On Line Tithing payment

I was just given this link by a ward member and asked to check it out.

Can you please tell me if this is a legitimate process?.

http://mormonlifehacker.com/2010/07/pay ... nline.html

dstorry wrote:I was just given this link by a ward member and asked to check it out.

Can you please tell me if this is a legitimate process?.

http://mormonlifehacker.com/2010/07/pay ... nline.html

Using this process for personal convenience is strongly discouraged. See this post (and many other similar ones on the forum):

aebrown wrote:The Church Donations Department is not set up to receive electronic BillPayments for the convenience of members. However, BillPay to your ward is possible (a paper check will be generated by the bill payment service). See Donations by bill payment service for issues to consider if your ward allows it and you choose that option.

aebrown wrote:Using this process for personal convenience is strongly discouraged. See this post (and many other similar ones on the forum):

Please explain why this is strongly discouraged. I have been paying tithing using dstorry's link on mormonlifehacker for over a year now with no issues. The official church Electronic Donation Information form linked in the mormonlifehacker link lists a ldschurch.org e-mail and phone numbers. I think this process should be part of Wiki and explained as a legitimate good alternative, instead of a lousy link to paying via bill pay check to the ward's bishop if it is allowed. Correct me if wrong, but this process needs to be accepted and communicated. It works and I am happy with how I pay tithing now.

thrust wrote:Please explain why this is strongly discouraged. I have been paying tithing using dstorry's link on mormonlifehacker for over a year now with no issues. The official church Electronic Donation Information form linked in the mormonlifehacker link lists a ldschurch.org e-mail and phone numbers. I think this process should be part of Wiki and explained as a legitimate good alternative, instead of a lousy link to paying via bill pay check to the ward's bishop if it is allowed. Correct me if wrong, but this process needs to be accepted and communicated. It works and I am happy with how I pay tithing now.

This is an issue we took up with the Church finance department. We even had a wiki article explaining the process similar to the one described on the mormonlifehacker site. The response we got was that the electronic donation process was provided for those with special circumstances such as military stationed in temporary or remote locations overseas where banking services are not available and other special needs.

The explanation we got was that each electronic donation had to be manually processed (checked against a membership number). There is a limited staff to do this manual processing and the Chruch is not yet set up to handle a large number of donations this way. We were asked to remove the wiki article.

The circumstances under which a member applies for the electronic donation process is not known. There is no way for the Church to screen each application. So each application is presumed to have a special need. Having this process publicized at this time would create a flood of applications and an unmanageable work load created for those doing the manual processing.

The good news is that with the CUBS converstion is the first step in getting the necessary structure in place to permit electronic donations for those of us in the US. There are other steps that must be taken before this can be implemented for the general Church membership in the US. When this will be complete we do not know.

thrust wrote:Please explain why this is strongly discouraged. I have been paying tithing using dstorry's link on mormonlifehacker for over a year now with no issues. The official church Electronic Donation Information form linked in the mormonlifehacker link lists a ldschurch.org e-mail and phone numbers. I think this process should be part of Wiki and explained as a legitimate good alternative, instead of a lousy link to paying via bill pay check to the ward's bishop if it is allowed. Correct me if wrong, but this process needs to be accepted and communicated. It works and I am happy with how I pay tithing now.

It is strongly discouraged because it requires manual processing by the Donations Department. Imagine if 10,000 people signed up to use this service tomorrow. The Donations Department would be unable to keep up. We have been specifically asked by management of the Donations Department to discourage this, and we support them in this desire. Of course we have no control over third-party sites.

I have been assured that efforts are underway to move to an automated system, but that will take some time -- there is no published schedule for this to be accomplished. In the meantime, the nice people at the Donations Department have a hard time saying no, which is why you are able to use this service, but we kindly request that everyone respect their request at this time.

aebrown wrote:It is strongly discouraged because it requires manual processing by the Donations Department. Imagine if 10,000 people signed up to use this service tomorrow. The Donations Department would be unable to keep up. We have been specifically asked by management of the Donations Department to discourage this, and we support them in this desire. Of course we have no control over third-party sites.

I have been assured that efforts are underway to move to an automated system, but that will take some time -- there is no published schedule for this to be accomplished. In the meantime, the nice people at the Donations Department have a hard time saying no, which is why you are able to use this service, but we kindly request that everyone respect their request at this time.

jdlessley wrote:This is an issue we took up with the Church finance department. We even had a wiki article explaining the process similar to the one described on the mormonlifehacker site. The response we got was that the electronic donation process was provided for those with special circumstances such as military stationed in temporary or remote locations overseas where banking services are not available and other special needs.

The explanation we got was that each electronic donation had to be manually processed (checked against a membership number). There is a limited staff to do this manual processing and the Chruch is not yet set up to handle a large number of donations this way. We were asked to remove the wiki article.

