Organization budgets, transparency, and approvals

[dajoker]

There are other topics that touch on this, but they're old, and I think it needs a revisit (even though the handbook doesn't say this needs to happen.... yet). e.g.:

viewtopic.php?p=228503

I've had several organization leaders, at both stake and ward levels, comment that in years gone by their financial situations (their knowledge of their budgets) felt better because they submitted all reimbursement requests to the clerks themselves, so they had a way to verify everything was in order before the money was suddenly all gone from their respective budgets. For example, if Sis. Smith spent $10, she would submit that receipt to the presidency of (for example) the Young Women who would then track it however they preferred, and then physically submit it to the clerks. Today organization presidents can see their budgets in LCR after everything is completed and reimbursed, but they feel like they don't have any control or input until everything is done and spent. Since the organization leaders are not involved, it is possible that unexpected spending, or even abuse, can happen by going directly to clerks.

If any of that is missing details that materially impact how this works, please correct me. If not, I think it would work better if submissions (however submitted) would AT LEAST immediately be e-mailed to the organization leadership just like they are to those who need to approve expenses generally (I get an e-mail every time a clerk submit something today). Better yet, I wish anybody could submit expenses directly via the Tools app, and if they are not in the organization presidency then an initial approval by the president of the organization should be obtained. Maybe the unit leader (bishop, stake president, etc.) can override that (of course), but generally speaking I think both visibility for organizations, as well as prevent possible abuse or unexpected budget issues, would be improved if the first stop was to the organization itself. If there is no organization president called currently, then it could work like it does today.

Member: Submits reimbursement to whatever category via Tools.
Organization representative (president or secretary): Approves, or is at least notified, of the details of the request (payee, comment, amount).
Clerks then get the request and carry out things as they do today.

I suspect that the amount of coding work required to add organization leadership to the confirmation e-mails that are already going out is not huge, and since the church infrastructure already links organization leadership to their categories, this may be a simple enhancement request that, whether just CC-ing or actually adding approvers. can solve the problem. Perhaps a two-phased approach could work: start with CC-ing the organization leaders, and later add them to the approval process. This would basically only apply to Budget categories, or other types of categories owned by organizations (e.g. Youth stuff under Miscellaneous via the existing delegated management in LCR), and not to other areas like Fast Offering.

Thoughts?

ab
Stake Clerk

[BrianEdwards]

A couple of thoughts:

Regarding the Tools app, my understanding is that the Church is actively working towards unifying the Tools app and LCR functionality, so that identical usage is available whether one uses a mobile device or a computer. That might also entail additional functional changes they put in place during this effort, but likely just making it so that whatever you can currently do in LCR you can also do via Tools (and also anything you can do in Tools you can also do online).

GHB 34.5.7 states "No stake or ward expenses may be incurred or paid without the presiding officer’s authorization." (my emphasis added). This topic has come up many times throughout the years in the Tech Forum, specifically regarding what entails "authorization" prior to an expense being incurred. But the Handbook is quite clear that no expense means no expense. Are you stating that members/leaders are not getting prior approval for expenses that are made and then charged against their organization budget? While exceptions might occur, in general an org leader should never be surprised by an expense charged against their budget.

If so, then perhaps training should occur at either the organization and/or ward level regarding the process for using church funds. Following policy would seem to alleviate much of the conflict you describe.

[dajoker]

GHB 34.5.7 states "No stake or ward expenses may be incurred or paid without the presiding officer’s authorization." (my emphasis added). This topic has come up many times throughout the years in the Tech Forum, specifically regarding what entails "authorization" prior to an expense being incurred. But the Handbook is quite clear that no expense means no expense. Are you stating that members/leaders are not getting prior approval for expenses that are made and then charged against their organization budget? While exceptions might occur, in general an org leader should never be surprised by an expense charged against their budget.

If so, then perhaps training should occur at either the organization and/or ward level regarding the process for using church funds. Following policy would seem to alleviate much of the conflict you describe.

I'm sure that (an expense without prior authorization) happens, sometimes, somewhere, but that the expense happens is less of a constant deal than the timing, or magnitude, or duplication, of the authorized expenses. People aren't perfect; some may be dishonest (this would help with that), but others may just be swamped and unable to remember if they have had this particular receipt reimbursed (a secretary for an organization, when reviewing, would have another set of eyes, plus a technical way, and a strong interest, to verify this). As a result, running things through organizations, or even CC-ing them along the way (super-easy to add), would benefit everybody involved (except the dishonest, if they exist). We all want to reduce the load on the "presiding officer" because, frankly, 99% of the details coming through aren't worth intense memorization by that officer. On the other hand, if the presiding officer sees that President So-and-So approved this beforehand, then that gives a bit more confidence to the final approval, not to mention the monthly review of all finances where they certify that they have "ensure[d] that funds are properly handled and accounted for".

