Fast Offerings Limits?

My Bishop asked me to cut a rather large check for fast offerings. Upon entering it into MLS, I get a popup saying, "The Expense amount is greater than the allowed maximum of $900. Make sure this expense has been approved by the appropriate leaders." Who are the appropriate leaders? Is the Bishop enough, or is it someone else?

heneryville wrote:"The Expense amount is greater than the allowed maximum of $900. Make sure this expense has been approved by the appropriate leaders."

Following the guidelines in Handbook 1, 5.1.2 and the instructions of his stake president, the bishop may authorize fast offering expenses of that amount or greater. (There are limits specified in the Handbook, and there is one instance where the bishop cannot authorize the fast offering expense at all without stake president approval.)

However, I believe you simply have run across a new general flag in MLS. Our clerk recently wrote a budget expense check for an amount larger than that. He received the same message.

So, I believe the "appropriate leaders" are your bishop (or stake president for stake expenses), and then, if welfare assistance is involved, the further guidelines in the Handbook.

This message isn't clear regarding what happens if/when you click "Ok." Apparently, the check will be processed - business as usual.

It also incorrectly implies that some expenses (of smaller amounts) are somehow authorized in a different manner than those (of larger amounts) that trigger the alert. All expenses (big or small) must be authorized by no less than the Bishop or Stake President. As such - this message seems to muddy the waters of what is acceptable (though, presumably, it is actually in place to remind people that some things are not acceptable).

meh... To me, it is just a polite reminder: "Did you mean to write this for $1000.00 and not $100.00?"

The idea of an expense limit isn't new to us in the UK, any expense over £750 has to be authorised by the local office.

This authorisation is nothing to do with what the expense is for, it is so that they can inform the bank that there will be a cheque presented over the £750 limit. The bank has been instructed to return any cheques presented, that are over this limit, that have not been authorised by the office. I expect this is a security feature of some kind.

This authorisation is separate to any authorisation by the Bishop or Stake President

I get the impression that this isn't something you have to deal with in the states.

As a stake clerk, I regularlly issue high-dollar checks. MLS is now has the alert for all checks over $900; not just fast-offering checks.

simonawright wrote:The idea of an expense limit isn't new to us in the UK, any expense over £750 has to be authorised by the local office.
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This authorisation is separate to any authorisation by the Bishop or Stake President

I get the impression that this isn't something you have to deal with in the states.

You are correct. We don't have to deal with this in the states. In reality the message has nothing to do with any expense limit of this kind. We do not have to inform the bank of the expense before we issue the check. It will be honored. As has already been mentioned on this topic, no special authorization is needed beyond the normal Bishop or Stake President authorizations that apply for any check from $0.01 to $1000, or beyond. If we needed to inform the bank, they ought to tell us that, rather than giving us this obtuse alarming message.

The message refers to a "maximum", but it appears that they just made the number up. It is not a maximum, and it does not even appear to be a significant threshold for anything except this unnecessarily alarming message. ALL expenses not proper approval. Why present a message like this that makes me search in vain for something special that I might have been expected to do?

To refer to the $900 mark as some kind of maximum is disingenuous, and plainly false. It is not a maximum of any sort.

In my case, I just got this message while preparing a check for a budget expense. The message should be reworded to not imply that any kind of maximum has been exceeded (and to perhaps be less alarming in other ways), or eliminated.