The circumstances under which a member applies for the electronic donation process is not known. There is no way for the Church to screen each application. So each application is presumed to have a special need. Having this process publicized at this time would create a flood of applications and an unmanageable work load created for those doing the manual processing.

The good news is that with the CUBS converstion is the first step in getting the necessary structure in place to permit electronic donations for those of us in the US. There are other steps that must be taken before this can be implemented for the general Church membership in the US. When this will be complete we do not know.

Thank you for the explanation jdlessley and aebrown. I wish CHQ/Donations Department would communicate this information (that is only to be used by special circumstances) in the Word document within the mormonlifehacker site. This document has been around for at least a year and a half and has been circulating around the Church. I know I have communicated and forwarded this information to many members over the last year. I am thankful that the Donations Department has continued my monthly donations.

Technicaly speaking, why is so difficult on-line offerts payment?
Instead to pay directly to CHQ why not to pay to local unit bank account? You can insert the receipt into the envelop with the slip of fonds division.
Clerk can insert the correct ammount to each of one into MLS and money is already into the bank!
Here in Italy we are suggest to write "bonifico" (bank tranfert) into check number editbox.

marianomarini wrote:Technicaly speaking, why is so difficult on-line offerts payment?
Instead to pay directly to CHQ why not to pay to local unit bank account? You can insert the receipt into the envelop with the slip of fonds division.
Clerk can insert the correct ammount to each of one into MLS and money is already into the bank!
Here in Italy we are suggest to write "bonifico" (bank tranfert) into check number editbox.

You asked this same question over a year ago, and it was answered here. Please understand that the banking system in the US, and particularly the way the Church uses banking systems, is quite different from Italy.

aebrown wrote:You asked this same question over a year ago, and it was answered here.

Exact. But, as I said in the same thread, it sound like in Italy. One bank. One general bank account with many (one per unit) sub-account.
I don't see so great differences.
When clerk deposit weekly money, where they go? Local account I suppose.
Maybe Zion Bank doesn't accept bank transfert to local sub-account?

marianomarini wrote:Exact. But, as I said in the same thread, it sound like in Italy. One bank. One general bank account with many (one per unit) sub-account.
I don't see so great differences.
When clerk deposit weekly money, where they go? Local account I suppose.
Maybe Zion Bank doesn't accept bank transfert to local sub-account?

Not only are the banking laws of the United States different, but there are even differences from state to state within the United States. This sometimes seems hard to understand in a country where the banking system is so much farther ahead than here. This is partly due to more effective privacy laws outside of the US.

In any event, the Church is working behind the scenes to update the way they do some things, but they are still restrained by the restrictions of the banking system over which they have no control.

lajackson wrote:In any event, the Church is working behind the scenes to update the way they do some things, but they are still restrained by the restrictions of the banking system over which they have no control.

Obviously my remarks are for bank system not Church choices.
So I still don't understand why (for the American bank, or laws) this is so difficult.
Sorry. Here in Italy we look at the USA for progress. Maybe, once in while and in some field, is the opposite?

marianomarini wrote:Obviously my remarks are for bank system not Church choices.
So I still don't understand why (for the American bank, or laws) this is so difficult.
Sorry. Here in Italy we look at the USA for progress. Maybe, once in while and in some field, is the opposite?

Look at MLS itself. It was used in Europe and other international areas for several years before it was brought into the US.

As for the banking system in the US, yes, some laws have been changed in the last few years and others are still being changed. Hopefully this will lead to an electronic banking and accounting system as effective as the one already in use in many other countries around the world.

In this particular field, I think you are ahead of us in many ways. Oddly, when I pay most of my bills electronically through the bank, they electronically transfer funds to most of them directly to business bank accounts. But there are several businesses I pay where the bank still prints out a paper check and mails it to the business!

Understand. Tank you.

Now we can also have remboursements through internet bank access.
The leaders access the internet bank account and made rembourse that will be effective after 2 confermations!
Great!
Thanks to italian FM officers for this!

It looks like it's almost been a year (April 2011) since the last post on this thread. Has any progress been made in making electronic tithing payments a reality? Paying tithing is the only regular payment I make using checks. I would LOVE to be able to login to my ward website, click on a "Pay Tithing" link and make the payment. It seems like that should be possible especially when it's so easy to make online payments to the Church's humanitarian efforts.

kimberlyfarnsworth wrote:It looks like it's almost been a year (April 2011) since the last post on this thread. Has any progress been made in making electronic tithing payments a reality?

We have not heard anything further on this yet.

marianomarini wrote:When clerk deposit weekly money, where they go? Local account I suppose.

