Acquit an approved GCBF grant

After you have bought your approved items, you must provide evidence of how the Gambling Community Benefit Fund (GCBF) grant money was spent. This is called the acquittal process and is completed through the GCBF online grants portal.

Follow the instructions below to ensure your documentation meets our requirements and acquit your grant online.

Acceptable invoices or receipts

Invoices or receipts showing expenditure of grant funds must:

• be for approved items only
• be dated on or after the date the grant or variation was approved
• be issued in the name of the organisation
• describe the items you bought or services you received
• be issued on commercial terms, ensuring there are no conflicts of interest
• show a licensed contractor completed any facility improvements and list their licence number (if applicable by law).

If there was a conflict of interest with how you wanted to spend your grant funds, you must upload a copy of the meeting minutes where this conflict was recorded and accepted by the committee.

An employee or member of your organisation can buy items on the organisation’s behalf but—if the invoices and receipts are in an individual’s name—we may request more information to ensure they’ve been reimbursed.

Any trade-in, subsidy or rebate from a supplier will be subtracted from the overall grant expenditure.

Documents we don’t accept

We don’t accept:

• invoices or receipts that are
  • dated before the application or variation was approved
  • for non-approved items
  • not issued in the name of the organisation
  • for items bought overseas without prior written approval from us
• purchase/sales orders
• quotes
• statements
• pro-forma invoices.

Independent audit

If you have more than 15 invoices/receipts to acquit, or you were granted over $35,000, you must engage an external financial auditor to check your expenditure against the guidelines.

You can use some of the grant funds to cover the cost of this audit:

• up to $500 for grants under $35,000
• up to $1,000 for grants over $35,000.

The audit must be completed by a qualified person and must contain:

• a completed and signed audit statement declaring the grant funds have been spent according to these guidelines
• an income and expenditure report showing
  • relevant dates
  • particulars of the goods and services you bought
  • dollar amounts (indicating whether they are inclusive or exclusive of GST)
• copies of all invoices/receipts used by the auditor to check expenditure.

You don’t have to complete an audited acquittal through the GCBF online grants portal. Instead, email the completed and signed audit statement, income and expenditure report, and copies of all tax invoices/receipts to us at cbf@justice.qld.gov.au for assessment.

How to acquit a grant under $35,000 using the GCBF online grants portal

Step 1—Log in and check your details

1. Log in to the GCBF online grants portal.
2. Check the organisation details are correct and update as necessary.
3. Click ‘Save and continue’ and you will be taken to the ‘Applications’ page.
4. Click the approved application number. Go to tab 3 ‘Items’.

Step 2—Check dollar values

1. Review and add up all invoices/receipts for each item.
2. If the invoice and item amounts don’t match, edit the amount in the ‘Items’ tab to match the invoice totals.
3. If you didn’t buy an approved item, click 'X' next to the amount to remove that item.
4. Click ‘Submit changes’.

Note: If the ‘Current amount’ is more than the ‘Approved amount’, the changes won’t save. Reduce 1 of the amounts so the ‘Current amount’ and ‘Approved amount’ match and click ‘Submit changes’ again.

Step 3—Start your acquittal

1. Click ‘Start acquittal’ to upload and allocate invoices/receipts to your approved items.
2. A message will pop up asking if you want to start your acquittal. Click ‘Yes, start acquittal’—you’ll be directed to tab 6 ‘Acquittal’.

Step 4—Upload an invoice/receipt

1. Under ‘Invoices’, click ‘Drop invoices here or click to browse'. A pop-up window will appear where you can select the invoice saved on your computer.
2. Once you have found the file, click ‘Open’ to upload the document. (Note that you can’t view invoices once they’re uploaded. We recommend uploading and allocating one at a time. If the file size is over 10MB, it will not upload—compress the file and try again.)
3. The system will give each invoice a number in consecutive order. You need to provide the actual invoice/receipt number—click into the field, delete ‘INV-1’ and insert the number. Insert the date the invoice/receipt was issued.
4. Click ‘Save’ at the top-right of the screen.

Note: ‘Status’ is for internal use only and ‘Proof’ is only required if we request it.

Step 5—Allocate an invoice/receipt

Under ‘Items to acquit’ (on the ‘Acquittal’ tab), you can view your approved items, including any adjustments.

To allocate an invoice/receipt to an item.

1. Select an item from ‘Items to acquit’.
2. Click ‘Add an invoice’ for the item and a new line will appear.
3. Select the item’s invoice/receipt in the drop-down menu under ‘Invoice’.
4. Enter the amount for the invoice/receipt (excluding GST if registered for GST, or including GST if not registered). You only need to enter the value of grant funds you wish to allocate towards this invoice/receipt.
5. Save your changes. (Note that you cannot save if the ‘remaining’ amount is less than $0.)

Repeat steps 4 (Upload an invoice/receipt) and 5 (Allocate an invoice/receipt) until you have uploaded and allocated all invoices/receipts.

Step 6—Submit your acquittal

When you’re ready to submit your acquittal, scroll to the top of the page and click ‘Submit acquittal’.

If you have an ‘Acquittal remaining amount’, you have unspent funds. You can submit your acquittal, but you will need to return any unspent funds over $300. We will email you instructions on what to do next.

Step 7—Provide feedback

Complete a short survey about the outcomes of your grant, how the grant helped your organisation and the wider community. When you have finished click ‘Continue’.

Step 8—Sign out of the portal

Don’t close your internet browser to sign out. Click ‘Applications’ above your application number to return to the application home screen. Sign out using the ‘Sign out’ button at the top-right of the application home screen.

How to acquit a grant over $35,000

If your organisation is successful in the super round or the disaster recovery round for more than $35,000 you will need to submit a completed acquittal pack, which includes the following.

• Audit statement completed by a qualified auditor: A suitably qualified financial auditor will need to audit the grant expenditure against the funding guidelines. Your organisation can use up to $1,000 of grant funds to cover the cost of this audit.
• Certified income and expenditure statement: You will need to attach copies of acceptable invoices or receipts to show the expenditure of grant funds. The income and expenditure statement certified by your auditor must also be provided to us as part of your acquittal pack.
• Benefit statement: Complete the benefit statement by answering questions about how the grant funds have benefited the Queensland community. Please include photos of the items you bought or your completed project.

Goods and services tax (GST)

Grant funds are not taxed, so we won’t increase the grant value to include GST. However, organisations are still required to pay the GST on any items purchased as follows.

• If the legal entity is registered for GST, invoices used to acquit the grant must exclude GST. For example, if you received $35,000 in funding, your grant invoices must total $35,000 excluding GST, or $38,500 including GST if all items include GST.
• If the legal entity is not registered for GST, invoices used to acquit the grant must include GST. For example, if you received $35,000 in funding, your invoices must total $35,000 including GST.

What happens next

We will review your acquittal and email the accountable officer confirming either the application is complete or what more you need to do to finalise your acquittal. You must keep all documents relating to the grant for 7 years.

We regularly perform quality assurance checks (including site visits) on grant applications. We do this to make sure the information you provided is correct and the grant funds were spent only on approved items and according to the funding guidelines.

Next section

Back to Top