Defend the Spend.
Line-item defenses for every invoice under every award, across hundreds of awards, and the week of work per cycle that used to cost.
The team's tooling was dated and the processes heavily manual. Then the federal Defend the Spend initiative raised the bar. DHHS, the institution's largest sponsor, began requiring line-item defenses for every award. Draws span hundreds of awards. The documentation work took one person an entire week per cycle.
That person was retiring. I inherited the workload, with no team bandwidth to hire a developer, and six draw requests already stalled under the new requirements, tens of millions waiting. So I built a program that takes the master list of invoices, broken out by line item, and generates an auditable defense for each invoice under each award.
This was the turning point. Every tool since came out of it.
Machine
Read, normalise, triage
Reads the payment request forms and pulls billing data out of the database. Account numbers and currency arrive in half a dozen shapes, so both are normalised before anything is compared.
Human
Review the exceptions
The tool sorts by exception, so the team reads the flagged rows rather than all of them. It reconciles its own totals first and warns on any variance it can't account for.
Machine
Justify, aggregate, produce
Runs once line items populate. Loads the ledger extract, sorts every award into non-discretionary, discretionary, short pay or expired funds, then writes the line-item justification for each invoice under each award, then pushes payment amounts and justifications back into each individual request parsed on day one.
Human
Signature
An auditable draw slip, broken out by section, for review and signature. Two people sign before anything reaches the sponsor: one on the flagged rows at day one, one on the finished slip here.
| Award | Justification | Personnel | Fringe | Contractual | Other | Indirect |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AWD-2201 | We are requesting a payment of $18,450.00 for the period July 2026. The requested funds will be allocated as follows: Personnel: $10,200.00, Fringe Benefits: $4,080.00, Other: $45.50, Indirect Costs: $4,124.50. We certify that all costs are allowable, allocable, reasonable, and necessary in accordance with the terms and conditions of the Notice of Award. | 10,200.00 | 4,080.00 | — | 45.50 | 4,124.50 |
| AWD-2202 | We are requesting a payment of $6,120.75 for the period July 2026. The requested funds will be allocated as follows: Personnel: $3,400.00, Fringe Benefits: $1,156.00, Indirect Costs: $1,564.75. We certify that all costs are allowable, allocable, reasonable, and necessary in accordance with the terms and conditions of the Notice of Award. | 3,400.00 | 1,156.00 | — | — | 1,564.75 |
| AWD-3101 | We are requesting a payment of $22,940.10 for the period July 2026. The requested funds will be allocated as follows: Personnel: $11,400.00, Fringe Benefits: $3,648.00, Indirect Costs: $7,892.10. We certify that all costs are allowable, allocable, reasonable, and necessary in accordance with the terms and conditions of the Notice of Award. | 11,400.00 | 3,648.00 | — | — | 7,892.10 |
| AWD-3102 | We are requesting a payment of $35,210.40 for the period July 2026. The requested funds will be allocated as follows: Personnel: $11,800.00, Fringe Benefits: $4,248.00, Contractual/Subawards: $10,500.00, Indirect Costs: $8,662.40. We certify that all costs are allowable, allocable, reasonable, and necessary in accordance with the terms and conditions of the Notice of Award. | 11,800.00 | 4,248.00 | 10,500.00 | — | 8,662.40 |
| AWD-4501 | We are requesting a payment of $1,032.60 for the period July 2026. The requested funds will be allocated as follows: Personnel: $620.00, Fringe Benefits: $55.80, Indirect Costs: $356.80. We certify that all costs are allowable, allocable, reasonable, and necessary in accordance with the terms and conditions of the Notice of Award. | 620.00 | 55.80 | — | — | 356.80 |
| AWD-4502 | We are requesting a payment of $41,780.25 for the period July 2026. The requested funds will be allocated as follows: Personnel: $21,900.00, Fringe Benefits: $5,037.00, Other: $520.00, Indirect Costs: $14,323.25. We certify that all costs are allowable, allocable, reasonable, and necessary in accordance with the terms and conditions of the Notice of Award. | 21,900.00 | 5,037.00 | — | 520.00 | 14,323.25 |
Roughly a week per cycle, two cycles a month.
Tens of millions combined, recovered under the new documentation rules.
Flagged rows on day one, the finished slip on day two.
Still processing twice a month.
It checks whether the workbook is already open before writing to it. Built for a shared drive and colleagues who keep files open. Not for a demo.