companionship principle on bank deposits

shouldn't the companionship principle (quoted below) in the wiki and clerk training be written to also apply to the actual deposit at the bank? i had a finance clerk in a unit in another state ask me if he needed to accompany the bishopric counselor to the bank depository, since they weren't in the habit of making the deposit that way. as i recall, there is specific direction in handbook 1 on this, but i don't have access to it anymore. if it was in the wiki and/or the clerk training it would be available to assistant clerks who don't have access to handbook 1.

"The companionship principle requires two priesthood holders to be actively involved in opening the donation envelopes, counting the money, and recording the amounts in the Church financial software. Having one person open envelopes and count money while the other person does something else is not adequate.
Two persons, a member of the bishopric and a clerk, or two members of the bishopric open each envelope together to verify that the funds enclosed are the same as the amount written on the Tithing and Other Offerings form."

The audit form clearly requires another MP holder to accompany the bishopric member to the bank. Question 5 on the Ward/Branch Financial Audit form (US/Canada version) says:

If ... the following is not done, mark “No”:
• Funds are taken to the bank by a member of the bishopric and another Melchizedek Priesthood holder.

If there's a ward that is not "in the habit of making the deposit that way," then they should be having an exception reported on every audit.

Also, on the Processing Weekly Donations training lesson, slide 29 says:

A member of the bishopric deposits the donations. He should be accompanied by another priesthood holder, usually a clerk.

So the training already covers this principle as well.

I'm not sure what you are referring to when you say the wiki doesn't cover this (you didn't link to any wiki page), but the Donations page says that all the financial clerk is to do all the steps (including taking the deposit to the bank) with a bishopric member.

aebrown wrote:I'm not sure what you are referring to when you say the wiki doesn't cover this (you didn't link to any wiki page), but the Donations page says that all the financial clerk is to do all the steps (including taking the deposit to the bank) with a bishopric member.

sorry, what i quoted can be found in the wiki and in the

lds.org Home>Serving in the Church>Melchizedek Priesthood>Record-Keeping and Auditing Training>Record-Keeping and Auditing Training as this pdf file (which you'll notice is missing the "with a member of the bishopric" phrase).

since apparently some (hopefully small) percentage of units have somehow missed the otherwise well understood message, i was just wondering out loud if the simple addition of the phrase "and making the deposit in the bank" to the Companionship Principle would make it harder to miss, as follows:

"The companionship principle requires two priesthood holders to be actively involved in opening the donation envelopes, counting the money, recording the amounts in the Church financial software, and making the deposit in the bank."

geowizrd wrote:sorry, what i quoted can be found in the wiki and in ... this pdf file (which you'll notice is missing the "with a member of the bishopric" phrase).

Thanks for the links. I've fixed the wiki, but I have nothing to do with the online lesson summary (the PDF file you linked to). Hopefully people treat it as a summary, and take the whole lesson for authoritative information (which does mention having two people take the deposit to the bank).