Payment requests through the app

[fowlerscott]

I am finding that most of the members of presidencies aren't able to submit requests appropriately through the app. We have a budget category that has access for all organizations an Activities category, but the YW presidency can only submit to the YW category and no subcategories within the YW category.

It makes it so that the finance clerk has to change every expense since no one can submit to the correct category through the app.

Anyone know if this is how it is designed or a glitch?

[jdlessley]

Anyone know if this is how it is designed or a glitch?

What may have been missed here is the ability of those with finance edit permissions (bishopric members, ward clerk, asst ward clerk, & finance clerk) to give organization leaders access permissions for certain default categories and any unit created sub-categories. To do this, a leader with finance edit permissions goes to the LCR > Finance > Budget > Manage Categories tab and selects the category/sub-category edit icon, pencil icon. Organization presidencies, plus secretaries, cannot be given access permissions to those default budget categories that do not have an edit icon. After the edit icon is selected then check the box for the organization that is to be given access permissions. Those with access permission will now be able to view the category or sub-category balance and submit payment requests against that category/sub-category.

If an organization sub-category is not accessible by the organization presidency, plus secretary, make sure the sub-category is marked as 'Active'. If an organization sub-category is not marked as 'Active' in the LCR > Finance > Budget > Manage Categories tab the sub-category will not be available.

If what I described is functional online in LCR Finance but not available in Member Tools then there is a bug in Member Tools. This will then need to be reported through the in-app feedback found in the Help menu. Until it is fixed then the organization presidencies, plus secretaries will need to use the online LCR Finance to submit payment requests.

A note of caution: When permission is given to access a category/sub-category, make sure that organization presidency, plus secretary, is aware they will now see those categories/sub-categories when they view their organization budget. There can be, and most likely will be, confusion as to the hierarchy the category/sub-category belongs if they are not informed and trained. I ran into this problem when our ward activities budget access was opened to the YW, EQ, and RS presidencies for planning ward activities. The confusion was that those organization leaders now had an activities sub-category with an allocated amount (surprisingly the same as the ward activities budget amount). Payment requests were then submitted for organization activities against that supposed organization sub-category, and thus more work to correct the payment request error for the clerk/finance clerk.

Those with finance edit permissions can actually see exactly what the organization presidency, plus secretary, sees by going to the LCR > Finance > Budget > Budget Summary tab and clicking the organization drop-down list box, shown on the right of the page on the same line as the tab titles, and selecting an organization. Note: this also allows those with finance edit permissions to submit an online payment request against that organizations budget since the 'Payment Request' tab for that organization will now be visible/available.