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Evidence and Packets

Goal: Be able to prove every dollar charged to a grant, on demand. Under a federal or state award the funder's monitor asks the same two questions about any cost they sample: show me the invoice and show me that you paid it. This page is how that backup is captured as costs are recorded, how the system tells you what is missing before the funder does, and how it all leaves as a single file when a claim goes out or a monitoring visit is scheduled.

Where the backup lives​

Backup belongs to the cost, not the grant. A cost paid by two grants has one invoice, so attaching it once shows it under both. Every place a cost appears carries the same Backup badge:

  • the Costs card on the project, where the cost is recorded;
  • the Spend against this grant card on the grant's Fund Tracking tab;
  • the Ready to claim list and each line of a claim on the Reimbursement tab.

The badge reads Backup complete when both an invoice (or receipt) and a proof of payment are on file, Partial backup when only one is, and Missing backup when nothing is. It is worked out fresh every time the page loads, from what is actually attached.

Attach a document​

Click Attach (or Evidence, once something is on file) on any cost. In the dialog:

  1. Choose the file: a PDF, Word or Excel document, CSV, plain text, or an image up to 20 MB. A photo from a phone in HEIC format is converted to JPEG on the way in.
  2. Say what it is: invoice, receipt, proof of payment, purchase order, contract, timesheet, certified payroll, lien waiver, inspection, cost allocation, or other. The two that make backup complete are an invoice or receipt plus a proof of payment; the rest are what a CDBG or Davis-Bacon review adds.
  3. Enter the document date (the invoice or check date, not today) and the reference (invoice number, check number, ACH trace).
  4. Tick Shows a person's identifying details when the document does: a crew timesheet with home addresses, a payroll register. See the next section for what that does.
  5. Click Attach.

The receipt is usually in hand the moment a cost is recorded, so the Costs card on the project is the natural place to attach it, even while the cost is still a draft. When the draft is posted, its backup moves onto the ledger with it and every grant that pays for the cost sees it there.

To open a document, click the download icon on its row. To remove one, click the trash icon and confirm: the document leaves every list and every packet, but the file itself stays on record until the grant's retention period runs out, because a document once attached may have been relied on.

Personal details are withheld, never redacted by software​

A document flagged as containing a person's identifying details stays on file, where an auditor visiting in person is entitled to see it, but it is left out of every packet and every export, and listed on the packet's Withheld page so the reviewer knows it exists.

To include it, attach a redacted copy: open the cost's evidence, choose the original under Redacted copy of, and attach the de-identified version. The copy takes the original's place in every packet and inherits its type. The claim's withheld count drops to zero once every flagged document has a copy.

What is missing, before the funder asks​

Nothing stops a claim for want of backup: the invoice is sometimes in a filing cabinet, and holding the money would hurt more than the gap. Instead the gaps are made visible everywhere:

  • Ready to claim warns how many claimable costs lack complete backup.
  • Each claim shows N lines missing backup and N withheld (PII) in its header, and a badge on each line that is short.
  • The packet itself ends with a Missing backup page listing those lines.

The packet​

Every claim carries an evidence packet: one PDF with a cover (the grant, the funder, the claim number, the period, the award and what this request asks for), the expense schedule, then one section per cost with a separator page and the documents behind it, and finally the Withheld and Missing backup pages. A reviewer opens it and reads down. Large packets are split into parts of about 25 MB, each with the cover and schedule repeated, and arrive as a ZIP.

  • Submitting a claim builds and keeps its packet. That stored copy is the packet of record: exactly what the funder received, shown at a monitoring visit as-is even if evidence was added later. Click Packet (PDF) on a submitted claim to download it; the date it was built appears beside the button.
  • On a draft, Build packet assembles a preview from today's evidence and nothing is stored.
  • If the packet could not be built when the claim was submitted (a corrupt file, say), the claim says so and the next Build packet builds and stores it.

The originals​

Originals downloads the box of originals for a claim: every included file, one folder per cost in schedule order, plus schedule.csv (the expense list) and manifest.json, which records each file's fingerprint (its SHA-256 hash) as computed when it was attached. A reviewer who wants to prove that the file they hold is the file the affiliate keeps checks it against the manifest. Withheld documents are listed in the manifest, not included.

Export for a monitoring visit​

A funder's monitor rarely asks about one claim; they ask for a period. On the grant's Fund Tracking tab, Export evidence builds the same packet, or the same box of originals, for every cost charged to the grant between two dates (the period of performance by default). Nothing is stored; it is built from the evidence on file at that moment.

Very large exports are refused with a message asking for a shorter period; a build that takes too long says so too. Every export is recorded in the audit log with who took it, what it covered, and the hash of what left.

Retention​

Grant records must be kept for years after close-out, and so is the evidence. Removing a document hides it; the file leaves storage only after every grant that paid for the cost is past its retention date, which is set when the grant is closed out. A document on a cost no grant ever paid for is cleared ninety days after it was removed.

Who can do what​

Anyone who can view a grant or a project can open a cost's evidence and download a document. Attaching and removing need the Manage Grant Documents permission on the grant side, or the Manage Projects permission on the project's Costs card. Downloading a packet or the originals, for a claim or a period, needs the Export Grant Evidence permission, which admins and staff have by default.