Automatic Approvals for bishopric expenses

[albertpoulson]

I am the second counselor in our bishopric. Recently we’ve noticed that the financial system automatically processes the first approval for expenses that any member of the bishopric submits for themselves. This goes against the stated church policy that says we should not approve our own expenses. Is this happening for anyone else? I think this is a bug in this system.

BTW - I assume that this functionality shouldn’t be completely unavailable, because in some scenarios a bishopric member may need to be one of the approvers in a rare scenario, but this shouldn’t automatically be happening on submission. Please advise.

This has been happening for at least one month.

[eblood66]

This is a long standing issue that has been discussed multiple times on the forums. Here are just a few:

• viewtopic.php?t=35343&hilit=bishop+reim ... t&start=10
• viewtopic.php?t=45472&hilit=bishop+reimburement
• viewtopic.php?t=46333

As I've previous said in those threads, I don't know why the system works the way it does. In these threads there is various speculation but nothing that feels very satisfying.

There is a warning when this happens so the system does detect the condition but for some reason it let's you continue anyway.

As workarounds, you can either just email the clerk with the documentation and let him enter the expense or you can create a payment request in the Member Tools mobile app.

I know that feedback on this issue has been reported in the past but feel free to send your own feedback using the Help > Contact Us menu option.

[kd7mha]

I know as a ward clerk I can submit a payment request online, should work the same for the bishop.

Finance -> Budget -> Budget Summary
select the desired organization in the dropdown
there will now be a Payment request tab

budget 1.png

payment request.png

[eblood66]

Well, yes, that is available but you can only use it to submit requests for certain categories related to one of the organizations (or which has been enabled for one of the organizations in Manage Categories). You can't submit a request for the top level Administration category at all. In addition, you can't even see the Payment Request tab until you select one of the organizations.

Because of those limitations I find it more confusing than useful when training leaders. But if it works for a specific request, it certainly can be used.

[kd7mha]

You're correct, I've only used it to submit against an organization budget and missed that.

[sbradshaw]

Is it an official policy that bishops and clerks can't approve their own expenses, or is it just best practice (which could vary depending on the circumstance)?

[BrianEdwards]

Is it an official policy that bishops and clerks can't approve their own expenses, or is it just best practice (which could vary depending on the circumstance)?

In the "Policy and Principles" section at the top of the help center doc "Record Expenses and Reimbursements", it states that "An authorized leader should not approve the expense if he is the payee or fast-offering recipient."

Technically speaking, since it's the Church's own system that is automating the first approval and the leader is not making that choice, I guess you could twist things until you convince yourself that the authorized leader isn't actually approving anything -- he's just submitting, and the Church itself is the first approver! But I think we all agree that the system doesn't match the policy, even though this same process has been in place for multiple years without the Church fixing the glitch.

[eblood66]

Is it an official policy that bishops and clerks can't approve their own expenses, or is it just best practice (which could vary depending on the circumstance)?

In addition to what BrianEdwards said, the audit questions indicate that each expense must have two independent approvals and it defines an independent approver as an authorized approver who is not the payee. In addition the audit system will automatically flag any transaction where the payee is an approver as a recommended expense for review.

We've had several audit exceptions because leaders were caught by this unintentionally. I accidentally did it once myself a couple months after LCR finance first came out but that was before the audit system flagged those transactions so I slipped by without an exception . But that's when I first put in feedback on this issue.