Creative Victoria Grants Portal – online acquittal guidance

Creative Victoria Grants Portal

Online Acquittal Guidance

Creative Activation Fund

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Creative Victoria Grants Portal – online acquittal guidance

IntroductionIf you receive a grant from Creative Victoria, at the conclusion of your funded activity you will need to complete an acquittal report – including financial reconciliation – that evaluates the project and accounts for how the funds have been spent.

Acquittals are completed via the online Creative Victoria Grants Portal at http://grants.creative.vic.gov.au.

Why you need to acquit your grant

Having completed your funded project, Creative Victoria needs to gather information from you.

The information you provide in your online Acquittal Report will:

account for your use of public funds, demonstrating that the funding was used for the purpose for which it was provided and in accordance with your funding agreement

assist Creative Victoria in assessing how successful funding programs are in meeting the needs of the arts sector and the Victorian community

provide you with the opportunity to make suggestions regarding improvements to the funding program

When should you acquit your grant?

Your Acquittal Report due date and full acquittal requirements are specified in your funding agreement and at www.creative.vic.gov.au/acquittal.

The acquittal form questions will be available online as soon as your grant is confirmed, but you won't be able to submit them until your project finishes.

You can start filling in the acquittal information as soon as you have it – this is particularly useful for grants that comprise multiple performances, exhibitions or workshops.

If you have any difficulty providing your report on time or complying with any specified requirements, you should discuss this with your contact at Creative Victoria as soon as possible.

What happens if you don’t acquit?

If you do not satisfactorily acquit your grant you will not be eligible to apply for further Creative Victoria funding and action may be taken to recover the grant.

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Creative Victoria Grants Portal – online acquittal guidanceAcceptance of your acquittal

We will notify you once we have received and accepted your Acquittal Report. You will then have completed all of your obligations under the funding agreement.

Auspiced grantsAs with the application process, if the grant is being auspiced both the auspicing body and the individual artist may complete the forms but the acquittal can only be submitted by the auspicing body.

How to submit an online acquittalGetting started

Acquittals are submitted online using the Creative Victoria Grants Portal. You'll need to log into the Grants Portal using the email address you registered with: this will be the same email address that the acquittal reminder email sent to.

You can find the link the Acquittal Report forms in the MY GRANTS section of the Grants Portal.

After clicking into the grant and selecting Acquittal, you will be taken to the acquittal Summary Screen where you will see there are eight short sections to complete in a standard acquittal, plus the opportunity to submit acquittal support material.

Do you have to answer every question?

While the form itself requires most questions have an answer entered, some questions may not be relevant to your project. In these cases, please answer N/A (not applicable), 0 (zero, for answers that require a number) or, in cases where you are unable to provide the information, please answer DK (don’t know).

The Check Acquittal on button at the bottom of the summary screen will let you know if you've missed any questions.

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Creative Victoria Grants Portal – online acquittal guidanceSection 1 – General Section

This allows you to revise the original project title and dates.

You only need to enter a new project title if it's changed, but conformation of the project start and end dates is mandatory.

Section 2 – Project Evaluation

The three questions in this section ask you to reflect on your project. Note that there is a 2000-character limit (including spaces and punctuation) for each of the answer fields.

Describe the funded activity, including any changes to the project that was outlined in your original application.

Provide an assessment of the impact of your project (with particular reference to the objectives stated in your application) and include any unexpected outcomes.

In evaluating your project, is there anything you would do differently? If so, please describe.

Try to be as objective as you can as this evaluation contributes to the continual improvement of program management.

Section 3 – Activity and Attendance

1. For this question, activity refers to any public programs or events delivered as part of your project. This can include launch event or artist talks. This excludes visitation numbers (that is addressed in the questions below).

To help us monitor Creative Victoria's geographic distribution of funds we collect the location(s) of where funded activities take place, and the type of attendances (ticketed vs non-ticketed, and paid vs unpaid).

Your project might have involved one or many activities or involve multiple locations. Enter a separate activity by clicking the “Add an Activity” button.

If your project involved essentially one activity that ran over a number of days or nights, just enter one record and enter the commencement date as the Activity Date. Use the Number of Activities field to show how many performances, days or sessions it had.

If your project did not have any activity during the funded period, you can skip this section or just enter 0 (zero, for answers that require a number).

