Tracking expenses shared between wards

I'm looking for new hints or techniques on how to best keep track of expenses shared between wards.

Some background: Our ward's Cub Scouts are combined with two other wards. Leaders are called from all three units, and they turn in reimbursement requests to their respective wards. Then, we clerks bill each other for the shared portions of the expenses. In the past, I've tracked this on paper or via spreadsheet. But these were a little bit inconvenient to run separate from MLS.

In an effort to simplify this year, I created budget sub-accounts for the other two wards in MLS. I gave these categories zero budget. When writing checks I'd split the amounts between the three Cub Scout categories, which took the other wards' balances negative. Reimbursements from the other wards brought their balances back to zero.

It's all worked pretty slick until now. We processed a flurry of reimbursements this week, and I generated year-end bills for the other wards. But with the holidays, they may not pay until 2012. That's where the my problem will occur -- their balances won't carry forward in MLS.

I've tried to think of some way around this: I could transfer money, say from Budget Allocations, to zero the other two wards on the last day of the year, and then transfer it back in 2012 to give a "balance forward" effect. But an MLS message received last week states that the ability to transfer between budget subcategories is being removed, which foils my plan.

Does anyone else have an approach for this situation that works well? I don't really want to go back to paper or spreadsheet. We've been loving the single-page Budget Summary reports giving the overall picture of the shared Cub Scout system. Thanks for any ideas you have.

One idea is to pay all such expenses from a subcategory of Other:Authorized Member Financed Activities. Then you deposit each ward's payment into that subcategory (or even three separate sub-subcategories, if you'd like). You also would write a check from your budget for your ward's share, payable to your ward, and deposit that check into that Other:AMFA subcategory. One problem with that idea is that you would probably be running a negative balance much of the time for that subcategory. Some auditors might take a dim view of that, but others would consider it to be reasonable, as long as your overall Other balance is not negative.

86Bengal wrote:In an effort to simplify this year, I created budget sub-accounts for the other two wards in MLS. I gave these categories zero budget. When writing checks I'd split the amounts between the three Cub Scout categories, which took the other wards' balances negative. Reimbursements from the other wards brought their balances back to zero.

Pretty slick. Nice thinking.

86Bengal wrote:Does anyone else have an approach for this situation that works well? I don't really want to go back to paper or spreadsheet. We've been loving the single-page Budget Summary reports giving the overall picture of the shared Cub Scout system. Thanks for any ideas you have.

If their reimbursement is for a 2011 expense but it is not received until 2012, why not just deposit it in your ward's cub account instead of the ones you created for them? I guess technically it should be deposited in Budget Allocations given that, had you put it into the proper accounts in 2011, any leftover balance would be lumped into a budget carryover for 2012. Seems that would have the same net effect.

we do several things by "Building" Set up Agent Ward for the Pack - all expenses go through that ward, that ward splits / bills other wards
Alternate "Money" Agent Ward each year or two
works well for library & FHC too

We use an "other account: Cub Scout Pack" in one of the ward's in the pack (agent ward). We establish a per boy budget at the beginning of every year to account for all awards and activities so each ward can budget and allocate it as part of the year and then receive a check from each ward at the beginning of the year that goes into the other account and all reimbursements come out of that account for the pack. If we run out of money, we then split expenses 3 ways (3 wards) and bill the wards as needed.

Our ward has a budget subcategory called AGENT WARD. When we are agent ward we pay for shared supplies in the building (like library toner and sacrament cups). We pay those bills outright and then bill the other two wards a couple times a year for one-third each. That gets deposited back into Budget - Agent Ward. We do send them an invoice on a spreadsheet to show dates and amounts so there is a little record keeping to do.