On Tue, Jan 3, 2012 at 9:20 AM, Harsh, Carol <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

Happy New Year!

I trust you have had a restful sojourn and are eager to jump back into work. We looking forward to our continued work with you and your council over the course of 2012.

As a follow up to my message about invoices and receipts, I want to remind you of the opportunity to discuss these requirements with us on a conference call this Thursday, January 5 at 2:00 and then again on Wednesday, January 18 at 2:00.

For this week’s call, five people have signed up to participate--Ellen Terry (WA), Arden Williams (GA), Ryan and Mallory (IL), and Stacy Hoshino (HI). If you have not yet notified me of your interest and would like to join us on the call this week, please let me know so that I can send you the phone number and instructions for the conference call.

All the best,

Carol

From: Harsh, Carol
Sent: Monday, December 19, 2011 11:35 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)

Please note our new address in the Denver Technological Center: 7935 East Prentice Avenue, Suite 450, Greenwood Village, CO 80111

Please friend us on Facebook

Teague Bohlen visits Sterling, Margaret Coel joins us for DINE and Hasan Davis as Angus Augustus Burleigh and Dennis Boggs as Lincoln bring the Civil War to life. Details coloradohumanities.org