Week Five: Consultant Expense Reports
This week was my busiest and most challenging, but by the end of the week I was rewarded with a significant sense of satisfaction, knowing I had learned some new skills. As you likely know by now from my previous blogs, all of the Tetra Tech DPK projects rely heavily upon consultants with various technical specializations related to rule of law and international development work. From data security specialists, to expert trainer of trainers, legal aid consultants, to court IT specialists, you name it, they are essential to our projects’ success. And as their accomplished CVs would indicate, they do not work free of charge. So eventually, once they have completed their duties and deliverables, they send Home Office (HO) their expense reports, requests for payments, and timesheets for approval and subsequent payment. Sounds simple enough, right? Well…
It’s not exactly a simple process. Compounding the learning curve, was the fact that: 1) until this week, I had never looked at any version of an expense report, and I certainly didn’t know what the Tetra Tech DPK review process required; 2) this was also my supervisor’s first time through the Tetra Tech DPK process, as she began working the day after I did; and 3) this was also the first time this consultant was submitting a package. The perfect storm. We consulted the guiding checklist and our co-workers, but mostly had to fumble our way through it so we could understand it ourselves.
As the HO Project Implementation Team (PIT), we are responsible for checking that each of the three documents (expense report, request for payment, and timesheet) the consultants provided are complete and properly filled out. The expense report includes details like providing expenses in the original currency multiplied by the exchange rate for the specific date range when the expense was incurred. We typically rely on Oanda for this figure, and we have to include a screen shot documenting the rate’s source. Consultants are also required to provide receipts for expenses above a certain threshold amount (otherwise they must include a missing receipt affidavit). And we also have to provide and verify the Meal & Incidental Expense (M&IE) rates that the US Government sets for the particular country and particular city during the dates the consultant worked. Ultimately, all of the dates and information on these three documents must line up and work together to create a complete location-and-time dependent story of the consultant’s project-related travel and expenses.
Once we have the expense report, request for payment, timesheet, receipts (or missing receipt affidavit), proof of exchange rate and M&IE rates, we must combine it all in a package along with the consultant’s signed agreement for Finance to review and process. The components of this package must be properly coded with the project number and task number so it gets allocated correctly. There are even a few more requirements for consultants whom we are paying for the first time. It honestly took the better half of my day Tuesday and basically my entire day Wednesday to figure out and complete this process for one of our consultants. It was a team effort. And circumstances necessitated that we push it through as quickly as possible. Stressful!
Now that I’ve gone through the process, I know what I’m looking for and from here on out, it will be much smoother and not quite as time consuming. By the end of the week I reviewed another consultant’s initial submission, and, confidently explained via email – in Spanish – what adjustments she needed to make before we can submit a final package to Finance. Composing and sending that email generated my new-skill-induced sense of satisfaction.
This weekend was relaxing and productive. On Saturday, I didn’t stray from the Sunset. I spent a good portion of the day in my favorite cafe kicking off my post-grad job search in San Juan, Puerto Rico (James secured a federal clerkship there, so that’s where we will be living for at least two years post-grad)! I also FaceTimed with my brand-new baby niece whom we welcomed to the family on Friday! I took an afternoon run to Ocean Beach (definitely my favorite thing about living in the Sunset) and I ate a delicious pumpkin curry for dinner. Sunday I met up with my sister to boulder at Planet Granite and then met Anthony for a concert near the Civic Center at Warfield Theatre in the evening.
