Making a claim through MGS Online

Please note that we make payments once a month by BACS transfer and that claims must be checked before they are authorised for payment. There may therefore be a significant delay between making a claim and receiving payment, so please contact us if you have cash flow issues or need payment made by a specific date. 

We will request your bank details when you receive your first award from MGS, and these will then be used for all future payments unless you notify us that your bank details have changed. We ask you to confirm that your bank details remain the same on every claim that you make but you can notify us of any changes at any time by contacting finance@museumsgalleriesscotland.org.uk.  

Many of our awards are offered as a percentage of the full project costs as presented in your application and, where this is the case, the percentage will be confirmed in your award letter. You must therefore include all project costs in your claims, not just the elements being funded by MGS, and calculate how much you are claiming against that cost. 

Claims must be made via MGS Online and supported by evidence of expenditure (see below). Any member of the grant can prepare a claim but when this is submitted it will be sent to the finance contact to complete the process. To make a claim:  

• Log into your account on MGS online 
• In the top, left hand corner of your home page click on ‘Projects’. 
• Click on the relevant project title in the ‘Active Projects’ section. 
• Scroll down to ‘My Claims’ and click on the ‘New Claim’ button. Please note that this button will not appear if you have a claim already in progress for this grant that has not yet been approved by us. 
• Complete the expenditure table: 
• • For items of expenditure over £100 complete a line on the table for each item and attach the relevant evidence of expenditure (see below) to that line using the ‘details’ tab.  
  • For items of expenditure below £100, collate them on a single spreadsheet, which should have columns for date of purchase, description, and cost (without VAT if you can recover it on that item). Enter the spreadsheet total on one line and attach the spreadsheet as evidence. Please note that you should still retain all invoices and receipts, as we may ask to see them as part of a random audit process. 
  • Put £0 in the VAT column if you can recover VAT on that item or no VAT is applicable, otherwise put the full VAT amount. 
• Put the amount you are claiming in the Total column. This will be the total of the two previous columns unless your grant was awarded on a percentage basis, as confirmed in your award letter. In that case you must calculate the amount based on that percentage. For example, if the item costs £100, the non-recoverable VAT is £20 and your grant percentage is 78% you would enter £93.60 (£120 x 78%). 
• Save the claim and this will send it to the finance contact to authorise and submit. 

For grants over £5,000 you will be offered the opportunity to request an upfront payment of 25% of the grant on accepting the award. You can just tick the relevant box on your award letter and the payment will be made once we have completed the award process. You will have to provide evidence of expenditure from this initial payment when you make your next claim. 

All other payments will be made retrospectively once you have incurred further expenditure and must be supported by evidence of expenditure (see below). You can make a claim at any time, but we ask you to batch expenditure into reasonable claim sizes to avoid excessive administration. For example, a maximum of two claims would be reasonable on an award of under £5,000.  

If you have received an initial payment, you should provide details of how this was spent in your first interim claim, together with further expenditure you are claiming retrospectively. 

You do not have to make interim claims – it is fine to make just one claim for the full grant at the end – but please note that the final payment cannot be authorised until the End of Project Report has been received and approved. 

You must submit your final claim within two months of completing your project. Your project completion date is confirmed at the time you accept your award, and this will not change unless you formally request an extension, and we agree to this. Failure to submit your final claim within this period may result in the award being withdrawn and the money already paid out being reclaimed. 

If your final project cost was less than anticipated and your grant was awarded on a percentage basis you will not be able to claim the full grant offered. Your final grant will be the agreed percentage of your total project cost. 

Please note that final payments will not be authorised until we have received and approved your End of Project Report. 

We do not require original documents but please provide scanned copies of all relevant invoices, receipts etc. We do not require individual evidence for items under £100, as explained above, but you must keep the originals as scanned copies in case we ask to see them as part of a random audit check. 

• Invoices – must be made out to the organisation receiving the grant and clearly show the date, description of the item or service, total cost and the supplier’s VAT details (if relevant). 

• Receipts – must show the date, description of the item or service and the supplier’s VAT details (if relevant) and you must add a note in the expenditure table to say how the item was purchased (e.g. a business credit card). If the item was purchased by an individual using their own money, the evidence attached should include a copy of the relevant expenses claim and a bank statement showing the reimbursement. 
• Salaries – where the post is fully funded by the grant, you can provide an extract from your financial system, which should show the person’s name, the description of the item (gross salary, NI contributions, pension contributions), the month covered, and where the claim covers several months, the amounts should be totalled. Please note the period covered in the Description in the expenditure table. Payslips can be supplied to cover the claim period. 
• Additional staff time – where the grant is paying for additional time worked by an existing member of staff, please provide evidence as above but also provide a separate document setting out what portion of the salary relates to the funded project. Alternatively, a time sheet that specifies hours worked on the funded project and the hourly rate can be provided, but this must be signed off by an appropriate authority within your organisation. 
• Consumable items (e.g. light bulbs, batteries, cleaning products) – everyday items which would be purchased in the normal course of business are not considered eligible items of expenditure unless this has been specifically agreed at the start of your project and the costs have been itemised in your application budget. 

If you are unable to provide any of the above, please contact the Grants Team on grants@museumsgalleriesscotand.org.uk for advice.