Who Approves for the Bishop?

Who approves an expense reimbursement to the bishop? Our bishop is being reimbursed for a few expenses for a ward activity. After going through the regular reimbursement process, the expense landed in the "Bishop Approval" tab, where he then received a message saying the payee of a reimbursement check should not also be the one who also approves an expense.

Is there any guidance as to who should/can approve this expense? (Besides the Stake President)

Following the usual procedures, the payment system will allow any other members of the Bishopric to approve the Bishops expense. In our Stake, this practice is discouraged, but on occasions it can’t be helped.

An expense reimbursement requires a minimum of two approvers and the recipient should not be one of those two if there are only two. An expense reimbursement paid by paper check adheres to that requirement when neither of the two check signers is the payee. An expense reimbursement paid by EFT can present a challenge in meeting that requirement when the bishop is the payee. There is also the same challenge when fast offering assistance is provided to the bishop or immediate members of his family. I will not fork this thread in addressing that case here.

When an expense is entered into the current system there are potentially three approvers for an expense. The submitter is the first approver. There needs to be a second approver before the expense will appear on the Bishop Approval tab for the third approval. If the bishop is the submitter or second approver then the expense will not appear in the Bishop Approval tab since the bishop's approval as the submitter or second approver will also be recorded as the bishop approval. In the case where the bishop is the reimbursement recipient there is no problem with the bishop being the submitter or the second approver for a paper check as long as he is not one of the check signers. In the case where the the bishop is the reimbursement recipient by EFT he should not be the submitter or second approver so that there are two approvers other than himself for the expense.

The message that states the payee of a reimbursement check should not also be the one who also approves an expense is presented as a reminder. That message will not prevent the expense from being processed. I presume the system only displays the reminder but does not prevent from preceding to allow for special cases. Whether this message should be ignored is a topic to be taken up with the audit committee chairman, stake president, or even at a higher level such as the area auditor.