How to be reimbursed for expenses paid on behalf of Climate Coaching Alliance - the basics

Below you find the basic steps to be reimbursed for expenses paid on behalf of Climate Coaching Alliance (‘the collective’). Tracking and tracing expenses via opencollective makes it all very easy: everything is transparent, and the reports follow automatically.

BASICS

These are the basic steps to obtain reimbursement of expenses paid on behalf of Climate Coaching Alliance:

Someone submits an expense.

There are two main types of expenses:

Reimbursements of a prepaid purchase (with receipt)
Invoices for paid services

A member of Climate Coaching Alliance’s Global Coordination Pod, the ‘Admin’ approves the expense.
A second member of Climate Coaching Alliance Global Coordination Pod reviews it (confirms that the expense meets requirements e.g. having a valid receipt, a clear picture, amounts match, invoice is legal and correct).
They get paid.

Step 1: submit your expenses
Any member of Climate Coaching Alliance that has spent money, can submit an expense to the collective page: by uploading a receipt or an invoice
Receipts/reimbursements 🛒
Receipts are for things that you buy or services that you pay for on behalf of Climate Coaching Alliance and for which you need to be reimbursed.
Make sure that you keep the receipt. Take a clear picture of it and click on "submit expense" on your collective page).
A valid expense must contain the name and address of the vendor, the amount, the date, and the description of the items purchased or services supplied.
Tip: you can also submit a receipt that you haven't paid yet yourself. Simply put the bank account of the vendor in 'communications' and add a small explanation. The money will be transferred immediately to the vendor.
Invoices 📄
Invoices are used to pay people for a service (a vendor, a company, a freelancer). They directly charge the collective for this service. When you upload an invoice, you are considered an independent contractor or freelancer.
The invoice needs to contain following essential information:

The invoice must be billed to the collective (including one of the Admin and his/her legal address - usually the person in the collective that has the relationship with the vendor).

There can be no mention of Climate Coaching Alliance on the invoice.

The invoice must include the name, address, Tax number of the beneficiary
The invoice must include a tax rate and a VAT reference. If your tax rate or VAT is 0, the invoice must include a note about this (why your tax rate is 0?).

Submit the invoice on the collective page (click on "Submit Expense"). If needed, here is a useful template to create a proper invoice.
Payout methods
We can pay back expenses or pay invoices via bank transfer, PayPal and TransferWise for international payments.
Step 2: get your expenses approved
When a member of the collective has submitted an expense (receipt or invoice), its status is PENDING. An email is automatically sent to the administrators of the collective to invite them to approve it (or comment on it to ask for more information).
The fiscal host has no decision making power on approving your expense (the administrators of the collective are the ones that know you better, are closer to what you do and can better tell if this or that expense is a valid one and helps the collective fulfill its mission).
Step 3: get paid
Once approved and if there is enough balance to cover for it in the collective, your expense will show up in the list of expenses that READY TO PAY . One of the administrators of the fiscal host (https://opencollective.com/allforclimate) goes through this list every week and reimburses the approved expenses (or pays directly the vendor if that is what the communication asks us to do).As long as the receipt/invoice is legal and approved by one of the admins of the collective and comply with the transparency and accountability rules (i.e. it is not a lump sum amount sent to an intermediary to hide how the money is spent), it will be paid.
Once the payment is done, the status of the expense will go to PAID and the balance of the collective will be automatically updated.
Note: whenever you edit your expense, its status will go back to PENDING so that the admins can review it again. Once paid, an expense can only be edited by the administrators.

FAQ
To whom should we address invoices?
They need to be addressed to the collective and use the address of any of its members (usually the person in the collective that has the relationship with the vendor).
Can we hire people?
Only as contractors (freelancers). They basically need to be able to submit an invoice.
Can I ask to be reimbursed for less than the amount of the expense?
Yes. When you file the expense, you can enter any amount lower or equal to the amount visible on the actual receipt.
What about VAT?
To keep the administrative overhead to a minimum, the collective can only receive donations (on which there is no VAT), and you cannot get the VAT back from the purchases that you are making or the expenses you are paying. Whenever a vendor needs to issue an invoice to the collective they need to add the VAT as if they would invoice you as an individual.
What payment methods do you support?
The fastest and most versatile one is PayPal as it allows us to click on button and the payment is made. If PayPal fees apply, they are paid by the collective (see PayPal fees).
Otherwise, the second best option is doing a simple wire transfer using your IBAN number.
For international payments, we have a Transferwise account. Note that organisations are not allowed to send money to individuals in China.