Finance Expense Report Form

On the new finance expense report form there is a line for the person who entered the expense to initial after verifying the listed amounts/accounts. There is also a line requesting the clerk's signature below the bishop's signature.

Is the clerk's signature here supposed to be the signature of the ward clerk or that of the assistant clerk - finance?

Thanks.

fernsten wrote:On the new finance expense report form there is a line for the person who entered the expense to initial after verifying the listed amounts/accounts. There is also a line requesting the clerk's signature below the bishop's signature.

Is the clerk's signature here supposed to be the signature of the ward clerk or that of the assistant clerk - finance?

Although the place for initials is new, the signature lines have been included on this form for a long time.

I don't know of a place this is is mentioned specifically, but to me the only reasonable answer is that the clerk who prepared the batch signs it. In fact, if someone else prepared it (for example, a bishopric counselor), I would recommend that he should sign on the clerk's line. The bishop himself would always sign the bishop's line, since the bishop is required to approve each expense personally.

aebrown wrote:Although the place for initials is new, the signature lines have been included on this form for a long time.

I don't know of a place this is is mentioned specifically, but to me the only reasonable answer is that the clerk who prepared the batch signs it. In fact, if someone else prepared it (for example, a bishopric counselor), I would recommend that he should sign on the clerk's line. The bishop himself would always sign the bishop's line, since the bishop is required to approve each expense personally.

Right, as the finance clerk, I almost exclusively write checks, and on the rare occasion that I don't, it is either the ward clerk or the bishop that writes them. With the initial line, whoever enters the check is then required to verify by initialing. It just seemed a bit redundant to me to have to both initial and sign.

If a counselor put the check through, he would have to initial on the verification line. After having initialed the document, it would make more sense to me to have the clerk (probably the finance clerk) sign off to confirm that the expense was drawn from the correct account and in the correct amount.

I was just hoping to understand CHQ's reasoning on the verification line and thought that perhaps the line requiring the clerk's full signature was intended for the actual ward clerk as opposed to the assistant clerk-finance.

Guess I'll just keep initialing and signing on the expense report forms.

Instead of starting a new thread, I opted to continue this discussion on the Expense Report form. Someone chime in if I should have added another topic instead.

Looks like these reports are still part of the MLS check writing process. I came across a situation where the reports are no longer automatically being offered for printing. Because I no longer use MLS on a weekly basis, I wasn't sure if there had been a change in the process (although I couldn't find anything about dropping it in the 3.5.x or 3.6.x release notes.

Any suggestions why this is report would no longer automatically print? Or how to pull it manually?

Thank you.

Alan.Richardson wrote:Any suggestions why this is report would no longer automatically print?

It has always been possible to manually skip the printing step. But that is not a good idea. If the checks are prepared step by step, there will be an opportunity to print the form, and it should be printed.

That's the expectation, to be able to print, but apparently for the last several months.that option hasn't been offered. They thought the reports might have been discontinued.

Alan.Richardson wrote:That's the expectation, to be able to print, but apparently for the last several months.that option hasn't been offered. They thought the reports might have been discontinued.

I have found it easy to accidentally skip the step. As you work through the process, the steps on the left side of the screen may be selected, or you may press the next button to get to the next step.

What often happens is that I don't notice that MLS has already advanced to the next step after I complete the previous step. If I am not paying attention and hit the next button or click on the next step on the left, I have just bypassed the step I needed.

That expense report form has always been optional according to the financial and audit policies of the Church. So it was odd that earlier versions of MLS seemed to treat it as almost mandatory. I welcome the change to deemphasize it, since our stake's standard documentation practices produces authorization for every expense using other forms, and so that particular report was redundant and thus a nuisance. Other units are of course welcome to use it if it fits in their procedures.

So if my understanding is correct, any bishopric member can sign a check. So for Fast offering checks, is the bishop the only person who can sign or can a bishopric member sign? Also, who needs to sign the expense summary page that prints out after the check? I always get approval from my bishop for any expense, but I've had bishopric members sign the checks and summary page. Last month was my audit and I got written up on that. They said bishop has to sign the summary page. They seemed to have no issues with bishopric members signing checks, including fast offering checks. Only concern was that a bishopric member signed the summary page with the check and the bishop didn't sign the summary page.

devinjolley wrote:So if my understanding is correct, any bishopric member can sign a check. So for Fast offering checks, is the bishop the only person who can sign or can a bishopric member sign? Also, who needs to sign the expense summary page that prints out after the check?

The bishop needs to approve the expense. Normally, the easiest way for that approval to be recorded is if he signs the summary page after the checks are printed. That's how we usually do it, and that is what most auditors are used to seeing.

If the bishop does not sign the summary page, he needs to sign somewhere else to show that he has approved the expense. This might be on each individual check request. This sometimes happens when we have printing problems and lose the summary page.

But if the bishop has signed somewhere else, he has approved the expense, and the auditors should not fuss about it.

Any member of the bishopric can sign the check along with another member of the bishopric or a clerk. But you need a signature somewhere to show that the bishop approved the expense. We have found that the summary page is the easiest place to obtain that signature, because the bishop only needs to sign once for a batch of checks, rather than signing for each individual expenditure on the paperwork documenting the check.

For reference, note that this is the same on the stake level – the stake president himself must authorize all expenses from the stake budget with his signature. Usually this is done by having him sign the summary page. However, counselors may sign the check itself (as long as that counselor is not on the audit committee, in which case he's not able to sign checks).

I'm not sure of the requirements, but I'd imagine it would be considered bad form to have someone sign a check made out to themselves. (Such as an expense reimbursement.) So, I can see situations where the bishop wouldn't sign the check.

russellhltn wrote:I'm not sure of the requirements, but I'd imagine it would be considered bad form to have someone sign a check made out to themselves. (Such as an expense reimbursement.) So, I can see situations where the bishop wouldn't sign the check.

That is correct. Policy says that a check should not be signed by the payee. If also says that fast offering checks should never be signed by the recipient or any member of their family. So in both those cases the bishop cannot sign the check.

I like to clear the procedure of signing on checks.
Our ward has five authorized signatures, three bishopic , clerk, and financial clerk.
Then can clerk and financial clerk sign on the check without bishopric members?
My understanding is that the reason why we sign on check two authorized signatures is for protecting issuing checks by one person wrongly.
All supporting documents for the payments are already requested to approval by bishopric members.
So I think that is O.K., but I need to verify the correct procedures.

ckcmax wrote:Then can clerk and financial clerk sign on the check without bishopric members?
My understanding is that the reason why we sign on check two authorized signatures is for protecting issuing checks by one person wrongly.

Yes, any two authorized signers can sign a check, but only if the bishop has authorized the expense. However, some wards or stakes may add additional requirements, such as requiring a bishopric member to be one of the signers. And as noted earlier, there are a couple of additional restrictions on who can sign a check.

ckcmax wrote:All supporting documents for the payments are already requested to approval by bishopric members.

It is not sufficient to have approval by bishopric members. The bishop himself must approve all expenses.