Receipt #228605 to Northern Food and Farming pulses collaboration

Northern Food and Farming 2024: Legumes
Project

Expense Policy and Procedure

Below you can find instructions on how to spend money from the Northern Food and
Farming Pulses Collaboration (’the Collective’) balance. We are using Social Change
Nest for this process. Tracking and tracing expenses via Social Change Nest makes it
easy: everything is transparent, and reports are automatically generated.
Expense Policy

This is a dynamic document that will be reviewed from time to time to make sure it best
suits the needs of the Collective and fulfills the objectives of the project. The scope of
this policy is to clarify legitimate expenses and the decision-making process for
reimbursement relating to the delivery of the Northern Food and Farming Pulses
Collaboration. It also includes process information for those within the Collective that
wish to submit an expense themselves. Its intended audience is the member
organisations of the Collective.

Finance Administrators
In place from September 2024 until August 2025, their role is to approve expenses. Feel
free to reach out to them if you have questions about an expense.
Ellen Pearce (LESS), [email protected]
Sonja Woodcock (Zest Leeds), [email protected]
Support: Catherine Howell (Gaia Foundation), [email protected]

WHAT EXPENSES ARE ELIGIBLE?
Eligible expenses are those that arise from the delivery of the project by members of the
Collective as defined in the Grant Agreement between the Collective (the recipients)
and Farming the Future (the funders). These include hire of facilities, groceries,
catering provision, travel costs and project delivery time. If you’re not sure your
expenses are valid, please check with the Collective’s Finance Administrators team
above BEFORE spending. Invalid expenses will not be reimbursed.

WHAT IS THE DECISION-MAKING PROCESS?

Expenses must be submitted through Social Change Nest using the process detailed
below. If you’re not comfortable doing this, then one of the Finance Administrators of
the Collective (listed above) can do this on your behalf.
After submission of an expense, NF&F Finance Administrators review the submitted
expense (confirming that the expense meets legal and fiscal requirements, e.g. having a
valid receipt, a clear picture, that the amounts match, the invoice is legally valid, etc.)
We aim to do this when expenses etc are needed (so please email us if you need a
quick payment). One Administrator’s approval (other than the person submitting the
expense, should this be one of the Finance Administrators) is required for each
submitted expense.

In the event of a conflict or disagreement in the reimbursement of an expense, the
matter will be referred to the Collective’s next meeting for final decision-making.

HOW EXPENSES ARE REIMBURSED
There are three basic steps in spending the money on the Collective balance:

1. A member of the Collective submits an expense.
There are two main types of expenses:
- Reimbursements of a prepaid purchase (with receipt of payment)
- Invoices for paid services provided to the Collective

2. A Finance Administrator (someone on the Collective team) approves it.

3. The expense is paid.
Social Change Nest make payments by BACS of approved expenses 3 times each
week.

STEP 1: SUBMIT THE EXPENSE
Any member of the Collective specified on the Farming the Future Grant Agreement
that spends money can submit an expense themselves to the Collective page on Social
Change Nest by uploading a receipt or an invoice as proof of payment.
Option 1: Receipts/reimbursements
Receipts are for items bought for the Collective’s project and for which you need to be
reimbursed eg. groceries, printing etc.
Make sure that you keep the receipt. Take a clear photo of it (make sure it's clearly
and easily readable) and submit it to your Collective (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, with any sales tax (such as VAT)
clearly defined.
Option 2: Invoices
Invoices are used to pay people for a service (a vendor, a company, a freelancer). They
directly charge the members of 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 addressed to LESS (Lancaster District) CIC: it cannot be
addressed to Social Change Nest.
- You have to include the legal name of LESS (Lancaster District) CIC and their legal
address (The Creative Hub, The Storey Institute, Meeting House Lane, Lancaster
LA1 1TH).
- The invoice must include the legal name, address, and tax number (UTR) of the
beneficiary (the vendor or freelancer who issues the invoice).
- The invoice must include a sales tax rate or, if you are not obliged/allowed to charge
VAT, a reference to the law that clarifies that. Check this with your accountant if
you’re not sure
- Finally, just in case, make sure that you can of course legally issue invoices (you are
a registered freelancer or company).

STEP 2: GET YOUR EXPENSES APPROVED
When a member of the Collective submits an expense (receipt or invoice), its status is
PENDING. An email is automatically sent to all the Finance Administrators of the
Collective to invite them to approve it (or comment on it to ask for more information).
Social Change Nest has no decision-making power on approving expenses.

STEP 3: GET PAID
Once approved, and if there is enough balance to cover it in your Collective, your
expense will show up in the list of expenses that are READY TO PAY. One of the
administrators of Social Change Nest goes through this list every week and reimburses
the approved expenses. As long as the receipt/invoice is legal and approved by one of
the Finance Administrators of the Collective, and it complies 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
finance administrators can review it again. Once paid, an expense can only be edited by
the administrators.