Budget Allocations Subcategory (and subcategories of it)

Hi,

I'm a relatively new assistant clerk responsible for finances. My question is regarding the purpose of the budget allocations subcatory.

When I view my budget report, I have a subcategory for each organization (Elder's Quorum, Relief Society, etc.) as well as other things. These subcategories currently have a positive balance and have documented expenses from the year.

When I look at the subcategories underneath the "Budget allocations" subcategory (so I guess you could call them sub-subcategories), I see budget allocation subcategories for some of the same organizations (Elder's quorum, relief society, etc.), but also some that are only present as a budget allocations subcategory (music, girl's camp, office supplies). These budget allocation subcategories do not have a positive balance, but they do have documented expenses from the year.

My questions:

Why do the budget allocation subcategories not have a positive balance?

Why are some of them redundant (ie Elder's Quorum has an entry as a unit subcategory as well as a budget allocations subcategory)? Which category should I process expenses from in the case of redundant subcategories?

Also, when I was recently trained I was taught how to do the weekly processing only. So I was processing expenses for the last months and picking what category seemed most appropriate for the expense. Now that I'm learning more, I'm sure that I processed some expenses from budget allocations and some expenses from unit subcategories for organizations like the Elder's quorum who have redundant categories. Is that a big problem? Can I edit the expenses to all come from the same place? What is the most appropriate place? The unit subcategory with a positive balance?

Under what circumstances is it appropriate to process an expense from a budget allocation subcategory that doesn't appear to have a positive balance? (none of them appear to have negative balances either, which I don't completely understand).

I hope I have described my problem well enough. I'm still learning the basics I feel. Thanks.

ryanstephenson wrote:When I view my budget report, I have a subcategory for each organization (Elder's Quorum, Relief Society, etc.) as well as other things. These subcategories currently have a positive balance and have documented expenses from the year.

That's good. Those are the subcategories you should be using.

ryanstephenson wrote:When I look at the subcategories underneath the "Budget allocations" subcategory (so I guess you could call them sub-subcategories), I see budget allocation subcategories for some of the same organizations (Elder's quorum, relief society, etc.), but also some that are only present as a budget allocations subcategory (music, girl's camp, office supplies). These budget allocation subcategories do not have a positive balance, but they do have documented expenses from the year.

The "Budget:Budget Allocations" subcategory should be used for only one purpose: to record (and adjust) actual budget allocations. For many stakes, that subcategory will not be used except for the quarterly budget allocations which are automatically placed in that category. For some stakes, the stake will be sending checks to units for their full budget allocation or to supplement the automatic allocations. Such checks should be deposited in "Budget:Budget Allocations."

But at the ward level, no checks should ever be written from that category (except, perhaps, to return surplus budget funds to the stake). And at the stake level, checks would only be written from that category to send budget allocation funds to individual units (or perhaps to return surplus budget funds to the Church).

Most units will have subcategories of "Budget:Budget Allocations". But those subcategories are artifacts of the transition to CUBS that happened in October 2010. Those subcategory balances should have been set to zero last year, if the instructions were properly followed (see Issue: The budget allocation subcategory is a negative number in CUBS additional clarification on the wiki). Do not ever categorize any normal expenses in subcategories of "Budget:Budget Allocations".

If you have incorrectly categorized normal expenses (or possibly donations) in subcategories of "Budget:Budget Allocations", you should change those expenses to have the correct category (some subcategory of "Budget"). Once you've cleaned that all up, you need to make sure that your "Budget:Budget Allocations" category accurately reflects only those allocations you have received directly from CHQ or from the stake. All the sub-subcategories of Budget Allocations should have zero balances.

That helps a lot. Thank you.

And to add to aebrown's instructions - once you have your Budget Allocations subcategories set to zero, you should deactivate them so they don't show up on any drop down boxes and cause future confusion.

Perhaps I can add a question to this thread. I have a situation where the budget allocation subcategory shows up with a negative number in the budget summary report. I believe this is because a check from the stake was processed as income and then transferred to another subcategory. So, the budget summary only shows the transfer out and not the money coming in...which causes the budget summary to reflect a lower overall balance than what I believe it should be.

Any suggestions on correcting this issue. I followed the link provided on negative numbers but the link must be pointing to the wrong place....I saw the issue, but no resolution was provided.

Thanks

ctburt28 wrote:Perhaps I can add a question to this thread. I have a situation where the budget allocation subcategory shows up with a negative number in the budget summary report. I believe this is because a check from the stake was processed as income and then transferred to another subcategory. So, the budget summary only shows the transfer out and not the money coming in...which causes the budget summary to reflect a lower overall balance than what I believe it should be.

Any suggestions on correcting this issue. I followed the link provided on negative numbers but the link must be pointing to the wrong place....I saw the issue, but no resolution was provided.

The proper course of action is to receive the check as income into the Budget:Budget Allocations subcategory. You didn't mention the particular subcategory, but it sounds like this was the one.

Then no transfer should have been done; the Budget Allocations subcategory simply holds the allocations, and you are to use the Edit Budget feature to set budgets. So if an improper transfer was done from Budget Allocations to some other category, the remedy would be to reverse that transfer.

Perfect. Thanks for the help!

I'm glad I found this thread, as it's backed up the info I heard and the instructions I received from the stake regarding these sub-sub-categories.

Several months ago I had an experience similar to the first poster- I noticed that there were duplicate accounts for several aux's (YM, YW, etc.) and that I had been writing checks from whichever one I noticed first, so that some of my expenses were allocated to the subcategory that had a balance, and other expenses were allocated to the "B-Young Men" account.

I worked with the Stake Clerk to correct the expenses that had come from the Budget Allocations categories. They were zeroed out, and as mentioned in this thread, I deactivated them on the "Edit Budget" screen.

All was good.

But then the Oct 2011 MLS changes came. We did the multiple send/receives to prepare for the update in mid Oct, and I noticed that 4 of the sub-sub categories had reappeared with a several expenses and transfers, and some non-$0 balance. The stake clerk advised that we not do anything until the next week when the rest of the MLS changes would be made. Now I have 7 sub-sub-categories with a non-$0 balance.

I'm fine rejiggering these until they're back at $0. I'm just confused why they went back to non-$0 after I'd already zeroed them out. It seems if SLC just put $dollars$ in there that it's a little odd for me to just take them back out.

Also, the clerk in the office just next to ours told us he'd been instructed to only use the Budget Allocations subcategories. Not sure where he got that info, but I was relieved to see the same instructions in this thread that I'd heard from my Stake Clerk.