Check Policy

Stake Clerk here. In the handbook it says "An authorized check signer should not sign a check if he is the payee or the fast-offering beneficiary." (new handbook 34.6.7). A bishop has a policy that clerks and members of the bishopric cannot sign checks to anyone in their household either. His reason for this is 1) checks and balances. To him, a check coming to a husband or wife is the same as the payee when they share the same bank account. 2) In the audit questions, it does specify the Bishop and his family members (or household - I can’t recall the exact wording) are not fast offering recipients.

Can a clerk or member of the bishopric sign a check to his wife? We have a situation where that was done and the receipts are scanned, only signed by the clerk (waiting for the bishop's approval).

Based on a strict reading of the General Handbook, the answer to "Can a clerk of member of the bishopric sign a check to his wife?" is yes, since the handbook only says the signer should not sign a check if he is the payee. Having said that, I agree with the bishop in your stake. We never signed checks if the recipient was anyone in the household. In a few cases where that happened, we had a third person go through and review the documentation and sign off on the documentation.

I also know that the audit department has processes that analyze transactions looking at relationships between transaction approvers and recipients. Those processes look at more than one degree of separation.