Bishopric member cannot submit own reimburesment

I don't understand why the Reimbursement system does not allow a member of the Bishopric to submit their own receipt. When a bishop or counselor submits a reimbursement for themselves, the system automatically makes them one of the approvers for that expense. You cannot remove them as one of the approvers. This doesn't make sense to me. The system should allow the leader to enter their own expense and then allow another member of the bishopric and a clerk to be the approvers.

The work around to this bug is to get a counselor or clerk to enter a reimbursement for the Bishop or the bishop to enter a reimbursement for his counselor. Can someone explain the reason for this "feature"/"bug"? And can it be fixed? A leader should be able to submit his own reimbursement and then others should be assigned as the approvers.

I got the feeling that this business rule was intentional, as a message appears that strongly dissuades you from doing so. In 2020, I was a ward clerk, and I purchased several items in response to COVID-19 broadcasts and sanitization. I found i could not upload my own receipts, so I emailed them to the bishop and his counselors, which of course caused them to create duplicate reimbursement requests for me, which forced me to write a check to reimburse the ward budget for the duplicate payment. I had to train the bishopric to look to see if a reimbursement request had already been created before they created a new one.

drepouille wrote: Thu Feb 17, 2022 5:51 am I got the feeling that this business rule was intentional, as a message appears that strongly dissuades you from doing so. In 2020, I was a ward clerk, and I purchased several items in response to COVID-19 broadcasts and sanitization. I found i could not upload my own receipts, so I emailed them to the bishop and his counselors, which of course caused them to create duplicate reimbursement requests for me, which forced me to write a check to reimburse the ward budget for the duplicate payment. I had to train the bishopric to look to see if a reimbursement request had already been created before they created a new one.

A good idea would be to only send a reimbursement request to one person, that way duplicate payments are much less likely to be created.

drepouille wrote: Thu Feb 17, 2022 5:51 am I got the feeling that this business rule was intentional, as a message appears that strongly dissuades you from doing so.

It doesn't seem logical for the approval to happen automatically when someone (who is an approver) sends in a reimbursement request. The system should allow the leader to enter the reimbursement, then allow people to go in and approve the expenses that are appropriate according to the rules. That's I guess my main question.

opee wrote: Thu Feb 17, 2022 11:09 am The system should allow the leader to enter the reimbursement, then allow people to go in and approve the expenses that are appropriate according to the rules. That's I guess my main question.

I think no one in this user-to-user mutual help forum will know the answer to your question. We don't have access to the business rules nor to those who make them. The best thing you can to is send feedback from the app or a church web site and explain the change in functionality you would like to see. Feedback is read and summarized to those who make the business rules for consideration in future programming changes (whereas those who make the rules will likely never see this thread).

Thanks @davesudweeks. I have submitted a ticket and pointed to this thread.

I'm suspecting a problem with limited development time. (A reoccurring theme in the church.) Yes, what you're saying makes sense, but it take time to develop all the "ifs, ands, and buts" in the code to allow for both "submitter & approver" and "submitter & with two approvers workflow". I find workflow programing to have an extra layer of challenge as there's so many possible execution branches. And everything written has to be tested, extending the overall development process.

The developers may not have been given the time due to other pressing requirements. So the work around for now was to stick to "submitter & approver" with a message for now. The fact there's a message suggests to me that the "powers that be" are aware of it.

One way that our stake president gets around this is to have his wife submit the reimbursement request. I suspect the bishop could get around this the same way. Of course, he should probably not approve the expense, but only have his counselors or a clerk approve it.

By the way, as stake clerk, I tried the experiment of submitting a reimbursement request for myself. I was advised in the form that I shouldn't do it, but the system allowed me to do so. And then it allowed me to approve it as well!!! Of course, a second approver would have been required, so it's not totally wanton. Of course, I rejected my reimbursement request before a second approver could stumble on it. And just in case, I put a big red notice on the uploaded request document saying: PLEASE REJECT THIS!!! IT'S JUST AN EXPERIMENT. Although the expense was a legitimate reimbursement request -- I bought certificate paper for making Melchizedek priesthood ordination certificates earlier this year -- I didn't want a reimbursement, however.

As the Ward Clerk, I have had experience with this issue. The way I submit my reimbursement is via the lds tools app. I can go into the finance section and upload the receipt, description, budget, gst etc. An email will then be sent to the Bishopric informing them of it and to go onto the website to process it and then another email is sent out again for someone to go and approve it.
The only issue is that usually I do a majority of the reimbursement submissions and then get someone else to approve it. I usually text message the Bishopric letting them know that I have uploaded one for myself and that two others will need to submit it and approve it. If I go in to 'LCR Finance' it will warn me not to submit it (process it) as I am the the original submitter.
This way it is all perfectly above board however it takes a bit longer.

MikeClark wrote: Sat Mar 26, 2022 9:36 am One way that our stake president gets around this is to have his wife submit the reimbursement request. I suspect the bishop could get around this the same way. Of course, he should probably not approve the expense, but only have his counselors or a clerk approve it.

Only ward or stake leaders are able to submit reimbursement requests. I suspect that your stake president's wife may be in a leadership calling.

sbradshaw wrote: Mon Mar 28, 2022 10:59 am

MikeClark wrote: Sat Mar 26, 2022 9:36 am One way that our stake president gets around this is to have his wife submit the reimbursement request. I suspect the bishop could get around this the same way. Of course, he should probably not approve the expense, but only have his counselors or a clerk approve it.

Only ward or stake leaders are able to submit reimbursement requests. I suspect that your stake president's wife may be in a leadership calling.

Actually, I hadn't looked at this closely enough -- our stake president submits the request with his wife as the recipient. And he hasn't been using the "payment request" option, but the direct expense option in LCR/F.

MikeClark wrote: Tue Mar 29, 2022 7:24 amActually, I hadn't looked at this closely enough -- our stake president submits the request with his wife as the recipient. And he hasn't been using the "payment request" option, but the direct expense option in LCR/F.

I've seen a lot of that over the years. In the old days, a bishop or stake president would ask the clerk to make a check payable to his wife, so he could sign the check. That always made me wonder.

It's kind of a gray area for auditors. I think it's OK for reimbursements from budget, but perhaps not from Fast Offerings. especially if the leader's family is receiving assistance.

t's kind of a gray area for auditors. I think it's OK for reimbursements from budget

Continuing to veer slightly away from the OP
One thing I see now is that with the Bishop as the YM President (and no more YM Presidency), he is much more directly involved in potential YM and Youth budget expenditures. Especially in smaller units where there might not be any YM Advisers, a rotation between the Bishopric (aka YM Presidency) members for expenditures can lead to the Bishop needing to be reimbursed more often than before. I agree with the principle that it's better if the Bishop isn't requesting reimbursement for expenses, and that Fast Offerings reimbursements to the Bishop should be only for emergency expenditures that couldn't be handled by another leader. But that's why auditors get the fun job of reviewing what's going on...

As things are setup this month... the bishop can submit from the tools ap on the phone or ipad type device and then it is available for two others to review and approve. Problem solved. I just finished review 8 submissions from my bishop doing this