Budget:Distribution Center Charges

Has anyone figured out a way to deduct DC charges from the organization budget? IE, if the relief society orders something from the DC the charge goes into the subject subcategory, not the relief society budget.

I thought about doing a transfer from the organization to the DC Charges, but so far transfers have only made a mess! If you "budget" for the DC Charges the costs are covered, but the purchase is not deducted from the organization.

Perhaps there should be a way of tagging each DC Charge to a budgeted subcategory when it comes in?

1puzzledclerk

Short answer:

Go into Finances, then click on View/Edit Expenses. The DC charges will be listed. Select the charge, and change the Category from Budget: DC Charges to Budget:Young Women (or whatever.) Indicate the reason for the change. You're done.

Short Short answer: Check out these two threads.

https://tech.lds.org/forum/showthread.p ... ion+center
https://tech.lds.org/forum/showthread.php?7095-Transferring-Distribution-Center-charges-to-proper-category-(MLS-3.3.1)

Welcome to the forums!

On a similar note, do you create a payment request form for DC orders so that you have the Bishop's approval on them? I do, and I was wondering if I was the only one.

We don't, but I think it is an outstanding idea. DC orders are a bit of a uncontrolled item now (before new.lds.org, organizations had to order through the Clerk because our bishop wouldn't let them have the ward account number - this gave me the opportunity to run everything by him before placing the order).

We use a form required by our Stake (so all the units use the same form) and I think I will speak with the Stake Clerk about this kind of a change to strengthen our adherance to church policies.

allenjpl wrote:On a similar note, do you create a payment request form for DC orders so that you have the Bishop's approval on them? I do, and I was wondering if I was the only one.

I definitely do, and advise all our ward finance clerks to do the same, and train auditors to check for this. After all, the requirement is that every expense is approved by the bishop or stake president, not just those paid by check.

aebrown wrote:I definitely do, and advise all our ward finance clerks to do the same, and train auditors to check for this. After all, the requirement is that every expense is approved by the bishop or stake president, not just those paid by check.

That begs the question, what do you do if the bishop does not approve the expense from the distribution center? The expense has already occurred and processed through the system. For the most part I can see this rarely happening - that is the bishop not approving the expense. The sequence of approval is out of normal order in respect to on-line distribution center orders. I guess anyone placing on-line distribution center orders could get a disbursement request approval before placing the order. The issue then would be making the order amount on the form match the actual debited amount that shows up on the UFS.
...Just some thoughts.

Our bishop is not concerned about auxiliary leaders placing distribution center orders. The expense currently remains in the Budget: DC Charges account. As the financial clerk, I then ensure the remaining documentation is completed - mostly after the fact.

jdlessley wrote:That begs the question, what do you do if the bishop does not approve the expense from the distribution center? The expense has already occurred and processed through the system. For the most part I can see this rarely happening - that is the bishop not approving the expense. The sequence of approval is out of normal order in respect to on-line distribution center orders.

The vast majority of Budget expenses we pay are reimbursements to members (generally some sort of leader) who have already incurred an expense. Although the bishop or stake president usually approved the general activity, and he certainly approved the organization's annual budget, he rarely approves the specific expense ahead of time. In this regard, Distribution Center expenses are not very different. Yes, the expense has already hit the unit's account in the case of DC orders, but in both cases the expense has actually occurred and it's extremely unlikely that the unit leader will leave the member who incurred the expense on the hook to pay personally.

jdlessley wrote:Our bishop is not concerned about auxiliary leaders placing distribution center orders. The expense currently remains in the Budget: DC Charges account. As the financial clerk, I then ensure the remaining documentation is completed - mostly after the fact.

I've seen units charge DC orders to a specific organization, and I've seen others choose to leave them in a separate subcategory. Either way can work, but in both cases there needs to be proper budgeting and authorization (even if it is usually after the fact). The one challenge units face when they don't allocate DC charges to organizations is that those incurring the expenses are generally not managing that expense to a budget. If a YM president, for example, knows that his DC expense is going against his annual budget, he can manage that. But who is managing the shared DC Charges budget? I'm not implying that anyone would take advantage of the situation, but it's harder to manage to a budget in that scenario.

Every time I spout off my contradictory opinion in the forum here I later spend time repenting. I might be about to do that again...

Over the past 2-3 weeks I have attended 4-5 meetings informing us there is a church-wide effort to off-load our Bishops. This seems to be a major initiative coming from CHQ lately.

In this thread I'm hearing that we should bother the Bishop for approval on every DC order. Something seems inconsistent in my mind. Of all the things that make sense to off-load from the Bishop, it seems most DC orders are prime candidates. I know the last thing our Bishop wants to be bothered with is approving routine and inconsequential DC orders.

