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Hi, my name is Natasha Hicks, and I am the assistant director here at THEE Homeschooling. I am here today to talk to you about filling out our reimbursement form for getting your funding from Alberta Education. It seems pretty straightforward; we have a lovely reimbursement form that you can download and fill out, but I want to just go over it with you a little bit just because some of the things don’t seem quite as straightforward when you’re actually doing it sometimes.

The first step of our form is to fill out the family information. So we need the mom and dad’s name, parent signature, date on the form, and the names of the children who are homeschooling with us this year. It seems pretty straightforward, but one little note there is also, if for some reason you are using, like I know some people will use their middle name or just a different name that they go by that isn’t your legal first name or last name. If that is the name that you have put on your registration form for your children, please make sure to use the same one. So if you’ve used the legal one on the registration form, please make sure to use the legal one on our reimbursement form just because that’s what we’re using to figure out which funding this is supposed to come out of, so we need to be able to match the names.

Anyways, as we go on here, again, it seems pretty straightforward. We have the supplier name or store name, so that’s Costco, Share, Telus, whatever it is that you’re submitting reimbursement for. What did you purchase? Just keep it simple. If you purchased, you say, you went to Staples and you purchased, you know, paper and pens and all sorts of things, just put “school supplies.” You don’t have to actually individualize which items you purchased. And then for which subject, again, even that you can keep simple. If you’ve purchased something like school supplies at Staples or a computer or something like that, you can just put “all” or “all subjects,” whatever you prefer. You don’t have to specifically list out every single subject you’re going to use these items for because lots of times, obviously, there’s overlap.

Then there is the total amount of the receipt in Canadian, including the GST, and then your GST amount. The total amount can be a little bit tricky for a couple of different reasons. First of all, as it says, “total amount of the receipt in Canadian dollars.” So if you have made a purchase from a US company, so the receipt total is in US funds, you need to actually show us the Canadian amount. I find the easiest way to do that is just the line item on your credit card statement because it usually shows the US dollar amount, the Canadian dollar amount, as well as the exchange rate, which I guess the exchange rate doesn’t matter so much; it just usually shows both the US and Canadian dollar amounts. If for some reason it isn’t showing that, or you don’t want to send your credit card line item—and again, just that line item, we don’t need the full statement, just a little screenshot or snippet of that that line item. But if it if it was paid for a little differently, I know PayPal looks a little different, trying to think of the different ways. But anyways, if you don’t have that, just use the Bank of Canada website because I’m pretty sure you can just put in the actual amount in US funds and it’ll tell you the Canadian amount on the specific day that you placed the order. I know it’s usually around that date that the card is processed, so if you know it’s a slightly different amount, that’s fine, just so long as it is like the date that the order was placed because that will match the date on your receipt. So I can I can use that for Alberta Education. There’s no GST on those ones, obviously.

Another thing is we do ask that you try to not include any personal items with receipts you’re going to submit to us. But I know how it is. You know, you’re at Staples and you’re buying school supplies and you’re like, “Oh, I also need, you know, these things for the home.” If that happens and you are wanting to submit that receipt, that’s fine, I can accept that, but please just indicate on the receipt which items you’re asking for reimbursement for. So if, you know, there’s, you know, a few things on there that you’re not asking for reimbursement for, make it clear. And so then obviously the total amount here will not be what’s on the receipt; it will be of the items that you’re asking for reimbursement. Also, make sure to include the GST because we can still reimburse for that too. Just yeah, make sure that you’re make sure that you’re clear about that because sometimes, I know Walmart can be bad for not being super clear on the receipt as to what the item really is, like it’s kind of just a bunch of numbers and letters and it doesn’t really make a lot of sense. So if you submit a receipt to me for reimbursement and you’re asking for, you know, $50 but the receipt is $100, well, I can’t tell which things you’re asking for reimbursement for, so I might have to just deny the whole receipt unless it’s obviously glaringly apparent, like, you know, say there’s a printer on there for the exact dollar amount that you’re asking for. Then I can figure that out, but if it’s going to be difficult, then I have to just deny it because I can’t be I can’t choose which things on the receipt to give you reimbursement for. So just kind of keep that in mind if you do have personal items on your receipt, make sure to indicate that very clearly for us.

Amazon is another one that can be a little bit tricky. Please make sure that you give us the actual PDF from Amazon with the actual invoice from Amazon, not just like a screenshot of your your cart or your order page or I know sometimes there’s just like the confirmation email or whatever that has all of this kind of information because we need to be able to see the total amount as well as who it was, like, so if it’s a something like Amazon, your invoice will show who ordered it, where it was shipped to, all the items, the tax, all that fun stuff. And I I need all of that. I can’t just take that like screenshot of just an item or something. So those are all kind of things to keep in mind when you’re filling out our form and submitting your receipts. Other than that, it’s pretty pretty straightforward. If you do have any questions, you can always give us a call at the office or send us an email to [email protected]. That’s our that’s where you’re also going to email all of this information to. If you are wanting to mail in your reimbursement requests, that is fine. However, I recommend taking a copy of your receipts, not just sending all of your originals to me, just because sometimes things do get lost in the mail, and that has happened before, so it and it’s pretty frustrating when then your receipts are sent and you can’t get reimbursed because I’ve never got them. So make sure you do take a copy of them if you’re going to mail them, but scanning them and emailing them is probably the easiest way because then you get to keep your copy and I get all the need and I can do up your reimbursement form.

So again, if you have any questions, you can always give us a call at the office or send us an email at our finance email address which is just [email protected]. Thank you for watching, have a great day.