Using technology in this way isn't meant to usurp or add to existing policy, but is meant to provide a way to involve the right people without more manual work (e.g. by the secretary needing to login daily to pull the current org information, just in case something was sent to the clerk without going through the organization). We can implement the current policies without any technology at all, potentially, but nobody wants to, for similar reasons; it's easier to have approvals be done from home in pajamas electronically than in-person with authorization papers that every unit creates on their own; it's easier to use electronic reimbursements than to get multiple signatures and deliver checks which are inevitably lost; it's easier to do monthly reviews online and sign with a click than to print dozens of pages of paper that lack links for investigation, just to have them sit in a filing cabinet for a couple years; it's easier to review everything as an auditor when everything is right there electronically, without clerks and bishopric biting fingernails, or trying to hurry things along to get home to family. Technology doesn't make the policy in any of those cases, it just makes doing the right thing easier, which is good for humans.

[sbradshaw]

Currently, only organization leaders can submit expenses online or in the Member Tools app. A ward member without a leadership calling isn't able to submit an expense online – the system doesn't let them. I think this is intended to mitigate the issue you're seeing. I'm assuming the disconnect you've seen happen is when a member tries to submit an expense physically to the clerk.

A system I've seen work well is the member texting or emailing the receipt to the organization leader. The organization leader can then submit the expense online. The clerk needs to be a gatekeeper – if an expense is physically submitted by a member to a clerk, the clerk should refer them to an organization leader to submit online instead. This will ensure that expenses go through organization leaders (in addition to making things easier for the clerk).

[dajoker]

I suppose the inability of non-leadership members to submit expenses might be, as you stated, to prevent the problem I'm describing, but I would guess it has more to do with getting something out that works, maybe with plans to add more later. I'm not in church IT, so I don't know, obviously, but that's often how things go in non-church IT (where I work), getting out a "minimum viable product" (MVP) and, maybe, having another phase planned to make it better in the future. Creating a feature that has expenses go directly to clerks, under the assumption they are approved by the organization (because only the organization can submit the expenses in the first place) is easier than doing that for everybody and adding in an approval system that routes things through the organization. Phase #1 is done (hooray!); time for Phase #2 (this thread's topic).

With regard to clerks pushing back, I think that can happen, and probably sometimes does happen, but the reports which led me to start this thread were more like this:

1. Member: E-mails (or maybe has physical documentation) a counselor (or maybe even the unit leader) who then forwarded on to the clerk.
2. Clerk: Took it and ran with it, because while pushing back against a random member's random request is more natural (especially after you've been doing this for a while), pushing back against a leader is contrary to the order of things, especially when that leader is the unit leader.
3. Member: Reimbursed, happily.
4. Organization: [blinking, wondering where their budget's money went, or reaching out to ask for expenses they haven't seen to be sure people get reimbursed which can lead to the double-reimbursement problem]

As usual, all we really need to do is train all members to do the all the things they should do, preferably on their first day as members, and then all our problems would be solved. Until then, making the easiest path for them to be something other than bypassing the bureaucracy (and instead having the technology make the bureaucracy simple or transparent) is much more likely to actually work in more/most cases in the real world. Today it's just too easy to walk up to the people you recognize (bishopric, branch presidency, stake presidency), and who are already very busy with other ministering and administration, and let them take the easiest path of, "Hey clerk, deal with this, please."

[jdlessley]

Note this statement in Member Tools Help under the title 'Changes Coming in Version 5.4' (Member Tools was updated to version 5.4.0 on 17 Sep 2025):

• Payment Requests for All Adults: All adult members can now submit a payment request by tapping on 'Finance' and then 'Payment Requests'

The Help section titled 'What's New' does not mention payment requests for all adults.

Has anyone checked to see if that feature as stated for what's coming in version 5.4 is active for all adult members? I do recall having the Payment Request listed in the Finance tile before but it did not function for me as the ward clerk before version 5.4.0. I now see I have full access to submit an expense payment request against all active categories just as I can in LCRF at the 'Expenses' tab.

I plan on asking some ward members without organization presidency callings what they see. I certainly hope that if that feature works for the general adult membership that it implements a procedure where the request is first routed to the organization presidency to view and approve all requests that involves categories for their organization before it is forwarded to bishopric members and finance clerks for their approvals.

[russellhltn]

I don't have a "Finance" tile.

I am on 5.4.0 and I've done a "Refresh Data".

[jdlessley]

Good to know. I guess they are still working on the payment request feature for all adult members.