Printing Checks – Lesson Learned

I think I have corrected a mistake that we made on Sunday, but I won’t be sure until the checks actually clear the bank. I plan to call the GSC today to ensure I corrected the immediate problem. I am sharing with you as a lesson learned.
• On June 30th, my assistant entered an expense for the Primary budget in LCR. He could not print the check, because a second person did not review the expense until later.
• On July 7th, I printed the Primary expense as check 4064 using LCR. However, I did not do a Send/Receive in MLS to update the last check number used in MLS.
• My assistant needed to print a Fast Offering check to pay an electric bill. I suggested that he print the check using MLS so he would not have to wait for a second person to approve the check in LCR.
• I handed him check 4065, but he did not notice that MLS printed check number 4064 onto the blank check 4065.
• I think the next MLS Send/Receive probably flashed an error, which my assistant either didn’t understand or ignored.
• Monday night, I checked LCR from home, and did not see check 4065 listed, so I went to the church and did a Send/Receive. That’s when I noticed the error message and realized what had happened.
• In MLS, I opened the flagged expense, and changed the check number from 4064 to 4065. The next Send/Receive ran without error, and 4065 appeared in LCR.
• I printed the error message and the Financial Transmission report for the auditor to inspect.
• The only remaining issue is that the check given to the electric company has the preprinted 4065 as well as the overprinted 4064 in the upper right corner. I don’t know if that will cause a problem with the bank.

drepouille wrote: • My assistant needed to print a Fast Offering check to pay an electric bill. I suggested that he print the check using MLS so he would not have to wait for a second person to approve the check in LCR.

You can do the same thing in LCR. Just don't upload any receipts for the check and you can print it immediately. Of course, the two people signing the check are supposed to review the printed documentation just as with a check printed from MLS. Personally, I never upload documentation for checks in LCR because it makes the workflow harder. I use printed receipts for checks and digital receipts for EFTs. If you want to have digital documentation for all expenses I think you can upload the documentation after the check is printed from the Expenses Summary page.

Exactly. I appreciate the ability to upload documentation after the expense has been paid and approved. There are times when receipts are not even available until after the fact.

drepouille wrote:The only remaining issue is that the check given to the electric company has the preprinted 4065 as well as the overprinted 4064 in the upper right corner. I don’t know if that will cause a problem with the bank.

It is likely that the electric company will deposit the check, the bank will process it, and that no one will notice the discrepancy. Not 100%, to be sure, but I would not worry about it unless someone flags it and asks questions.

Last week, the local power company wanted me to enter the routing number and account number of our checking account into their ACH system to pay a member's electricity bill. I told them that charge would likely be rejected by Zion's Bank, because it was not authorized via MLS or LCR.

drepouille wrote:Last week, the local power company wanted me to enter the routing number and account number of our checking account into their ACH system to pay a member's electricity bill. I told them that charge would likely be rejected by Zion's Bank, because it was not authorized via MLS or LCR.

Based on prior posts, my understanding is that the church account doesn't process incoming ACH at all. Any check cut have to be processed as a check and can't be converted to a ACH transaction.