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Creative Victoria Grants Portal – online acquittal guidance

2. What was the total visitation for the project (from completion to now)? [Enter a number]

3. Prior to the project, what was the average visitation per month? [Enter a number]

4. Post project completion, what is the average visitation per month (to date)? [Enter a number]

5. What evidence do you have to support visitation figures (ie. How did you derive at the visitation figure? Is it through visitor survey, tracking number of app/QR code downloads, pedestrian/traffic counter?) [This response can have a maximum 1000 characters. If you need more space, you can upload an attachment explaining the visitation figures]

The next seven questions (Questions 6-12) are only applicable to projects that received $100,000 and more in funding from Creative Victoria. Enter a number answer for these questions. Leave the responses blank if it is not appliable to your project (ie. your project received less than $100,000 in funding from Creative Victoria).

6. Number of total local visitation (visitors from within a 25km radius of project area).

7. Number of total intrastate visitations (visitors from outside a 25km radius of project area, within Victoria).

8. Number of total interstate visitations.

9. Number of total international visitations.

10. For how many intrastate visitors was the project the primary reason for visiting, or extending their stay in, the region?

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Creative Victoria Grants Portal – online acquittal guidance11. For how many interstate visitors was the project the primary reason for visiting, or

extending their stay in, the region?

12. For how many international visitors was the project the primary reason for visiting, or extending their stay in, the region?

Section 4 – Activity Targets

This is where you record how many specific community participants – ie, those who are not professional artists/creatives – were involved in the funded project.

Specific communities include:

Children (up to 12 years old) Youth (12 to 25 years old) Women Aboriginal / Torres Strait Islander people People from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds People with disabilities Senior citizens. LGBTI

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Creative Victoria Grants Portal – online acquittal guidanceSection 5 – Employment

1. Include figures relating to the employment of artists/creatives, volunteers and others that resulted from the Creative Victoria funding.

2. How many new Victorian employment opportunities were generated due to this grant? (IE. How many casual/ part time/ full time roles?) (This response can have a maximum 500 characters.)

3. How many Victorian professional artists/creatives were involved with this project?

Section 6 – Project Measures

We collect this information to report on funding programs and their reach. If a question is not relevant to you, enter zero or N/A.

1. How many new works were presented as part of the funded activity? 2. How many new works were created?3. How many local businesses supported this project?4. Please outline which businesses and the nature of the nature support (This response can

have a maximum 1000 characters max).5. How many community organisations/ groups supported this project?

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Creative Victoria Grants Portal – online acquittal guidance6. Please outline which community organisations/ groups and the nature of the nature support.

(This response can have a maximum 1000 characters max.)

7. Did your project acquire radio and/or television broadcast? [Yes or No]

8. If yes to the above question, please provide detail of the broadcast (eg. was it radio or television, which radio/television station/show, was it a paid ad, editorial or interview?) (This response can have a maximum 1000 characters max)

9. Did your project acquire print advertising? [Yes or No]

10. If yes to the above question, please provide detail of the print advertising (eg. a newspaper ad, poster, signage, display banners, printed program/booklet). (This response can have a maximum 1000 characters max)

11. Did your project acquire digital advertising? [Yes or No]

12. If yes to the above question, please provide details of the digital advertising (eg. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, website, digital ads). (This response can have a maximum 1000 characters max.)

13. Please specify any other types of media coverage. (This response can have a maximum 1000 characters max.)

14. Total audience reached via media platforms (excluding live attendances). INCLUDE for example: estimated number of listeners to a radio broadcast; viewers of a TV broadcast; views on YouTube or live streaming; media downloads.

15. Estimate what percentage of the grant went towards supporting Victorian- based creatives, businesses or services. (Please enter a number only between 0 and 100.)

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Creative Victoria Grants Portal – online acquittal guidanceSection 7 – Financial Reconciliation

You must complete the financial reconciliation section by comparing your actual project finances to the budget in your original application. If your reconciliation is particularly complicated you may enter a summary into the online form and upload a full financial reconciliation as a separate document.

You might have been required to submit a revised budget as a condition of your grant, however this reconciliation only compares the original and the actual budgets.

Financial reconciliation explained

The ‘Budget Income’, ‘Actual Income’, 'CV Budget Expenditure' and ‘Actual CV Expenditure’ columns are used to compare the figures contained in the original budget (‘Budget’) with how the money was actually allocated on the project (‘Actual’).

Lines from the original budget appear automatically. You need to enter an 'Actual' figure against all existing lines. If a line was in the budget originally but not relevant to the actual finances, you can enter $0.

