Advice to help out tithing

[tubaloth]

I am a ward clerk,  mostly our financial clerk did the tithing.   He has got other things going in his life right now have stepped in.    A couple of things I would like to pass on that would help us (tithing enterers).   Nothing to big.  Just passing it on.

 

I know being married means you are one!    But putting both husband and wife name on the tithing slip doesn't do anything.  We can not enter tithing for two people.    I'm sure the check that paid for the tithing came out of a joint account.    If its tithing for the husband he should put his name so it goes under him. If its the wife that is paying tithing put it under her name.    

If you put both names, they will just use the first name on the list.   If you separate the names that does mean you would get two tithing settlement print outs.   I can see that would maybe make it harder to know if all the tithing is correct.   If that is the case, then just say we are going to put all our tithing in one name (husband or wife).    

 

Also, if you pay with a check, it would help us if you write the check number somewhere by the check box at the bottom.  Usually we put #  in front of it so we know its a check number. 

You probably are asking "I sometimes pay with multiple checks do I really need to write the check numbers for each check?"  Yes! If you don't we have to.  The church's program (MSL)  required a check number for each check.     So you can either write the check number and the amount of each check  or you could even use multiple slips.   It doesn't matter to us.    Sometimes we end up doing multiple slips anyways.   

We also had a guy in our ward that would use his Bill pay to generate a check and send it to the bishop.  The bishop just gives us the envelope with everything.   I know this is convenient for people.  As you can guess we have to fill out a tithing slip and put the long check number they have on those.    I would prefer you send the check to yourself and you feel out the tithing slip.  

 

The church actually does have a way you can send money (through your bank's bill pay feature)  and send it straight to the church.   Its not something the church can sign up everybody at the same time.  If you are interested in it, send me a message.  

 

 

Neither of these things things are that big of deal,  but if you want to be kind to your tithing enterers, this would help.    

Oh one other thing.  I'm sure there are people that have no use for the Yellow Carbon copy of your tithing slip.  If you pass it on to us, we just take it off and shred it.  Again not that big of deal, but every little bit counts.  

 

Thanks

[PolarVortex]

I'm a big fan of speaking up and telling people what you need, so your email was very interesting.

 

I am self-employed (software contractor) and my net profit isn't really known until the end of the year.  Would my ward prefer that I make periodic "estimated tithe payments" with a final check each January that squares all the numbers?  Or is it okay to write one whopper tithe check each year when I know the exact amount?

 

I read somewhere that the Church doesn't frown on members who make one tithing payment per year, but some of my friends criticize this rather bitterly.  Their argument is that we should be giving the first fruits of our labors to God as we receive them.

 

(By the way, my business partner happens to be a gay man, and his own church has a real problem with its accounting software.  The congregation has a lot of same-sex couples, and the yearly statements for married couples come out addressed to Mr. and Mrs. ---.  They haven't figured out a way to fix this, so every January they get tons of angry calls.)

[estradling75]

I'm a big fan of speaking up and telling people what you need, so your email was very interesting.

 

I am self-employed (software contractor) and my net profit isn't really known until the end of the year.  Would my ward prefer that I make periodic "estimated tithe payments" with a final check each January that squares all the numbers?  Or is it okay to write one whopper tithe check each year when I know the exact amount?

 

I read somewhere that the Church doesn't frown on members who make one tithing payment per year, but some of my friends criticize this rather bitterly.  Their argument is that we should be giving the first fruits of our labors to God as we receive them.

 

 

I have worked in the Clerks office processing tithing before.  One whopper check is just as easy to process as one small check.  (And technically easier then several small checks through out the year)  This is strictly a processing by the clerks thing.  It is not a general recommendation, because people should pay tithing in a manner that helps them be sure that they are paying a full tithing

[Scovy]

If you pay tithing once a week or once a year it doesn't matter, every person’s financial situation is different, I knew someone that paid his tithing the very last week of the year due to investments, business agreements and various other means.  He wanted to make sure it was all accounted for. 

[mdfxdb]

Timing isn't important.  Writing the check number somewhere on the slip, and getting the names right is a biggie as well

 

I can't tell you how many times people put Mr. Smith on their tithing slip, as if they were the only mr. smith in the ward......or with families with Juniors and such they don't make a differentiation.  We're somehow supposed to figure it out, or some people use an alias, or aka for their tithing slip which doesn't match their legal name, or church records....  The names are frustrating.

[sxfritz]

I've been clerk and finance clerk for five or more years. I've never seen someone write the check number on the tithing slip.  If they did, I must of ignored it. I fill out 1/2 the screen from what I see on the slip and the other half from what I see on the check. That is an edit check.

 

There's nothing wrong with writing the check at the end of the year. I would get lot of those. Most are from our more wealthy members whom I suppose don't worry about the risk of covering the amount.

 

I know my members and I know if they want husband and wife on the same tithing report. The finance database is different from the member database, so you create a record for husband and wife.  You also have a means of combining two statements so the husband and wife report as one. That isn't common, as we generally just print two reports (or more, sometimes because of differences in the databases and a change of clerks could mean extra records in the finance database). 

 

The only thing about bank generated checks is there is an assumption the amount is 100% tithing. A clerk is wasting his time to call to see if it is to be divided. Assume it is tithing.

[Palerider]

One of the times I served as the Bishop one of my councilors became very upset when this one sister would stuff her tithing envelope with loose change so the envelop was bulging. It all came to boil when she did it again and it was full of pennies. He jumped up and hunted her down and she never did that again. Not sure what he told her but he was very disgusted. Lol

[estradling75]

Oh yeah  loose change is horrible...  If you are not a kid whose parents are teaching you how to pay tithing you should be able to find a better way.

 

Continuing with the theme of helping out the Clerks... here is a rule of thumb...  The thiner the tithing envelop the better.

 

The easiest donations to process (in my opinion) are in this order.

 

1.  Electronic donation to Salt Lake.  It is hard to beat doing nothing for easy. (There are other issues but they are not on the clerk)

2.  A Check. A properly written check is self documenting.  Put the check number on the tithing slip and you got a solid paper trail to reference in case of anything going wrong.  And it is 1 item to deal with.

3. Multiple Checks. Same thing for a single check but there is more of them.  More means more work and more places for things to go wrong but it is still pretty easy.

4. Cash.  Cash is in no way self documenting. And it usually comes in a small stack that needs to be counted and recounted.  If there turns out to be a problem with cash we really, really hope it does not get past the clerk who opened the envelope.  Because then we have a name that we can talk to.  Everyone is human, everyone can make mistake on how they count.  If someone is short (or over) on their donation we want to make them aware so they can make a correction.  If it gets past the clerk opening the tithing envelope and the clerks only find it in the end...  Well then we got a real mess to figure out.  And if it is short there is always the possibility of temptation, and that is a path we really really don't want to go down.

5. Coins.  Same problems as cash, but with less actual value. I find it easier to count a stack of bills then I do to count a stack of coins.

 

Having said that I would now like to repeat that the above is about making it easier for the clerks.  The proper way to pay tithing is to do it in a manner that you are comfortable with, so that you can confidently declare you are a Full tithe payer.

[Just_A_Guy]

(By the way, my business partner happens to be a gay man, and his own church has a real problem with its accounting software.  The congregation has a lot of same-sex couples, and the yearly statements for married couples come out addressed to Mr. and Mrs. ---.  They haven't figured out a way to fix this, so every January they get tons of angry calls.)

 

HA!  We Mormons may be homophobic, bigoted haters; but at least we don't make that mistake!