarterly Report, or even a monthly report, may well delay needed ministry. The Quarterly Report contains only numbers; active ministry will require focus on individuals by name and consideration of more information than one simple fact of monthly attendance.

I would also note that any leaders may choose to maintain reports at any frequency that will be helpful; the requirement to submit a Quarterly Report does not preclude any other record keeping or reporting that will facilitate ministry to individuals.

I'm not sure I agree. If you have fairly high sacrament attendance for the first 2 months of a quarter then attendance drops off in the last month then you are not getting an accurate picture of that wards sacrament attendance and that correlates to a possible drop in budget doesnt it? I would think that is why some would choose to use an average of the quarter for their quarterly report. I am not a Primary President so I wouldn't pretend to understand her concerns over budget issues. But I do know that there are concerns that counting the children who attend only in the last month of a quarter might affect their budget. I'm going to scan the CHI to see if I can figure out what information is used to make budget decisions and try to alleviate concerns as they arise by having that information handy.

I agree with the frequency of reports being a leadership decision and that the MOST important use of these reports is not to obtain a budget but to ensure fellowship and help others magnify their callings.

Thanks again
Jim

jonejam2 wrote:I'm not sure I agree. If you have fairly high sacrament attendance for the first 2 months of a quarter then attendance drops off in the last month then you are not getting an accurate picture of that wards sacrament attendance and that correlates to a possible drop in budget doesnt it?

Yes, sacrament meeting attendance is a major component of the Budget Allowance, so if indeed attendance drops off in the last month of a quarter, the budget allowance will be less than if an average of all months were used. But then again, if attendance increases in the last month of a quarter, the budget allowance will be greater.

Unless there is a particular seasonal reason why attendance is less in the last month of a quarter, it should all even out statistically over time. In our stake, every single ward has its best attendance in December. Since that's a reporting month, my guess is that we come out slightly ahead through the procedure of using the last month of each quarter.

jonejam2 wrote: I would think that is why some would choose to use an average of the quarter for their quarterly report.

Some may wish that the Church requested an average for the quarter, but they may not choose to use an average.

jonejam2 wrote:I am not a Primary President so I wouldn't pretend to understand her concerns over budget issues. But I do know that there are concerns that counting the children who attend only in the last month of a quarter might affect their budget. I'm going to scan the CHI to see if I can figure out what information is used to make budget decisions and try to alleviate concerns as they arise by having that information handy.

The Basis for the budget allowance is documented in the wiki. That should give you the basic procedure; the actual dollar amounts for each component of the allowance will be available on the quarterly budget allowance statement that each ward receives each quarter (this is in MLS under Finance Statements).

However, the basis for the budget allowance may or may not affect actual budgets for each organization. The stake president decides what percentage of each element of the basis is sent to each ward, and then the bishop decides how the net ward allowance is subdivided among the organizations. Although the Primary attendance as reported on the Quarterly Report will very likely affect the total amount of Budget the ward receives, it may not have any effect on the Primary organization's budget. I don't know of any wards in my stake that factor that into their calculations of the Primary organization's budget -- it is based on the Primary's needs as determined in the budgeting process that is followed prior to the beginning of the year. But a bishop may choose to factor Primary attendance as reported on the Quarterly Report in his determination of the actual budget for Primary if he so chooses.

Again - Thank you. The QR was fairly easy to do once everyone understood what the handbook calls for. The last month of the quarter is where most of the data is derived. Its easy when the CHI spells it out so clearly.

Statistically*, the quarterly report is what is known as a 'systematic sample.' Systematic samples have their strengths and weaknesses, but in the mindset of observing and monitoring monthly church activity, it really is the most appropriate sample to use.

Normally we like to see random samples. However, there are two factors in monthly church activity that are problematic to random sampling. 1) There is strong suspicion of a seasonal effect, and 2) there are only 12 months in a year. Combine these two factors, and a random sample is too likely to produce a cluster of months near each other that would fail to capture the seasonal effect of church attendance. Organizationally speaking, communication of which months to report becomes a problem.

Whether or not reporting on the quarter or reporting on the last month is more appropriate is a matter of the purpose of the report. If the purpose of the report is to represent quarterly activity, then it should be reported on the quarter. Since the handbooks state that the purpose is to report on monthly activity, it would be inappropriate to report on anything but monthly activity.

So what it boils down to is that the quarterly report is a systematic sample of the monthly reports the wards quorums, groups, and auxiliaries should be producing on a monthly basis anyway. In my personal opinion, if you are putting any emphasis on the quarterly report but not bothering to collect that information on a monthly basis, you're doing something wrong.** The only information of importance on the monthly (and quarterly) reports are the names--more specifically, the people those names represent. The quarterly report, when boiled down to the statistics, is of little value by itself.


* Just in the interest of credentials, I'll point out that I am a statistician by trade.

**Full disclosure: in my ward, we don't collect this information monthly, which is something that bothers me a little and I'm starting to take steps to repair. At the same time, I allow very little discussion about the quarterly report because we don't bother to look at it monthly.

nutterb wrote:In my personal opinion, if you are putting any emphasis on the quarterly report but not bothering to collect that information on a monthly basis, you're doing something wrong.**

As an old-timer, there was a time when that report was generated and submitted monthly. That meant that all the work of the current quarterly report had to be repeated every 4 Sundays. Then it was cut back to the current "last month of the quarter".

I can only speculate that it was free up some "leadership CPU cycles" for actual ministering to the members.

RussellHltn wrote:As an old-timer, there was a time when that report was generated and submitted monthly. That meant that all the work of the current quarterly report had to be repeated every 4 Sundays. Then it was cut back to the current "last month of the quarter".

I can only speculate that it was free up some "leadership CPU cycles" for actual ministering to the members.

I understand and agree that these reports shouldn't take away from the ministrations. I'll point out that by my own opinion, I'm not really getting any worth out of my quarterly reports because I'm not gathering the information on a monthly basis. And I'm not gathering the information for the very reasons you point out. I'm playing with some ideas to try and correct this, but I don't know yet how successful it would be or if my bishopric would be willing to experiment in this arena. If I do find a good way to do it, however, I'll be sure to let you know.

Ideally, I'd like to see this wrapped up into the online tools to where a secretary can go in once a month and select the names of the people in their organization that did not attend/were not visited. Seems like this could be a ten minute monthly job that could then populate a report pretty easily. I might try something like this in MS Access, but that still bottlenecks the information around either myself or the ward's computer.

Seasonal reasons for units being penalized in budget allowance are very common outside of Utah or other high-LDS concentration areas (ie, AZ, CA, NV, ID). This is because many of us who leave "Zion" and go out into the world often return and visit Utah homes during holiday seasons (such as June-July 4 vacation weeks and during the December Christmas season). This has always been my experience in three different outlying states - we are always penalized in budget allowance by using the last month of the quarter when members are traveling and attendance is significantly reduced. The budget allowance never "equals out." Just saying...

Wow. Good thing people in "Zion" don't take vacations in June-July 4 to places like Disneyland or Yellowstone. Or go visit their Grandchildren over Christmas in Arizona where it is warmer...