Actual Expenditure amounts allocated from the Creative Victoria grant must be noted in the far-right column (‘CV’).

If there are new lines in the budget, you need to use the Add Income Line or Add Expenditure Line buttons. New lines will have a Budget amount of $0 that you won't be able to change.

The Save and Close button will, as it says, save and close the form, regardless of any validations or issues with the reconciliation. The Save and Check Budget button will validate the reconciliation and return any issues in red at the top of the page or close the form if there are no validation issues.

Surplus or deficit

The totals in the ‘Actual’ income and expenditure columns in your financial reconciliation might not be the same. If the project's income is greater than its expenditure you will have a surplus; if the expenditure is greater than the income, you will be in deficit, in which case a negative figure will show in the Surplus / Deficit field.

You will need to describe how any surplus or deficit came about by explaining any major variations between the figures in the ‘Actual’ and ‘Budget’ columns in the notes field.

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Creative Victoria Grants Portal – online acquittal guidanceSample

The sample that follows shows a sample reconciliation where the Creative Victoria grant approved was $500 less than the amount requested, and includes an extra line of expenditure.

Independent audit condition

If specified in your funding agreement (generally for grants of over $40,000) you must include an opinion or certification by an independent auditor to verify that your financial reconciliation is a true and fair view of the income and expenditure of the project.

You will need to either upload a scan of the opinion or certification signed by an independent auditor with your Acquittal Report in the Acquittal. An independent auditor is a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants, CPA Australia or the National Institute of Accountants, who is not employed by or related to the funding recipient.

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Creative Victoria Grants Portal – online acquittal guidanceSection 8 – Program Evaluation

The feedback about the funding program and processes contributes to the continual improvement of program management.

Please try to answer the question, but if you have no comments type 'N/A'.

Acquittal Documents and Supporting MaterialYou may accompany your Acquittal Report with supporting material to:

provide us with further details about the outcomes of your project illustrate the listing of your project that is published on our website have your project included in Creative Victoria presentations and publications.

You can upload and submit up to ten files and/or ten URLs (external links) of relevant support material. Wherever possible, please use URLs and link to existing online material rather than uploading files.

Add brief notes to explain the context of the file or URL. If the URL is password protected, remember to provide the password here.

Files/URLS

Files

Any file you upload can be no more than 25MB in size.

The following programs and file extensions are accepted as attachments:

File Type File Extensions

MS Word .doc .docxMS Excel .xls .xlsxMS PowerPoint .ppt .pptxAdobe Acrobat .pdfImage .jpg .png .tiffAudio .mp3 .wmaVideo .mp4 .wma .avi .mov

URLs

Enter the URL in the field provided. You can copy and paste a URL or type directly into the field. You can include the "http://" at the start of the URL but it is not required.

If URLs are not publically available please include login/password details.

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Creative Victoria Grants Portal – online acquittal guidanceTypes of supporting material

Images

Creative Victoria is always seeking dynamic images of arts activities, projects and events to enliven our website, promote funded activities and to accompany media releases, presentations and publications.

The ideal image resolution is 300 dpi (print quality), with a size of 500kb-1000kb (1MB) per picture. Images should be in JPEG or PNG format. If the ideal resolution can’t be met, JPEG files at lower resolutions are acceptable.

Creative Victoria website, publications and presentations – Image rights

If you would like to allow Creative Victoria to publish your images you need to provide us with relevant captions and photographer credits in the Title and Notes fields of the File Details of your upload, or submitted separate upload.

By submitting images for publication you confirm that, per the Intellectual Property clause in your funding agreement, you have the rights that allow us to publish them.

Music

Digital audio files should be in MP3 or WMA, compressed to a minimum of 192 kbps.

Video

Videos can be of multimedia presentations, live performances, rehearsals or any other activities related to your project.

Due to 25MB per file limit, it is preferable that you submit URL links to existing video footage rather than uploading individual video files.

Submitting your acquittalClick on the Check Acquittal button to make sure you have answered all the mandatory questions. If there are any issues a red message will appear at the top of the page.

Once all questions have been answered, you can click on the Submit Acquittal button. A pop-up will ask you for confirmation. You will not be able to make changes to your acquittal once you submit.

QuestionsIf you need help completing your acquittal, contact your Creative Victoria Program officer or contact Creative Victoria reception on 03 8683 3100.

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