In our ward, we require all DC orders to go through the Ward Clerk. I believe part of the WC's stewardship is to be the Bishop's eyes and make sure DC orders are appropriate. Occasionally, we'll get an unusual order request and the WC will discuss it with the Bishop before the order is made. This happens about once or twice a year. For all other DC orders we shelter the Bishop's priceless time, both before and after the order.

If policy does say that ALL expenditures (not just checks) must be approved by the Bishop prior to the disbursement, then we are in violation. If so, it would seem to me that a little application of common sense, delegation and spirit-of-the-law might be appropriately applied in this case - especially if we consider the effort to off-load our Bishops.

I also wonder if what I describe is even the unwritten intent - given there appears to be no audit checking for the Bishop's approval for DC expenses ... at least I've never been audited for such in the past 15 audits.

ckmcdonald wrote:I know the last thing our Bishop wants to be bothered with is approving routine and inconsequential DC orders.

I don't think the amount is the critical factor here. Many checks are much more routine than some DC orders. The policy is very simple, and makes no mention of anyone making a judgment as to what is routine or inconsequential.

But I really don't understand why this is such a big issue. If the financial clerk prepares the documentation well, it should take the bishop about 30 seconds to review the expense and sign it. In our stake we have about 10 such expenses per year; when I was a ward financial clerk we had 20-30 per year. I think even a very busy bishop can spare 15 minutes a year.

ckmcdonald wrote:If policy does say that ALL expenditures (not just checks) must be approved by the Bishop prior to the disbursement, then we are in violation. If so, it would seem to me that a little application of common sense, delegation and spirit-of-the-law might be appropriately applied in this case - especially if we consider the effort to off-load our Bishops.

The policy does say that expenditures (no qualifier on what kind) must be approved by the bishop or stake president. Where the letter of the law is so clear, I fail to see how the "spirit of the law" would be any different.

ckmcdonald wrote:I also wonder if what I describe is even the unwritten intent - given there appears to be no audit checking for the Bishop's approval for DC expenses ... at least I've never been audited for such in the past 15 audits.

That's definitely not the case. Although there is no explicit audit step for checking DC orders, nonetheless step 16 asks "Did the bishop approve all payments?" It doesn't qualify which kinds of payments. Furthermore, the worksheet associated with step 16 has a column for "check or document number." If only checks were to be checked, there would be no reason for that "or." If your auditors are skipping those expenses, then that is an indication that they were not trained properly or you just have been lucky (they do only sample a couple of payments per month, and DC orders are far less common than checks).

It's been a long time since I participated in a forum. I'd forgotten how questions grow a life of their own. I really appreciate the responses to my original question...and all the branches it's taken since. Lots of good thoughts;)

You build a pretty strong case Allen! I thought there for a minute I was going to have to go off and repent. But then I realized, if the WC does all the ordering and DC items need approved by the Bishop prior, it would be the WC's responsibility to get that approval.

The way things run in our ward now (and I suspect in most wards), this is something he can't delegate to me his assistant if he's doing the ordering. I have no control to enforce an approval as I seldom know there even was a DC order until well after the fact. I'll mention this to the WC and let him decide what to do about it.

One other question. What does "Bishop's Approval" mean? Does it mean he glanced at it, doesn't necessarily know if the expense is needed/appropriate but signs to take responsibility? Or, does it mean he understands clearly what the expense is for and knows that it is both needed and appropriate? If the latter, I disagree with a 30 second estimate.

I ask because our Bishop routinely takes several minutes looking over our check-based expenses and frequently asks questions such that he understands what he's signing for. Being a corporate executive, he takes his signature more serious than most. He would in general be much less familiar with DC orders (especially at first as he seldom sees any) and would surely take more than 30 seconds if we asked him to review them.

This thread makes me wonder how many wards always get the Bishop's approval for ALL expenses prior to disbursement? The 3 former wards I was a FC in didn't. We have some cleaning up to do.

Thanks for the feedback!

ckmcdonald wrote:One other question. What does "Bishop's Approval" mean? Does it mean he glanced at it, doesn't necessarily know if the expense is needed/appropriate but signs to take responsibility? Or, does it mean he understands clearly what the expense is for and knows that it is both needed and appropriate? If the latter, I disagree with a 30 second estimate.

