Since the ERAP grant was a new COVID-related grant that was fast-tracked by the Government to provide immediate assistance in the midst of the pandemic, neither the Grantor, nor the Grantee, provided clear templates for reporting to the Organization as a Subgrantee. This forced the organization to c...
Since the ERAP grant was a new COVID-related grant that was fast-tracked by the Government to provide immediate assistance in the midst of the pandemic, neither the Grantor, nor the Grantee, provided clear templates for reporting to the Organization as a Subgrantee. This forced the organization to create its own templates, in which the unprotected spreadsheet formulas became corrupt, and were not consistent from month to month--largely due to changing interpretations of requirements for what could be claimed as a reimbursement. It is noted, that neither the organization, nor the primary Grantee caught the spreadsheet miscalculations -- in order to reconcile the accounts in a timely manner. The Organization made a change in Executive Directors a month after the Grant closed (April 2022), and a week before the fiscal year end (June 28, 2022). As part of understanding the process of grant reimbursements in the past, the current Executive Director created a Financial Reimbursement Policy for submitting grant reimbursements going forward into FY23. With this change, the Organization has stronger controls in place to catch any errors in financial reporting. This policy was reviewed by the Board of Directors in October 2022, to ensure procedures are in place in which non-protected spreadsheet formulas are double checked for accuracy, all receipts are reviewed and entered by at least two persons, and reimbursements are reconciled with corresponding requests in cooperation with a third-party accountant. In addition, due to work slowdowns that occurred during the COVID crisis, it created a long time lapse in waiting for reimbursement deposits from requests through the Grantee and Grantor. In many cases, reimbursements were not deposited until months after the request. Unfortunately, at the time, there was no mechanism in place to track these expenses for reconciliation. This too has been corrected in the new Reimbursement Policy change that includes a new grant reimbursement tracker in place going forward. While current Management recognizes the above failure to reconcile these discrepancies at the time, in review, the miscalculations on the submitted spreadsheets actually underestimate the expenses incurred compared to what was requested for reimbursement. Over the course of the grant the Organization actually under invoiced for its expenses. Since the grant was closed, the new Director, did not find these discrepancies until the audit and the organization understands this loss cannot be recouped.