Other Category

Our ward has set up Other Sub Categories for Scout Camp, Sub for Santa, etc. We have zeroed out all of these Sub Accounts for this year; however, about once a month, a small amount shows up in the Other Category (not Sub Category of Other). Usually the amounts are for less than 50 cents or so. I could transfer these funds into another sub account, but these are all zeroed out now. Does anyone know what these funds are, and what should I do with them? I have been told that we should use these accounts for their intended purpose and not carry them over for extended periods of time. It is hard to do that when this continues to occur.

It's the interest your ward earns on the balances in the Other account. It used to be combined with the interest on the Ward Missionary account, but it's been divided since the installation of CUBS in 2010. I decided to ignore it until the balance gets big enough to make transferring it worth my time. What to do with it is up to the bishop, until we get more direction from CHQ. Some suggestions include transferring it into the Other account with the highest balance (typically the Scout Camp account) and cutting a check to deposit into the WM account.

There was a prior discussion of this topic in the thread Bank Interest Posted to the Other Category.

khasay wrote:Our ward has set up Other Sub Categories for Scout Camp, Sub for Santa, etc. We have zeroed out all of these Sub Accounts for this year; however, about once a month, a small amount shows up in the Other Category (not Sub Category of Other). Usually the amounts are for less than 50 cents or so. I could transfer these funds into another sub account, but these are all zeroed out now. Does anyone know what these funds are, and what should I do with them? I have been told that we should use these accounts for their intended purpose and not carry them over for extended periods of time. It is hard to do that when this continues to occur.

We too are following the guidance to zero out other. What I am recommending to wards in our stake is that once the AMFA subcategories are zeroed out, to write a check from the main AMFA account to clear out any interest, even if it is just a few cents. The check should be made out to the ward and processed in a batch as a ward missionary donation from "unknown". The goal (at least ours) is not to have any positive or negative balance forwards in other.

wrigjef wrote:We too are following the guidance to zero out other. What I am recommending to wards in our stake is that once the AMFA subcategories are zeroed out, to write a check from the main AMFA account to clear out any interest, even if it is just a few cents. The check should be made out to the ward and processed in a batch as a ward missionary donation from "unknown". The goal (at least ours) is not to have any positive or negative balance forwards in other.

I don't see much value in going to the effort of zeroing out the main AMFA account for just a few cents; you'll accumulate more interest there soon enough, whenever you carry any balance in any AMFA subcategory, and your beautiful zero balance will be gone again. Trying to get it to zero seems like a losing battle. My plan is to transfer it once a year or so, just so it doesn't accumulate much. But the cost of the check exceeds "a few cents", so it's just a waste of time and money to make these tiny transfers very often.

And if you do process such a donation, I would think it's much better to list the ward as the donor, rather than "unknown" -- after all, you do know where the money came from.

The point behind my effort to get wards to 0 out and not have carry over focuses on this month. Too often a new clerk will come in and see either a positive, or worse yet, a negative balance forward from the past year and ignore it because it happened before their tenure. It might not be the biggest concern or even everyones desire to do this but for me I would rather not have little bits of interest build up and carry over then in five years and there or more clerks, someone dose not know where that balance came from or what to do with it.

When I came in my calling a few years ago I found well over a thousand dollars in the Stake's ward missionary account, with several needy missionaries in wards. I checked back and found out that for as far back as records existed for the stake, no donation nor disbursement had ever taken place. This was all accumulated interest, when questioned the past clerk said neither he nor his predecessor knew where the money came from so assumed it was not the stakes to spend.

aebrown wrote:I don't see much value in going to the effort of zeroing out the main AMFA account for just a few cents;

I am instructing wards to zero out these accounts 2 times a year, June and December, to pass the audit portion of undesignated Funds. We happen to support some apartments at a remote temple for temple workers, so we always have a place to zero the funds-to.

JohnShaw wrote:I am instructing wards to zero out these accounts 2 times a year, June and December, to pass the audit portion of undesignated Funds. We happen to support some apartments at a remote temple for temple workers, so we always have a place to zero the funds-to.

We received specific instructions from our Assistant Area Auditor that auditors are not to mark exceptions for undesignated funds in AMFA that came from interest. So "passing the audit" is not an issue for us at all, and we won't bother with these hassles to zero out tiny amounts.

I think that's a common sense approach -- it's really rather silly for an auditor to mark an exception for such small amounts generated by the system. But each area needs to take direction from its priesthood and audit leaders.

It would be nice of 'common sense' items like this were consistently taught/trained.

JohnShaw wrote:It would be nice of 'common sense' items like this were consistently taught/trained.

We received the same instructions as aebrown from our assistant area auditor, and we live in different areas. So I suspect the word is in the process of filtering down through various channels.

But you are correct. Consistency is nice. Perhaps an MLS message will show up before the next audit cycle begins.

aebrown wrote:We received specific instructions from our Assistant Area Auditor that auditors are not to mark exceptions for undesignated funds in AMFA that came from interest. So "passing the audit" is not an issue for us at all, and we won't bother with these hassles to zero out tiny amounts.

I think that's a common sense approach -- it's really rather silly for an auditor to mark an exception for such small amounts generated by the system. But each area needs to take direction from its priesthood and audit leaders.

We received direction from an area authority to make a transfer to an appropriate sub-category in the final month of an audit period to clear any interest amounts.

This whole thing would be so much simpler if they could just figure out how to put all interest into the ward missionary account again.