The first place to look to understand the bishop's responsibility for the Lord's funds is in the Handbook. Simply put, the bishop is ultimately responsible for the collection, distribution and management of those funds. So when the bishop approves expenses/payments he should follow Church policies and procedures as well as being guided by personal revelation in carrying out those responsibilities. Those policies and procedures as established in the Handbook and policy letters are reflected in MLS programming and in audit checklists. The minimum demonstration of approval is reflected in the bishop's signature on at least one of the required documents. The audit checklist has this to say:

16. Did the bishop approve all payments?
Look at the payment documents. Make sure the bishop has approved the payments by signing at least one of the following: invoice, bill, receipt, or payment request. The bishop's signature on the MLS Detail Expense Report is adequate proof of his approval.

The level of scrutiny detail the bishop must make before he signs one or more of those documents beyond checking for the required documents is left to personal revelation, experience, and possibly, instruction from higher priesthood leadership.

The ward clerk or the ward clerk for finances, if one is called, has the responsibility to assist the bishop in managing the Lord's funds. When the clerk magnifies his calling and scrutinizes each expense and reimbursement request as though the bishop or the Lord Himself was doing so then the bishop's signature is all that is needed to finalize that approval. The bishop decides the level of scrutiny he must make before signing the approval.

How many seconds does the bishop want to take to review documents? How must trust does he have in his clerks reviewing payment requests before he sees them? How much trust does he have in auxiliary leaders who submit, or at least authorize, most budget payment requests? For my bishop there is considerable trust since each clerk and auxiliary leader was call by God. As long as each clerk and leader magnifies their calling then the policies and procedures, if followed, provide adequate checks for human error.

I counselled with my bishop after my last post in this thread. We discussed the on-line distribution center orders and how those were to be handled. After looking at the requirement for the bishop's signature on at least one of the documents, and one of those may be the MLS Detail Expense Report, he agreed to at least initialling the distribution center invoice packing slip. He felt that since all unit DC orders are delivered to his home address he has a good handle on what is happening and that any improper spending or misappropriation could be easily spotted. If required, any items he did not want to approve could be sent back and refunded.

That all sounded good, and true, but I'm not sure it answered my question. Unless you are saying that how long it takes the Bishop to review an expense is dependent on how quick he can receive revelation. I don't think I'll ask my Bishop why he takes so much longer than Allen's Bishop! (no disrespected intended of course)

One more question and I will promise to go away (for awhile). Is the written policy that all expenses be approved by the Bishop before the disbursement is made? Or is after OK?

Here's how I do it: The Stake President or one of the Stake Presidency (incl. Stake Clerk and/or Stake Executive Secretary will place bills or requests for reimbursement in my box at the Stake offices. If it is a bill, say for internet services for the wards, I will make out a request for reimbursement myself. This request for reimbursement has a place for the ck#, category from which the funds will be drawn (which Auxiliary, for instance) invoice numbers and dates and other bill identifiers plus amounts for each receipt and a total. At the bottom of the form there is a line for identification of the person writing the check as well as a line for the Stake President's signature as well as the date. Also a place for the person requesting reimbursement to sign the request.

If it is an incoming bill I will make out the check and complete the request for reimbursement, address the envelope, staple the receipt(s) to the rfr form and paperclip the whole piece together. If I have a specific question about whether or not an expense falls within the parameters it must fall within, I will either hold it and ask the Stake President directly or will make out a sticky note with the question where his signature will be when he signs off on the expense. Just because I have written the check and made out the paperwork does not obligate him to signing it. It is simple to void an expense.

Something I do is to make sure that multiple receipts do add to the number requested on the rfr. Sometimes the annual Stake Father/Son campout can involve a significant number of receipts, for instance. In addition, sometimes people will get some activity items while they have made a run for town to shop (2 wards have a 90 mile roundtrip) for their own groceries. They will circle the items which they purchased for an aux. activity and turn in their entire shopping receipt. They never seem to include the sales tax they paid for the items because it is in the totaled amount at the end and they don't break it out. I will add the totals they have circled, multiply x .06 (our sales tax rate, 6%), and add that to the total requested on the rfr. I then note the change to bring it to the Stake Presidents attention and as a note to me should the individual request information as to why the total was different than they thought it would be. Usually it is only fractions of a dollar but sometimes it is a few dollars, say for the food bill on a 5-day long girl's camp.

