Duplicate Expense

My counselors submitted a reimbursement request for a member. They didn't think it went through and so the did it again. Now on the Bishop's Review screen there are 2 transactions. I approved one (to be paid EFT) but I do not know how to delete the 2nd transaction. So it remains in the "Bishop's Review" tab. How should I handle this?

If they were both EFT, they were both probably paid and the member needs to reimburse the ward for the duplicate payment.

So should I approve the other transaction so it doesn't sit in the queue?

extremeexplorers wrote:So should I approve the other transaction so it doesn't sit in the queue?

If I understand correctly the additional (duplicate) expense is waiting for a second approval and the bishop review. Is that correct? If so then the duplicate can be easily rejected before it passes on for processing.

If there have been two approvals and is only awaiting for the bishop approval there still may be a chance to reject the the duplicate expense. If the expense has not been processed by the payees bank I would try to reject it. Go to the Bishops Review page and click the Review button for one of the attachments. Then click the Reject Button. If you can get that far then the expense may not have been processed by the payee's bank. Once the expense is rejected it can be deleted at the Pending Expenses page. Don't delete it though until you can confirm the EFT payment did not go through. You may need the reference number later on if you need to contact the GSD. It does take anywhere from a few hours to a few days for an expense EFT to go through to the payees bank and processed by that bank. You can tell if the EFT has been processed when the expense shows Cleared on the Expenses Summary page. If it still shows Issued then it may still be able to be rejected.

I don't know, but maybe I am just lazy. At this point I would just talk to the member and tell them what happened and I am sure that they would be glad to reimburse the Ward.

That is what we did when the two bishopric counselors recently submitted and approved the same reimbursement to me twice. I just wrote a check, and put the money back into the budget.

drepouille wrote:That is what we did when the two bishopric counselors recently submitted and approved the same reimbursement to me twice. I just wrote a check, and put the money back into the budget.

Did the check you write get classified as tithing or what? Or did it matter? I have a similar situation in my ward.

moronihah wrote:Did the check you write get classified as tithing or what? Or did it matter? I have a similar situation in my ward.

No, it's deposited to budget. I believe that's available on the paper slip.

This has to be done as a paper check in gray envelope style. It can't be done on-line.

russellhltn wrote:No, it's deposited to budget. I believe that's available on the paper slip.

I think you have to write "Budget Reimbursement" or something similar in the Other line of the paper slip. But yes, the funds can be redeposited to the Budget category.

I had to do the same thing yesterday -- our only "donation" in the batch. As I was reviewing all expenses to prepare for our next audit, I discovered that I had paid a YW leader twice for the same expense, since the bishop and the YW president had sent the receipt to me via email in July, and then again in August. So yesterday, we processed the check from the YW leader in the Budget category, which added the amount to our 2021 budget bottom line. Interesting.

The payback check is not tithing, since it was not marked as such. And it will not appear as a tax-deductible donation on the official tax statement.

Quick Question: is there a way to Transfer the member's attempt to reimburse their overpayment when they made a 'donation' to Other: Book/Mormon back to Budget: Primary?

We had a member submit an expense twice on accident, we did not catch it and processed both. She brought it to our attention and wanted to donate the money back to the church. However, she donated it to Other: Book of Mormon in 2021 and now I need to pass the audit this week and wonder if I need to transfer that money to Budget: Primary (where the original duplicate expense came from)......Or is it even possible to change a donation to go into budget: primary?

THanks,
Russ

russell208 wrote: Sat Feb 12, 2022 1:59 pm Or is it even possible to change a donation to go into budget: primary?

Yes, generally you can adjust the category of a donation including adjusting it to a budget category (it's uncommon but it is the right thing to do in a case like this). However, I assume this happened in the previous year and its possible the system may restrict changes to the previous year (at least this far after the beginning of the year). But that's what I'd try first. If the system doesn't allow you to change the donation then I'd call the Global Service Department and see if they can do it. In either case once it's corrected you'll need to generate a new tax statement for the member so that donation does not show up as tax deductible.

Adjusting the category is the correct way of handling this because the donation should not be considered tax deductible. Just making a transfer would leave the tax deductible donation in place.

This is GREAT. Thank you for your feedback.