Purpose of YW and YM Combined budget categories

I know this has probably been covered and may be in the Wiki, but my search_foo is weak today.

We have budget categories for Young Women, Young Men, Young Women Combined, and Young Men Combined. What are the "Combined" categories supposed to be use for? Is that where the monthly combined activities costs go? Or is it for some other purpose?

Thanks

That's up to your unit. The other ward that meets in our building has a budget set up like yours. Combined activities get paid for out of the combined category.

In my ward, I simply have young men and young women categories. If they have a combined activity, I let the presidents work out how much gets paid out of each category. My suggestion would be to use as few categories as possible while not creating any contention between organizations. (our young men and young women get along pretty well and communicate with each other a lot, so it's rare that there's any kind of problem based on money).

idjeeper2 wrote:I know this has probably been covered and may be in the Wiki, but my search_foo is weak today.

We have budget categories for Young Women, Young Men, Young Women Combined, and Young Men Combined. What are the "Combined" categories supposed to be use for? Is that where the monthly combined activities costs go? Or is it for some other purpose?

Two of the budget categories, Young Men and Young Women, are default categories. The categories Young Women Combined and Young Men Combined were added by your unit. Someone must have thought they were necessary when they added them. Consult with your bishop to see if your unit really needs them.

Thanks for the reply. I agree with you that it is easier to use as few categories as possible, just didn't want to be circumventing some useful/required function.

We run the standard YM and YW categories, plus we also run a YM/YW combined category. The combined category is used for joint activities. Anytime the YM or YW want to know their year to date expenses I give them their respective expenses (YM or YW) plus half of the YM/YW combined expenses.

chartman

These combined accounts are not top level accounts correct? They are labeled Budget:Miscellaneous:Somthing-Combined correct? I was hoping at some point there would be enough pressure to have a top-level category created for this?

JohnShaw wrote:These combined accounts are not top level accounts correct?

The default or top level budget accounts are:
Activities,
Administration,
Cirriculum,
Distribution Center Charges,
Elders Quorum,
High Priests,
Library,
Miscellaneous,
Primary,
Relief Society,
Single Adults,
Sunday School,
Young Men, and
Young Women.
Any accounts added by a unit would have to be a sub-account of one of these.

jdlessley wrote:The categories Young Women Combined and Young Men Combined were added by your unit. Someone must have thought they were necessary when they added them. Consult with your bishop to see if your unit really needs them.

I just noticed this. I did not think they were added, they've just always been there. They are definitely not a sub-category as far as I can tell. I'll have to do some more sleuthing when I get back to the office.

gpolson wrote:We run the standard YM and YW categories, plus we also run a YM/YW combined category. The combined category is used for joint activities. Anytime the YM or YW want to know their year to date expenses I give them their respective expenses (YM or YW) plus half of the YM/YW combined expenses.

We use a different method. For Joint Activities, the YM or YW leader indicates on the reimbursement request form how much each organization will cover of the charge (like 50% YM, 50% YW). We then fulfill the reimbursement from both organization's regular budgets. That is one less category you have to keep up with and one less report you have to run for their budget planning.

We use a similar methodology for expenses we share with the other ward in our building (like Sacrament Cups). We have a "Shared Expense Form" I created that the ward who does the reimbursement gives to the other ward indicating their share. This becomes a receipt for the other ward to cut a check for their share to the first ward. It works well for us.

idjeeper2 wrote:I just noticed this. I did not think they were added, they've just always been there. They are definitely not a sub-category as far as I can tell. I'll have to do some more sleuthing when I get back to the office.

In the Budget Report window it is hard to tell which of the subcategories are actually sub-subcategories. They are only indented one space. However it becomes quite clear by looking at the View/Edit Budget window in the subcategory pane which categories are sub-subcategories in the tree method of display.