Local bank deposit box yes, local account no. As far as I understand it, the church has agreements with local banks to accept deposits but when they recieve them, the funds are electronically transfered to Zions. From my perspective being in the US, it appears that all unit accounts are at Zions in SL. But there are no local accounts as they are against policy.

wrigjef wrote:Local bank deposit box yes, local account no. As far as I understand it, the church has agreements with local banks to accept deposits but when they recieve them, the funds are electronically transfered to Zions. From my perspective being in the US, it appears that all unit accounts are at Zions in SL. But there are no local accounts as they are against policy.

I wonder how can Unities manage their own budget without a bank account.
Are they using global account for local rembursement?
More clearly, is the bank account number unique for all US unities?

marianomarini wrote:I wonder how can Unities manage their own budget without a bank account.
Are they using global account for local rembursement?
More clearly, is the bank account number unique for all US unities?

Church units in the US handle finances quite differently from the way it is done in Italy.

Each unit has its own unique account number, and its own budget, and uses its own account for local reimbursement. All these accounts are managed through Zions Bank. Because Zions Bank does not have branches throughout the US, arrangements have been made with most local banks (perhaps it is all at this point -- I'm not sure) to handle deposits via deposit concentration where the funds are swept to Zions Bank with no need for an actual account at the local bank.

Church units in the US handle finances quite differently from the way it is done in Italy.

It seem not too different.
Instead of Zions Bank we use an Italian Bank but there's only one account (global account managed by central office in Italy) with many sub-accounts.
This way each unit has his own sub-account number and we can make Internet money tranfert from our bank into Unity account.
So I wonder. Is Zions Bank that doesn't accept electronic deposit into unit's account?

In the UK we have one bank account but we cannot have sub accounts as they do in Italy. I believe a few countries in Europe are able to have the system Italy uses.

Our local office have told me it is very complicated to match what happens in Italy. I expect that America has their own issues that are different to those in the UK, and Japan who have a similar system to ours. We are all likely to have processes and procedures that are slightly different but have the same aim and safeguards.

I'm new to this conversation, but I'm wondering if there's been an update to the status of online tithing? Is the church more prepared to accept donations online yet?

dswiss wrote:I'm new to this conversation, but I'm wondering if there's been an update to the status of online tithing? Is the church more prepared to accept donations online yet?

There has been no announced update. We're all still waiting....

Sorry for my English and superficiality but I can't see any problem if there's only one bank account for all unities, contrariwise!
If this is a case it imply that all unity founds are managed with church financial reports.
Because of all money goes in only one account is not possible, through bank reports, to know the financial situation of each unity.
So, if you send money to the bank AND give a copy of it to the unit, all is known and correctly managed.
It's not a question of bank system but local office arrangement.
Several mounths ago we received a training as Stake auditors.
In that occasion was told us that Area Office is urging for electronic payments (even reimbourments) in every area country.

marianomarini wrote:Sorry for my English and superficiality but I can't see any problem if there's only one bank account for all unities, contrariwise!

You may not see the problem, but the situation in your area in Europe has nothing to do with the banking system used by the Church in the United States. It's been pointed out several times in this thread that it is different. If it were as simple as you imagine it is, I'm sure the Church would have implemented this long ago. Since it hasn't been implemented, it's safe to conclude that it is more complicated than you think.

I agree with you aebrown. My post was related to the UK situation. I can't remember if UK belongs to the same Area of Italy, and I assume it is.
Anyway I trust on Church choices. This doesn't means that they (decisions) are always in the border-line of the state of art.
They are surely right, and correct, but not always innovative.
The only big concern is, from my point of view, that having money and paper going through different ways, it require more carefulness to audit church and bank reports.

marianomarini wrote:I agree with you aebrown. My post was related to the UK situation. .

The last post on the UK situation was over 4 months ago, so if you are referring to a post that isn't current, it's helpful to quote it or to at least refer to it somehow. I naturally assumed you were talking about the post that was made this week, which is the one I responded to.

There hasn't been any news at all on this subject. At present we can pay by Gift Aid online but even that requires a message to church offices for them to do some recording at their end. I expect online banking will be available but it will appear when it does and in different areas at different times depending upon the local situation, we will have to be patient.

I apologize aebrown. I'm not used to look at date of post!
Life require constant learn!
I'm sorry.

Sorry to bother but i have read all the posts and none since 2012, now in 2015 has anything changed is is all over facebook again about it and i was wondering if it was soon to be officially possible for everyone and not be a paybill thing with my bank. i was very close to doing the pay bill thing but could not change the amount paid and i do not have a fixed income amount. so it needed to change each time.

"Coming soon". No date has been announced, but apparently it's been in beta for some wards.

hrhneenerita wrote:i was very close to doing the pay bill thing but could not change the amount paid and i do not have a fixed income amount. so it needed to change each time.

