Contents
- Introduction to the guide
- What do we need?
- How do I claim?
- Table instructions
- Cover letter template
- Frequently asked questions
Introduction
Congratulations on being provisionally approved for an Armed Forces Day Grant. We hope it will help you deliver a fantastic Armed Forces Day event!
The Armed Forces Day Grant has assisted thousands of people to put on hundred of incredible Armed Forces Day events. However, there is often confusion when to comes to the process of claiming the grant once the event is complete.
This guide has been put together to assist you in the process of claiming back your grant. Included are breakdowns of what you need to provide, templates for your submission documents as well as some useful information and FAQs.
All of this information should make your grant claim faster and hassle free, allowing you to concentrate on your event.
As ever, if you have any further questions then please do not hesitate to contact the Armed Forces Day team using ARMEDFORCESDAYEvents@mod.gov.uk
What do we need?
To pay your Armed Forces Day Grant, our team will review your application and ensure all the required information has been provided.
Principally, we need two things:
1) Cover letter with DUNS number:
This needs to be a letter, printed on headed paper from the event organiser (Council, RBL etc) requesting the grant amount you have been approved for; listing your DUNs number and providing account details for the grant to be paid into. An example is included to help you on page 10. Upload your letter under the ‘Cover Letter’ heading labelled as:
“COVERLETTERAFD <EVENT ID><EVENT NAME><EVENT YEAR>”
2) Invoices for your total expenditure:
You may be wondering why you need to provide invoices for all expenses when you are only claiming back half of this amount. In short, the grant is a match funding scheme that can fund a maximum of 50% of the cost of your event. So we need to see the total expenditure of your event.
If, for example, you’re approved for a £5000 grant, you would need to provide £5000 of that spend being used on eligible expenditure and evidence showing a total spend of £10,000 overall; in order to receive the full grant.
The Armed Forces Day Grant can only be used to fund certain items of expenditure. Your grant will be reduced if you include ineligible items as those costs will be deducted from the grant amount. Make sure you only include eligible expenditure in what you are claiming back to ensure you get the amount you expect. Ineligible costs can of course be used for total expenditure, they cannot be claimed back in the grant funding.
The list of eligible and ineligible expenditure can be found on the Armed Forces Website and within the Grant Agreement. Some are listed below:
The Armed Forces Day Grant can be used to pay for:
- Event insurance
- Road Closures, including to hold parades and marches
- Security, Marshalling and First Aid arrangements for the event
- PA and Communication systems
- Flags, bunting, banners and other Armed Forces decorations
- Event promotion, including in newspapers and on the radio
The grant CANNOT be used to pay for, but invoices can be used to evidence of total spend:
- Hospitality including food, drink and accommodation
- Military equipment such as displays, equipment and military vehicles
- Entertainment such as bands, film, face painting and re-enactors
- Transport for organisers or guests
- Normal business expenses such as salaries or event staff support.
How do I claim?
Claiming is all done through the Armed Forces Day website. You simply need to log into the grant page via www.armedforcesday.org.uk/grants and upload the documents. Following the step by step guide detailed below. To streamline the payment of your grant, please use the templates included. Fill out the excel template as described in the guidance, naming them as per the instructions on and list the invoices in the order stated. This enables the Armed Forces Day team to efficiently go through your claim and process it far quicker than reviewing multiple individual invoices and receipts.
Step by step guide
1 – Upload your documents
Upload documents by logging into the grant application page. Upload your cover letter under the ‘Cover letter’ page along with your completed Expenditure Form (excel file). Please do not forget to upload all invoices for each of the items you enter into the Expenditure Form. We cannot process your grant application without them. Again, due to the high number of invoices we receive, please ensure they are named as follows:
“Invoice <ELIGIBLE/INELIGIBLE><NUMBER><EVENT ID><EVENT NAME><EVENT YEAR>”
- Name the invoice according to whether it falls under your eligible or ineligible expenses.
- <Number> is whatever row that expense comes under in the excel file you’ve just completed (1-10).
