IAR evidence - payment of costs

One of our key testing areas is ensuring that all claimed costs have been paid in line with Innovate UK requirements.

The Offer Letter states that all costs must be paid within the claim period to which they relate. The exception is the final claim period, where Innovate UK allows costs to be paid within 30 days of the project end date, provided the costs were incurred during the project period.

This means that claimed costs cannot remain unpaid while waiting for the final quarter’s grant funding to be received. Where this occurs, we are required to highlight it within our Independent Accountant’s Report, and this can often result in the costs being disallowed by Innovate UK.

As part of our testing procedures, we require evidence that the sampled costs have been paid. This will usually involve reviewing the relevant bank statements relating to the transactions selected for testing. In some cases, we may also require supporting documentation such as BACS reports or supplier statements, particularly where multiple invoices have been paid together in a single transaction.

We are only interested in verifying the payments relevant to the claim, so any unrelated information on the documents can be redacted if preferred.