Cleaning Old Accounts

A few weeks ago I noticed that we had several "Other" pass through accounts (such as girls camp, scout camp, etc.) where the ward receives funds for such specified activities and the stake then removes them as payments are due.

Unfortunately, there were several misc. accounts that should not have been present and nearly 40 transactions expensed against the parent "Other" account rather than the proper sub-accounts. Most of these transactions took place in our sister ward a few years ago and the two units are now combined.

The stake financial clerk and I adjusted each of the entries (which were all in prior years) to make sure they hit against their proper budget accounts. This of course threw off our 2010 Carry Forward Budget.

Now, after cleaning all of these "rogue sub-accounts", we have an amount sitting in the parent "Other" account that, if moved back into our Budget Allocation account, will bring our 2011 budget back to its proper amount (although the 2010 Carry Forward Budget will always be off). All of the unnecessary sub-acounts have been deactivated with the exception of Girls Camp, Scout Camp, and YSA.

The stake financial clerk and I felt that we should cut the ward a check and expense it against the "Other" parent account (holding the remaining funds that were not accounted for) and then deposit it into our Budget Allocations account today. As I mentioned, this will bring our budget back to the same level it was at before we cleansed the messy "Other" accounts.

Is this correct? Any concerns?

If I understand your post, people have contributed to the Other account for Budget expenses, and that having changed the records to reflect the correct expenses, the ward has less money in their budget. It seems to me that cutting the ward a check only repeats the earlier policy error. That is, members do not pay for expenses out of their own pocket, and members don't contribute to the budget categories. If the donors can be identified, the money should be returned. If not, the ward cuts a check to Church HQ.

I'm puzzled. It sounds like you had valid "other" transactions that have now been reclassified as "budget". Why?

Well, several of the transactions that hit against the parent "Other" account were for things such as merit badges, toner, programs, etc. Most of the items were budget items and not pass through items. Hence the reason why the transactions had to be changed and the 2010 Carry Forward Budget went in the red. There ended up being a net positive amount left in the "Other" parent account, which was just enough to offset our decreases in beginning budget.

The money that had been showing in these pass through accounts all had beginning balances in 2007 when that ward moved over from the DOS based system to MLS. Unfortunately, that should not have been the case. Even after moving to MLS things kept getting posted to these various pass through accounts and expensed against the parent account. When in reality, nothing should have hit the parent account and the only pass through accounts that were needed were for Girls Camp, Scout Camp, and YSA activities.


For instance, our Girls Camp account began the year with a $6,000 surplus. We may have 6 or 7 young women in the ward.

There are deeper issues then just how to transfer funds. I think you need to involve your stake president.

One of the issues is that in the past, an excess other was used to extend the budget. But in fixing that, you reduce the current budget. I don't think transferring from other is the answer. If it was me, I'd say the choice is between paying the price for past errors or leaving those expenses charged to other. But that's the SP's call.

That's part of the problem. They were never expensed. They were taken through pass through accounts that are unrelated to the budgeting process. By moving them out of the "Other" pass through accounts they are now properly expensed. It just kills our budget and leaves us with a surplus in an "Other" account that should have a zero balance.

fernsten wrote:A few weeks ago I noticed that we had several "Other" pass through accounts (such as girls camp, scout camp, etc.) where the ward receives funds for such specified activities and the stake then removes them as payments are due.

Unfortunately, there were several misc. accounts that should not have been present and nearly 40 transactions expensed against the parent "Other" account rather than the proper sub-accounts.

To me, this sounds like a classic CUBS conversion bug. Pre-CUBS, we had to reconcile to get our MLS account to match CHQ's (the CFS). Too many issues, so CUBS was implemented to "sync" local MLS finances with CHQ. In the process, all your old expenses (pre Oct 17, 2010) lost all category information. CHQ replaced your local information with theirs. All budget checks were consolidated to a single category - Budget: Administration. All Other expenses were reclassified (after a couple name changes) to Other:Authorized Member Financed Activities (AMFA).

What they couldn't consolidate, however, was income. Specifically, donations to your old categories. Therefore, when CUBS came around, all sorts of old categories reappeared. All these categories show is income (or balance forwards, which is just income in a previous year). There should not be any expenses - those were recategorized. Because the categories have no expenses cut against them, they show ending balances. However, the total of all columns in a major category (Budget, for example), should sum to the correct amount. In essence, the income stayed in its original category (which may or may not have reappeared) and the expenses got moved to a new category.

Instructions were released a couple times explaining how to resolve this. They are probably still sitting in your Finance Statement section. Not that they were overly clear, mind you. Basically, you were supposed to transfer the income to the same category the expenses got moved to. You were not supposed to recategorize your expenses. Let me repeat - don't recategorize you old expenses!

What you want to do is for each year of expenses (2007-2010), identify the income for each category and create a transfer from the sub-sub-categories in Other:AMFA to the main Other:AMFA category. Similarly, any sub-sub-categories under Budget:Budget Allocations should be moved to Budget:Budget Allocations.

Once all the money is moved, do a send/receive, and then inactivate the old categories so they are not used again by accident.

fernsten wrote:Now, after cleaning all of these "rogue sub-accounts", we have an amount sitting in the parent "Other" account that, if moved back into our Budget Allocation account, will bring our 2011 budget back to its proper amount (although the 2010 Carry Forward Budget will always be off). All of the unnecessary sub-acounts have been deactivated with the exception of Girls Camp, Scout Camp, and YSA.

The stake financial clerk and I felt that we should cut the ward a check and expense it against the "Other" parent account (holding the remaining funds that were not accounted for) and then deposit it into our Budget Allocations account today. As I mentioned, this will bring our budget back to the same level it was at before we cleansed the messy "Other" accounts.

I don't think so. You should not be moving money from Other to Budget. Even less so if you don't understand why.

Hate to do this, but I would start over at the beginning. Run an Income and Expense report, summary by category for 1 Jan 2011 - 30 Apr 2011. Compare the balance forward amounts in Other and Budget with your beginning balances in your Jan 2011 UFS. Compare the ending balances in those same categories of your I&E with your Apr 2011 ending balances. If those don't match, you've got a bigger issue and need to involve LUS.

Perhaps start here: https://tech.lds.org/wiki/CUBS_additional_clarification

The same procedures they give for resolving budget allocation issues can be used to solve Other:AMFA issues. Your sub-categories in Budget will likely not sum to $0 any more.

Thanks for the replies. Unfortunately, I was not around Pre-CUBS and the clerks did not have much of an understanding of the transition before, during or after its occurrence.

I'll take a look at the above information this evening.

Spoke with LUS. Everything has been cleared. Thank you for your help.