Thus far this method has worked well. The Stake President usually gets 2 looks at a bill. I know who the aux. leaders are and can usually see what seems appropriate. I don't know whether the Stake President needs to 'pre-approve' a bill prior to writing the check. It seems as if that is the question that is being asked somewhere above. Nevertheless, when everything is presented to him he does indeed get a chance to approve a bill prior to its being paid. I

I have asked the entire Stake presidency to please keep me apprised of any distribution center orders which are or have been made so that when I see the DC invoice I will be able to know which aux. to transfer $ from. We do not budget a line item for the DC as we spend so little there. Anything spent there will be billed to the specific aux. which ordered. The amount spent on the ward level, with annual curriculum orders YW Medallions, etc. will need to be tracked more closely. I do not fill out a rfr for each DC charge, I merely note the date I made the transfer and who got their budget charged. KQ

Quicky wrote:Here's how I do it: The Stake President or one of the Stake Presidency (incl. Stake Clerk and/or Stake Executive Secretary will place bills or requests for reimbursement in my box at the Stake offices. If it is a bill, say for internet services for the wards, I will make out a request for reimbursement myself. This request for reimbursement has a place for the ck#, category from which the funds will be drawn (which Auxiliary, for instance) invoice numbers and dates and other bill identifiers plus amounts for each receipt and a total. At the bottom of the form there is a line for identification of the person writing the check as well as a line for the Stake President's signature as well as the date. Also a place for the person requesting reimbursement to sign the request.

This is exactly how we do it other than we don't ask for the requesters autograph. Why is that needed?

Quicky wrote:If it is an incoming bill I will make out the check and complete the request for reimbursement, address the envelope, staple the receipt(s) to the rfr form and paperclip the whole piece together. If I have a specific question about whether or not an expense falls within the parameters it must fall within, I will either hold it and ask the Stake President directly or will make out a sticky note with the question where his signature will be when he signs off on the expense. Just because I have written the check and made out the paperwork does not obligate him to signing it. It is simple to void an expense.

We don't do this ... but I like the idea. Sounds like it would possibly work well for us.

Quicky wrote:Something I do is to make sure that multiple receipts do add to the number requested on the rfr. Sometimes the annual Stake Father/Son campout can involve a significant number of receipts, for instance. In addition, sometimes people will get some activity items while they have made a run for town to shop (2 wards have a 90 mile roundtrip) for their own groceries. They will circle the items which they purchased for an aux. activity and turn in their entire shopping receipt. They never seem to include the sales tax they paid for the items because it is in the totaled amount at the end and they don't break it out. I will add the totals they have circled, multiply x .06 (our sales tax rate, 6%), and add that to the total requested on the rfr. I then note the change to bring it to the Stake Presidents attention and as a note to me should the individual request information as to why the total was different than they thought it would be. Usually it is only fractions of a dollar but sometimes it is a few dollars, say for the food bill on a 5-day long girl's camp.

We do likewise. Over half my multi-receipt RFR's are added up wrong or the tax calculation is incorrect.

Quicky wrote:Thus far this method has worked well. The Stake President usually gets 2 looks at a bill. I know who the aux. leaders are and can usually see what seems appropriate. I don't know whether the Stake President needs to 'pre-approve' a bill prior to writing the check. It seems as if that is the question that is being asked somewhere above. Nevertheless, when everything is presented to him he does indeed get a chance to approve a bill prior to its being paid. I

I would say a Stake Pres approval before the check is disbursed meets the requirement - I like it.

It's a requirement that both signers of the check review the paperwork, including receipts (I believe). Who signs the checks and are both reviewing the paperwork?

Do you then have the Stake Pres mail the disbursements, or does he return them to you?

Quicky wrote:I have asked the entire Stake presidency to please keep me apprised of any distribution center orders which are or have been made so that when I see the DC invoice I will be able to know which aux. to transfer $ from. We do not budget a line item for the DC as we spend so little there. Anything spent there will be billed to the specific aux. which ordered. The amount spent on the ward level, with annual curriculum orders YW Medallions, etc. will need to be tracked more closely. I do not fill out a rfr for each DC charge, I merely note the date I made the transfer and who got their budget charged. KQ

This is similar to our procedure. If I understood you, you are not getting approval before the DC orders, which according the this thread is not within guidelines. I mentioned this just today to my WC and left it to him to resolve if he wants to conform and how. He does all the ordering so I have no control whatsoever.

Thanks for your comments - it's helpful to hear what others are doing.

The Distribution Center stuff bothers me a little bit. I am not anal-retentive about money but I am a little of a tight-wad at heart. Usually our DC charges are made by the Stake Executive Secretary and the first I hear of them are when I get the paid invoice from the Stake President's mail. When I mentioned that I make a note about the expense I neglected to say that the note is on the receipt from the DC. Usually (always?) the Executive Sec. makes the order after one of their Presidency meetings. I just wish I knew the charges were coming so I don't get surprises on my I and E report. I monitor that pretty closely (2 or 3 times a week). As a rule I don't want to live at the Stake Center. I have been there way too many hours with CUBS stuff. The great part of being a finance clerk is that you pretty much get to choose your hours. I usually go late when there are no interruptions, put Rush Limbaugh in my I-Pod in my (personally owned) docking station and spend a couple hours without distractions and phone calls. What's not to like about that! KQ