Hi Carol,
Thank you for your e-mail.
I would like to participate in the January 5th call. Happy
holidays!
Best,
Ellen
Ellen
Terry
Program
Director
Humanities
Washington
206.682.1770 x
101
From: Museum on Main
Street [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Harsh,
Carol
Sent: Monday, December 19, 2011 8:35 AM
To:
[log in to unmask]
Subject: invoices and receipts -
IMPORTANT
Dear MoMSers,
I am sorry to hit you with this on a Monday morning, but I
need to alert you to some policy changes at the Smithsonian that will impact
what we need from your council in order to be reimbursed for travel and for STAR
Funds.
With regard to travel, when vouchering out after a trip, we
need the following:
·
Original boarding passes
·
Original boarding pass receipt
·
Original receipts for any taxis, restaurants,
etc.
·
Original hotel receipt with a zero balance
(not the one they slide under your door on the morning that you check
out)
·
Original, signed travel expense documentation
form with receipts attached. This can’t be a PDF document sent to us by email,
but instead sent by regular mail.
Just for clarification, in simple terms, the Smithsonian
considers an “original receipt” to be a document that is actually printed by the
company or the original source and includes the company name and/or logo. It
cannot be a PDF document. Even as more and more people purchase airline
tickets on line and get email documents from the airlines that indicate that a
ticket was purchased, this does not suffice as adequate documentation of
travel.
If per chance you don’t get boarding passes or the boarding
pass receipt at the airport, then we will need to ask for a redacted credit card
bill showing the charge for the ticket or your frequent flyer mileage report
that shows mileage for the trip.
If you are in the process of requesting reimbursement for
travel to the Federation’s conference in November and don’t have the proper
original receipts, please let me know and we will work together to find a
reasonable solution.
You probably know by now that the documentation requirements
for STAR Funds has also been modified over the past few months. The
purchase orders we are writing for STAR Funds are actually “service
contracts”. In other words, we are contracting with your council to
provide a certain service that involves capacity building activities for the
host communities. So, vouchering out requires the
following:
·
Documentation of the work done requires a report
that describes in detail the training that occurred as well as the benefit to
the host organization.
·
Agendas, participant lists, letters of support
that indicate the importance of the training to the community, etc. are all good
to have on file, but are not required.
·
Receipts for travel, lodging, etc are not
required, but should be kept on file by the councils as backup documentation if
MoMS is ever audited and additional information is needed.
I can’t stress enough the importance of this
information. The Smithsonian’s Comptroller has been very clear that
without this documentation from this point forward we will not be able to
reimburse your council.
So, just to make sure that all your questions may be
answered, I am scheduling a series of conference calls so that we can discuss
these changes with you. Hopefully this will help us avoid
documentation problems after the fact.
Thursday, January 5, 2:00 PM (eastern standard time)
Wednesday, January 18, 2:00 (eastern standard time)
Please let me know if you want to participate in one of these
conversations and I will send you instructions for calling in to the conference
call. If you are unable to participate in either of these calls, please
let me know and we can add another time and date for a call.
In the end, these requirements are simple to follow. We
just need to fine tune the way we operate and successfully communicate these
changes to all of you. And, service contracts for the STAR Funds will
enable us to capture the details of the content of the training as well as
lasting legacy of improved practices at the local level. It makes so much
more sense for us to be focusing on that, rather than the minutia of small
receipts.
I would love to hear from you with your reaction to all of
us. My goal for the new year is to get all of this behind us so that
together we can continue to impact the cultural arena of small towns across the
United States.
So, it is in total admiration for the good work that you
continue to do that I wish you a blessed and restful holiday.
All the best,
Carol
Carol G. Harsh
Director, Museum on Main Street
Smithsonian Institution, SITES
202-633-5333
202-465-5267 (cell)
202-633-5344 (fax)