Ordering 2012 Materials?

Hi all,

This is my first December serving as clerk and it suddenly occurred to me that I may be the one who orders all the new materials for the upcoming year. Is this generally the case or determined by a ward by ward basis? I'm thinking especially along the lines of the new George Albert Smith manual that will be used in Relief Society, Elders, and High Priests. If I am responsible for ordering these, is it deducted from the ward budget or is each ward allowed a certain number of courtesy manuals for the new year? Also, what is a good formula others have used to determine how many manuals to order? Simply 2 per household with some extra?

Thanks!

jlj93byu wrote:This is my first December serving as clerk and it suddenly occurred to me that I may be the one who orders all the new materials for the upcoming year. Is this generally the case or determined by a ward by ward basis?

Each ward may do it differently. There is no standardized procedure.

jlj93byu wrote:If I am responsible for ordering these, is it deducted from the ward budget or is each ward allowed a certain number of courtesy manuals for the new year?

Each ward's budget funds pay for the entire curriculum order. When ordering through the on-line store, those with certain callings can click the "Administrative Materials" link to order using the ward's account. On checkout there is an option to pay using personal funds or the ward account. Ordering using the ward account will be handled as an internal record of purchase (IROP). This IROP invoice will arrive in MLS in the "Finance Statements" section and the amount will be automatically debited to the Budget:Distribution Center Charges category.

jlj93byu wrote:Also, what is a good formula others have used to determine how many manuals to order? Simply 2 per household with some extra?

We look at the invoices for the manuals from the initial curriculum order for the current year to estimate what will be needed at the start of the next year. If we over ordered we adjust down. If we had to make an immediate reorder within a couple of weeks we adjust up. This has worked for us in the past since we have relatively stable demographics This year due the rise in the number of members using mobile devices we have revised this number down for 2012 using a poll of those who don't want a hard copy manual. Throughout the year as the extra copies are used we order replacements as needed.

jlj93byu wrote:Hi all,

This is my first December serving as clerk and it suddenly occurred to me that I may be the one who orders all the new materials for the upcoming year. Is this generally the case or determined by a ward by ward basis? I'm thinking especially along the lines of the new George Albert Smith manual that will be used in Relief Society, Elders, and High Priests. If I am responsible for ordering these, is it deducted from the ward budget or is each ward allowed a certain number of courtesy manuals for the new year? Also, what is a good formula others have used to determine how many manuals to order? Simply 2 per household with some extra?

Thanks!

Handbook 1, section 13.4.3 says that the bishopric may assign an assistant ward clerk to work with Distribution Services. In some wards that assignment may indeed be given to an assistant clerk, in others it is given to the ward clerk, and I've sometimes seen the executive secretary do this.

As jdlessley mentioned, you can order through the store.lds.org, in the "Administrative Materials" section. In that section, you will see a link for "2012 Annual Curriculum." On that page you'll see that orders should be placed by December 11. You'll also see a link to a helpful section on frequently asked questions.

At this late date, if you live anywhere close to a distribution center I would strongly suggest that you go pick up your curriculum order asap, If you order it now the odds are high that it won't get there by the end of the year. I placed our ward order the first of November and it arrived last Friday (Dec 2nd).

This is a great question to come up, as I'm a new Ward Clerk as well and with Curriculum orders, my first foray into online ordering combined w/ keeping my finance clerk happy:)

To help keep my finance clerk "in the loop" we decided that I'd print all my online order receipts attached to a reimbursement form that just notes what the expense was and what it was used for (ward supplies/etc). I think this will be especially helpful for Staples E-Way purchases done through store.lds.org as well, since I'm not positive how those flow in to our expense statements.

Seeing that the charges automatically come into our system as "Distribution Center Charges" is very helpful as we were worried about where they'd show up at all.

If you've worked out different methods of dealing with financial tracking of purchases you make online, I'd love to hear it.

MCardoza wrote:If you've worked out different methods of dealing with financial tracking of purchases you make online, I'd love to hear it.

Our procedure is to have those who make on-line purchases fill out a disbursement form at the time of the order or shortly thereafter and turn it into the finance clerk. It is filed away awaiting the IROP to arrive in MLS. At the top and bottom of the form "IROP" is written to help identify it as such and as a reminder that the receipt arrives through MLS. The disbursement form is attached to the printed IROP from MLS when it arrives, processed for signatures, and then filed with the other disbursements. Since only the bishop, the clerk, and finance clerk have made on-line purchases so far we have not run into approval issues. We treat these types of purchases as reimbursements when we process them. That means that the bishop's signature on the form is obtained after the order is made and the IROP is printed and attached to the form.

We make sure every budget expenditure has the appropriate paperwork and signatures as currently outlined in the audit checklist - the most important being the bishops signature approving the expense (see audit checklist item 16). Also, having been an auditor before, I want to make the auditor's job as easy as possible and not have him ask to see the IROPs in MLS.