Every bank is different. Mine allows me to change the amount each time I set up a payment through bank bill pay.

However, as russellhltn mentioned, an online contribution system is in beta test right now. We don't know how soon it will be available for members to use, but it will allow you to go online to the Church with your LDS Account and make a contribution electronically, just as if you were filling out a donation slip to give to a member of the bishopric. The contribution will then be electronically transferred from your bank checking or savings account to the Church. You will not have to use your bank bill pay system at all.

The beta test has been going on a little while, so hopefully it will not be too long before the rest of us will get to use the online system for making contributions to the Church, if desired.

Sounds like the LDS.org method should be rolling out to more wards very soon. This is great because it should be a lot simpler than the current method.
However, I have emailed the donations department several times and never once have they attempted to discourage me from using the current bill pay method. I simply sent them an email asking if I could set it up and they quickly emailed back with instructions. I set it up right away and have been using it ever since.
I have also been keeping in contact with them about the status of the LDS.org method. It is currently being used in a bunch of pilot wards, and then it will roll out to the rest of us. They also said our wards will be notified when it becomes available and they will announce it over the pulpit.

I would like to set up my tithing by bill pay. How do I email the donations department for instructions?

cliechty wrote:I would like to set up my tithing by bill pay. How do I email the donations department for instructions?

Direct your question to donations@ldschurch.org

Here is an atricle from this morning's Deseret News that should finally put this subject to bed...

Mormons will be able to pay tithing online

MISSION CONTRIBUTIONS AND DONATIONS CAN ALSO SOON BE DONE DIGITALLY

BY TAD WALCH

DESERET NEWS

SALT LAKE CITY — The ancient biblical practice of tithing is going digital.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints announced Wednesday night that after a successful pilot program, members will be able to pay their tithing and other charitable donations through a new online donation system.

The new system will also have a major new feature for funding missionaries, allowing anyone to create an account and donate to a missionary.

Many Mormons responded gratefully to the news that the “Church Online Donations” website will roll out for use by U.S. congregations throughout 2015. Church headquarters will notify local church leaders when the system is available to their congregation, according to a church press release.

A pilot program developed by the church’s Finance and Records Department found that the online system both simplified donations for members and reduced the workload for bishoprics, branch presidencies and ward and branch clerks who process them.

Those leaders and clerks are volunteers who donate their time.

Today, most members give their tithing to their congregational leaders, who with the help of clerks deposit it in church accounts so church headquarters can allocate the funds.

Tim Milne of the faith’s Lakeville First Ward in Lakeville, Minn., said the new system would have saved him a great deal of time when he served as a ward financial clerk and stake auditor.

Milne looks forward to another benefit of the new system. He has two sons serving LDS missions, one in Mexico City and the other in Argentina. Both his father-in-law and mother-in-law contribute to their grandsons’ mission finances each month, but it’s an unwieldy process. They mail checks to the Milnes each month. The Milnes then give the checks to the ward so the funds can be assigned directly to their sons’ mission funds.

“This will make everything easier,” Milne said. “They won’t have to do that any more. They can just set it up online.”

That’s still not the best thing about the potential of online contributions, Milne said. He’s excited that anyone, church member or not, can set up an LDS Account and donate through the system. He has known people everywhere he has lived, from Boston to Florida to California, who were not Mormon but who had LDS Accounts to access various tools like genealogy research.

He once told an employer that he preferred to make donations to organizations where 100 percent of the donation goes to the cause. His employer, who is not Mormon, claimed no organization did that, so Milne introduced him to the LDS Church’s Humanitarian Fund, where overhead is covered by other church funds.

“He started contributing to the church’s Humanitarian Aid Fund,” Milne said. “In the future, that will be easier still.”

Latter-day Saints follow the biblical teaching on tithing. In Genesis, for example, Abraham paid tithes to Melchizedek. Mormons believe that everything they have is a gift from the Lord and that they should give back to him by donating 10 percent of their income as tithing.

The amount is based on the honor system; members don’t show leaders their income statements, but they do declare each year whether they consider themselves to be full tithepayers.

Full tithepayers who are active and worthy are able to enter and worship in the faith’s temples.

Tithing funds are used to help the church construct and maintain meetinghouses and temples, care for the poor and operate church universities, colleges, institutes and seminaries.

Mormons also make other donations. For example, many congregations send priesthood- bearing boys ages 12-18 to the homes of members one Sunday a month to collect fast offerings. The church asks members to fast for two meals on Fast Sundays and donate the cost savings to help the poor.

Members also can donate specifically to missionary, humanitarian and welfare funds. They’ll be able to make all of those donations digitally.

http://www.mormonnewsroom.org/article/f ... -donations

Still, "Coming Soon", but apparently sooner rather than later.

Yeeeha! My stake has been turned on.