2 – If required, upload more documents
The Armed Forces Day Team will email you if there is missing information. Upload it as soon as possible to the grant page and notify us when it is there to keep your grant moving! If there is nothing else needed, your claim will be processed and paid.
Excel Template Instructions
You should have received a link to a template excel file that you will need to fill out (it is also linked above).
Fill out the details at the top to help us locate your event.
- Your Event ID is found on the grant submission page. It should look something like this: 24-8915-10424 (the first 2 digits correspond to the year of application).
- The Event Name is whatever you have named your event (in order to qualify for funding this must include Armed Forces Day).
- The Event Organiser is the name of the Council, Government Body, Charity or Individual organising the event.
- The Provider is whichever company or contractor was employed for that role: that is who the invoice should be from.
- When filling out the £ amount, please also include both with and without tax amounts. We can only fund for amounts excluding VAT.
Please ensure that you name this file as: “Expenditure <EVENT ID><EVENT NAME> <EVENT YEAR>”.
Template Cover Letter
A template cover letter can be found here. It doesn’t have to look identical to this, but it needs to contain the information highlighted and state the grant amount you are claiming.
The letter must be on headed paper. Councils should already have this but for businesses that don’t, your Company name, logo and address across the top will suffice.
Make sure it includes your DUNS number, as this is essential for paying the grant. Every business has one, but you cannot find it or need to re-register, you can do so on the DUNS website:
https://www.dnb.co.uk/duns-number.html
Finally, list your account details including the bank it is with, the account specific information if necessary.
Make sure the document is signed and dated and uploaded into the ‘Cover Letter’ heading in the Payment section of the Armed Forces Day Grant page: this is the same one you used to initially apply for the grant.
Uploading your invoices (if you are not using the pre-made templates)
- Log on to your Armed Forces Day event account (ensuring you use the same login and password which you used to originally register your event and apply for a grant – if you use a different or new login from your original, it will ask you to register a new event and you won’t be able to upload invoices).
- When you’ve logged in you should come to the “Welcome” screen. On the “Welcome” screen you should see the “Application Progress” tracker (a red line with dots showing your progress so far).
- The progress should read as being up to “Grant Offered” with the next step “Awaiting Payment Documents” in grey.
- On this progress page, scroll down to the bottom of the page where there is a blue box labelled “Submit Your Payments”. Click on this and this is where you should be able to upload your invoices and payment documents.
- If this box is not present, please let us know by emailing ARMEDFORCESDAY-Events@mod.gov.uk and we will look to rectify this issue.
Frequently asked questions
When is the deadline for grant claims?
The deadline for submitting invoices is the 30th September of each current year. Any submission that arrives after this date may not be processed.
What is a DUNS number?
A DUNS number is a 9 digit code unique to your council, charity or business that specifically identifies that business. Armed Forces Day grant payments require this number as it is how we identify the business and pay the grant. You can find it on https://www.dnb.co.uk/dunsnumber.html
Our funding is less than last year!
The Armed Forces Grant aims to help as many events as possible, to tailor the level of funding to those events that best convey the Armed Forces Day message. Therefore, funding boundaries need to be adjusted sometimes.
I’m not sure if an expense I have is eligible?
The list of eligible and ineligible expenses are listed on page 3 and the Armed Forces Day website. However if you are not sure about whether an item is eligible ask the Armed Forces Day team.
Why is my claim taking so long?
Each event must be assessed & checked by a member of our Armed Forces Day Team. This can take time due to demand, however, if we have all the information we need the process can be fairly quick. Additionally, using the tables provided and uploading files as requested allows our team to check applications faster. Check you have submitted everything and provide additional invoices/information as soon as you can.
Why has my grant reduced?
The Armed Forces Grant can only fund certain expenditure and only on a match funding basis. If your grant has reduced, it is either because we found ineligible expenditure and removed it OR you provided insufficient invoices to claim the full grant. We will notify you if this happens and the reasons why.
How will I recieve my grant?
You will recieve payment of your grant via a credit card payment, please ensure details of the account in which you would like this payment to be made is listed!