Another (undocumented) change to MLS 2.9.1 is that the Expense Batch Report is now required to be printed. As I have said in
another post, it really isn't necessary anyway. But now it must be printed, and the implementation of this requirement is odd indeed.
If you create a batch of expenses, and print the batch of checks, if you then try to close the Expenses screen, you will then be prompted to print the expense batch report. You can answer Yes (it prints the batch report), No (it closes the Expenses screen), or Cancel (it returns to the Expenses screen).
If you answer No, it seems reasonable that you really didn't want to print the report. But that's not allowed. The next time you create a batch of expenses, and then you start to print the checks, you will be told that you didn't print the batch report for the most recent batch of expenses. You are prompted to print the batch; you can answer Yes, No, or Cancel.
Cancel works as you would expect, but Yes and No are both strange. If you answer No, you are returned to the Print checks page. You cannot proceed to print checks until you print the report. It is likely that you have already loaded check stock into your printer, but because MLS insists that you print the useless expense batch report, you have to unload your check stock, and print the report for the previous batch, and then you can load the check stock again, and finally print your checks. Apparently No is not an acceptable answer -- you must answer Yes if you ever want to print your checks.
If you answer Yes, what prints is the expense batch report for the previous batch, which is not too surprising. But then you are moved on to the Report screen, where you will see the checks of the previous batch listed (the ones that were just printed). This is strange indeed. You are in the midst of the process of printing the new checks; indeed your last request was to print those new checks, but now you are on a screen that looks like the end of the process of printing the previous batch, where your options are to print that expense batch report -- but you just finished printing it! You are left wondering what has happened to the new batch of expenses you just entered and had hoped to print.
It turns out that those expenses are still there. You can back up to the Print Checks screen and you will see the unprinted expenses. If you then print them, you will again proceed to the Report screen, and this time you will see the new batch of checks. But it is quite confusing in the scenario I describe above to be moved forward to the Report screen for the previous batch. That really should be fixed.
I still have not heard a good explanation for the purpose of the Expense Batch Report. It could only be useful if you use it as your sole signature authorization for the batch of checks. But this requires you to attach that form to the whole batch of expense reports. Such a procedure requires us to ignore what we are taught in the Handling Expenses training session about attaching a form to each invoice/bill that includes the bishop's authorizing signature. If we include an expense form for each expense, then the Expense Batch Report is redundant and a waste of time. MLS's insistence on printing the Expense Batch Report is inconsistent with both the audit instructions and the training lessons.