It looks like approvers can approve expenses when they are the payee?

[nathangg]

I'm an assistant clerk, and if I open my own payment request to approve it, I see this:

The submitter should not be the payee or fast-offering recipient of the expense.[1]

That is a great reminder that I should not approve my own expense.

However, it appears that the system will still let me approve it. This caught me by surprise because I didn't know that the system would let someone approve their own expense (I never tried to approve my own expense; however, we just got an audit exception where an approver approved an expense where they were also the payee).

Is this by design? I feel like if approving your own expense is against the rules (as it should be), why does the system let us do it? (And for good measure it definitely shows up as an audit exception... but even letting this happen in the first place seems like a problem to me. And you may ask, "Why did this happen? Why did the approver approve their own expense?" I think for a few reasons: approvers are busy, approvers don't necessarily have all the rules at the forefront of their mind, approvers think they are helping by reviewing all the expenses and approving them ("I'm taking a load off the bishop" or "I'm taking a load off the other counselor") and could easily forget that they aren't supposed to approve their own expenses, and I think approvers may be in the mindset of "the system will help protect me from mistakes".)

I personally feel bad that we got this audit exception, and we are going to retrain all the approvers, however, it still seems we're going to be susceptible to this mistake as long as the system let's an approver approve expenses where they are also the payee. If this truly isn't allowed, will it ever be prevented in a future update?

Thank you~
Nathan



[1] https://i.imgur.com/uVpp1Cv.png

[eblood66]

However, it appears that the system will still let me approve it. This caught me by surprise because I didn't know that the system would let someone approve their own expense (I never tried to approve my own expense; however, we just got an audit exception where an approver approved an expense where they were also the payee).

I really have no idea why it allows this. I've wondered why for quite some time and haven't come up with a reason. They obviously thought about the situation since it gives the warning. But it's been possible since the beginning of LCR Finance and it hasn't been changed. I sent feedback several years ago when I first encountered it and I doubt I'm the only one who has.

[russellhltn]

I can only speculate that there might be an urgent situation where this might be the only way to handle the problem. So you get a warning instead of a block.

A possibility is when there's an immediate need for food and there's no time to get to the bishop's storehouse, or get other approvers to sign. Another might be some kind of emergency response to a disaster.
The alternative would be to give money directly to the recipient, which I think most of us would agree is not desirable.

So the system allows it with the understanding that it will come up in the next audit.

[eblood66]

Maybe. But for a check you can already print without two electronic approvals (just don't upload documentation before printing) but you still need two signatures. And electronic reimbursements take several days to process anyway so I'm not sure how useful they are for an emergency.

[BrianEdwards]

I agree, it was also unsettling for me. But I ended up concluding that this is by-design, for purposes that the Church hasn't specified, and that the Church considers the after-it-occurs audit process a sufficient watchdog for this specific use case. But we're definitely left to wonder why they just don't specify at least in general principles why the system is set up this way, I'd much rather not be left to personal guess-work

If this truly isn't allowed, will it ever be prevented in a future update?

Just for clarity, almost all Forum users are regular Church members like yourself, and we don't have any insight into current or future plans the Church might have regarding these types of changes. That said, if you submit this question via the Feedback functionality available at the bottom of most Church webpages, this will get your request into the Church system. You can even reference this Forum thread in your Feedback, so this discussion can be included that way.