Scout office ward account - allowed?

[brettbkg]

A question came up regarding money spent at the scout office: The scout office has the ability to have an account there (or multiple accounts for cub scouts and boy scouts) where the ward could deposit money into the account, and when a member makes a purchase, the expense is simply drawn from that balance. The money would of course come from the appropriate budget subcategories in the ward. It sounds like this has happened in the past, and is current practice for many wards that interact with the scout office.

The benefits of course are that of convenience for those picking up supplies from the scout office, and also not placing a financial burden on some while they wait for reimbursement.

The questions I have regarding this:

1. Since Bishop should be approving every expense, that brings up one potential problem with this plan, depending on your interpretation of that rule. Is it sufficient that Bishop approves the initial deposit of the money into the scout office account and by extension of that approval, each transaction made in that account is under the umbrella of that approval? Or does each individual transaction need to have individual approval?

2. If it is appropriate and permissible to set up accounts like this at the scout office, there would obviously be less information available in MLS for historical record-keeping purposes. We would no longer be able to reliably collect receipts of purchases there for records either. Of course, we would need the approval of the organization leaders to do this. Any other considerations or advice here I should be aware of or that I should be communicating to organization leaders as they decide whether or not to implement this?

Thank you in advance for your help!

[russellhltn]

See the last paragraph of Handbook 1: 14.6.7. I think it's pretty clear the answer is this is not allowed.

[gregwanderson]

Our ward maintained a Scout Office account for several years (don't know if they do it now) where we would deposit money in advance of as-yet-unknown purchases. As financial clerk I was asked to periodically take a check down there to "recharge" the account. We did pretty well having those that used the account turn in the receipts after each purchase. But, yes, it seems that this method doesn't allow the Bishop to pre-approve specific expenses so… I wonder if the Scout Office knows that they should expect the various wards to close all of these kinds of accounts.

We also had an account at a local grocery store. We didn't pre-pay anything into that account but it meant that anyone in an auxiliary leadership position could go to that store, buy things, charge them to the ward account and then expect the bill to be sent to the Bishop (after the purchases, of course). Lucky for us, that particular grocery store went out of business so we just never tried to establish that kind of account at any other store. We had another ward in the stake with a similar name and, every now and then, our ward would receive a bill for something that was purchased for a different ward. Again, I'm glad that account just went away.