Different Payee than Requester

We are implementing EFTs in our ward and are having difficulty in getting members to set up their accounts to receive the EFT. Many are married couples that pay tithing from only one shared bank account and only one spouse has input their bank account info. The paying spouse can easily set up for EFT but the non paying spouse has to get all the bank account info and this is the hold up I have been asked if the non-paying spouse can just request the reimbursement be paid to their spouse who is already set up for EFT. i have not been able to find clear direction of whether this can be done appropriately or not. Is this an acceptable practice if requested by the spouse requesting reimbursment.

Certainly you can send the reimbursement to a spouses account as long as that is what the requester wants. I include a field on our reimbursement form to allow them to indicate that they want the payment to go to someone else. Or if they submit the receipts by email we just ask them to let us whether they want it to go to their spouse (or even someone else). As long as it's what the member wants and you have documentation of that, there is no problem.

The audit just checks that the reimbursement matches the documentation so there should be no problem there.

I personalty don't have a problem with this - as long as it's documented as being requested by requester and not a clerk trying to get out of printing a paper check.

I would make sure there's a paper trail (either paper or electronic) that shows this was what was requested and not a mistake.

russellhltn wrote:I personalty don't have a problem with this - as long as it's documented as being requested by requester and not a clerk trying to get out of printing a paper check.

I would make sure there's a paper trail (either paper or electronic) that shows this was what was requested and not a mistake.

Ditto. I put in the description that I was directed to pay via the spouse's account. I also will include an attachment of either an email message or a screen shot of a text message from the member giving me the OK to do so.