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In the mid-year audit, I found this curious statement under the instructions for "Payments" (Just before questions 16-20):

"Church policy requires that the bishop and at least one other leader review each expense or reimbursement request and give approval."

When I'm auditing, I'm looking for evidence the bishop approved it. I've never cared whether the reimbursement request was also approved by another leader/advisor. If this was intended to mean that the two people signing the check need to review the support documents, I agree. But the two people signing the check are frequently not the bishop, and who signed the check isn't recorded anywhere that I can review anyway. I haven't seen anything else in writing that says the approval of another "leader" is church policy. Any ideas on where this came from?

See this Help Center article: https://www.lds.org/help/support/expens ... bursements
The expense or reimbursement request form should have a place for:

•The bishop’s signature.
•The organization leader’s signature.

It is important that the organization leader approves all expenses from the organization's budget.

who signed the check isn't recorded anywhere that I can review anyway

You are also required to verify appropriate signatures on a sampling of cancelled checks using the LCR Finance application.

drepouille wrote:

who signed the check isn't recorded anywhere that I can review anyway

You are also required to verify appropriate signatures on a sampling of cancelled checks using the LCR Finance application.

That... is also totally new. It gives the finance clerk something to do other than just hand me the transactions I'm reviewing, I guess.

Are there any instructions as to how large the sample size should be?

I can't access LUFAS at the moment, but I believe the sample size is specified on the audit form's instructions.

carlscpa wrote:Are there any instructions as to how large the sample size should be?

You check for the signatures on all of the checks you are testing. The ward audit calls for at least 18 payment transactions, including payments, fast offering assistance, automatic charges, and large or unusual payments. The signature check applies to each. It takes the place of checking to make sure the payment information corresponds to what was listed in the monthly statement.

Audit question #18 has been removed from the audit for now. Too many auditors were logged out of LUFAS when the clerk logged in to LCR to verify signatures on cancelled checks. The convenience of SSO interferes with the multiple-login requirements of the audit.
I think this is unfortunate, since it is so easy to switch users in Windows 10, or even to use a second computer or tablet to access LUFAS.