Reimbursement purchase vs gift vs rewards (points)

[BrighamJudd]

I get the church policy to Reimburse people for appropriate purchases (for specific budget categories when accompanied with receipts, etcetera) and there are plenty of links to the church handbook on that topic. Also, it is, generally speaking, NOT appropriate to seek reimbursement for something that was given/gifted to you even if you turn it over to the church, or something you just own that you didn’t purchase, even if it has an assessed value. So, what about that gray area in between these two.

What do we do when a purchase was made, kind of, but not with money but instead with reward points from a retailer account or a card or something. It’s sort of a purchase, but it’s also sort of a gift/reward. The item has value seemingly, but most rewards programs specifically use verbiage that indicate the rewards themselves have no value.

Are rewards points used to acquire something reimbursable with church funds?

Personally I find this highly questionable and I would avoid it if at all possible, but I can’t seem to find a general handbook or church website article which clearly addresses this question. Any pointers would be appreciated.

[BrianEdwards]

Are rewards points used to acquire something reimbursable with church funds?

That's a great question, and I'd be interested in somebody with church auditing experience giving their perspective/insight. For me (a non-finance guy), the key might be how the vendor is recording the transaction. If somehow the end result (receipt) doesn't show any monetary value associated with the transaction, that might be different than the vendor issuing a receipt with an external monetary amount that they internally categorize in some way. Or... maybe not.

We'd probably all agree "please don't do this", but the rub comes when a member does it and then the finance clerk is left wondering if it's acceptable to move forward. There might be additional guidance out there since I know the Church needs to carefully follow financial rules, but maybe it's an intentional grey area

[eblood66]

The audit questions require that an expense has documentation that includes the amount of the expense and the amount must match the amount of the transaction in LCR. If the documentation doesn't provide any monetary amount it isn't going to be possible to pass the audit question since the amount wouldn't match the transaction even if the documentation gives a 'points' amount. On the other hand, if the documentation does provide an actual monetary amount in the currency of the unit, then I'm not sure that the particular method that amount is paid matters.

If I pay with a gift card, I would expect that the church would still reimburse. The gift card isn't really any different than a pre-paid credit card except that it can only be used at a single place. By the same logic, paying with a gift certificate shouldn't matter.

Looking at it another way, if I use cash that I got as a birthday gift, it's doesn't really matter. Generally no one else would even know. How I obtain the cash isn't relevant.

All of that would argue that it doesn't really matter what was used for the payment as long as there is a definitive value involved.

The one thing that does differ from the above examples would be the statement that the points don't have any monetary value. But that is pretty obviously a bit of legal sophistry. The points do obviously have value or you couldn't trade them for something that most definitely has value. Those statement largely seem to be an attempt to prevent you from making any true ownership claim over the points. They want to be able to restrict how they are used or even cancel them entirely without any obligation to make a payout. But for a consumer who used those points to purchase something for the church, they are giving up something that they could have used for some other thing of value so they are essentially losing something of value that should be reimbursed.

So if someone came to me with this for reimbursement I wouldn't be too worried about reimbursing the expense. But having said all that, I would probably email our assistant area auditor and ask him to check on if there is a policy just to be sure.

We'd probably all agree "please don't do this"

Amen! If someone asked before hand, I'd definitely ask them to do it some other way.

[waltbristow]

I agree with everyone when you say don't do it.

I would question the motivation of doing this. Why not just pay cash and get reimbursed based on the documentation you provide. Otherwise it looks like you're trying to 'convert' your points to cash. And, as someone else suggested, you're probably not going to get a receipt from the 'seller' that will satisfy the church's documentation standards.

Use those rewards for your personal benefit. Or use them for family or friends. But I can't see any reason someone would want to gum up the works for their ward.

(And, as an aside, do you really want to maintain all the paperwork to comply with tax requirements?)