Springboard+ Marketing Cost Evidence per Programme Code

Springboard+ marketing cost evidence per programme is a workbook with one row per Springboard+ course code. Each row carries the ISCED Eligible Skills Discipline category, the SkillsDirect course ID, the reporting period, and the total allocated marketing spend gross of Irish VAT. Beside those, the row holds supplier breakdowns across Meta Platforms Ireland Ltd, Google Ireland Ltd, and any named digital-agency suppliers, the underlying supplier-invoice references, the allocation rationale, and the campaign-tag or UTM evidence behind it. That workbook is what HEA expects to sit behind the quarterly drawdown submission through SkillsDirect, and what the ESF Audit Authority at the Department of Education's Internal & EU Audit Unit expects to find in the audit pack on a Springboard+ provider's desk.

Springboard+ providers must attribute marketing spend on Meta, Google Ireland, and digital-agency invoices to specific Springboard+ programme codes. The 2025 Call FAQ requires per-course cost attribution and applies a mixed-class-of-learners rule when one campaign supports a Springboard+ course alongside an unfunded sibling course. Both points are audited, and the workbook above is the artefact that holds them together.

The scheme is not small. The HEA Springboard+ programme overview records that Springboard+ delivers more than 7,200 places across 244 courses through 36 education providers nationwide under the HEA's Skills and Engagement portfolio, with marketing costs absorbed into each course's funded total cost. The reader most likely to be assembling Springboard+ provider audit ad spend evidence in Ireland is a finance officer, programme administrator, or HEA/ESF compliance officer at a university, technological university, ETB, or private provider (NCI, DBS, IBAT, Innopharma Education, Galway Business School, and similar) working through one of three triggers: the HEA quarterly drawdown evidence pack, the post-cycle audit pack when a Springboard+ funded course wraps, or an ESF Audit Authority visit.

The Irish Springboard+ workflow is the specific layer that sits over AI invoice processing for higher education accounts payable — the broader education-AP automation case applied to a particular Irish funding chain with particular per-course evidence rules.

Why HEA Springboard+ Funding Demands Per-Programme Marketing-Cost Evidence

The funding chain runs from the European Commission through to the campaign on a Springboard+ course landing page, and the audit chain runs back the other way. HEA funds Springboard+ from its Skills and Engagement portfolio. ESF+ co-funds Springboard+ under Ireland's 2021-2027 ESF+ programme, with EUFunds.ie publishing the EU-side context. SkillsDirect is the proposal-submission and drawdown channel — the system through which a provider submits a course proposal at Call time, reports expenditure during delivery, and draws down funds against the approved total cost of running each course. The Audit Authority at the Department of Education's Internal & EU Audit Unit is the body that audits Springboard+ spend on the ESF side.

Per-programme attribution is mandatory because the Call FAQ says so. Springboard+ funding "covers the total cost of running a course (course development costs, marketing etc) and economies of scale should be reflected in the cost of the course proposal", and "Springboard+ funding is subject to audit so this criterion must be strictly adhered to". Marketing is named explicitly as a covered cost, the cost is course-level, and the audit obligation is not optional. A Springboard+ course's marketing-cost line in the drawdown record has to reconcile, on demand, to supplier invoices and to the allocation rationale that ties each invoice line to that specific course code. The mixed-class-of-learners situation, where a Springboard+ course runs alongside an unfunded sibling on the same campaign or the same module, is exactly where an institution has to attribute marketing cost between the funded course and its unfunded sibling and document the share rather than claim the full cost against the Springboard+ course proposal. Course proposals submitted with embedded marketing budgets and economy-of-scale reasoning are the upstream artefacts; the per-course evidence trail in the drawdown pack is the downstream proof that the proposal's reasoning held up in execution.

The standard ESF audit chain the Audit Authority applies has the shape an Irish HEI finance team will recognise from any other ESF-funded line: the funding agreement between HEA and the provider; supplier invoices and supporting documentation behind every cost claimed; evidence of public-procurement compliance for engagements that crossed procurement thresholds; expenditure records that reconcile, line by line, to the returns the provider submitted to HEA, the funding bodies, and onward to the EU Commission; and explicit no-double-funding evidence where the same activity could plausibly have drawn from another public source. The Audit Authority's job is to be able to walk that chain backwards from any single line on a Springboard+ marketing-cost return and arrive at an invoice with rationale.

The narrower question — Springboard+ marketing cost evidence vs general HEI marketing-cost allocation — matters because a provider's wider marketing function pays for things Springboard+ does not fund. Recruitment campaigns for Leaving Cert applicants through CAO, postgraduate brand campaigns, alumni engagement, executive-education advertising — these belong on the HEI's general marketing-and-recruitment management accounts, with cost-centre coding and dual-use VAT apportionment of the kind the CAO admissions campaign cost allocation across academic programmes workflow handles. Springboard+ funding is ringfenced. A campaign that promoted a Springboard+ course belongs on the Springboard+ workbook; a campaign that promoted a CAO undergraduate intake does not. Readers who arrived here looking for the broader HEI management-accounts allocation should follow that link; readers preparing the Springboard+ ringfenced drawdown evidence are in the right place.

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The Per-Springboard+-Programme Audit Workbook: Columns, Rows, and Allocation Rationale

The audit-ready workbook is one Excel sheet per Call cycle (or per quarter, depending on internal practice) with the following columns. Each one carries audit weight in its own right, so set them up explicitly rather than collapsing detail into a single "spend" column.

• Springboard+ course code. The unique identifier the provider's proposal carries through the Call. This is the row key.
• ISCED Eligible Skills Discipline. The category the course sits in under the Springboard+ Eligible Skills Disciplines list — ICT, advanced manufacturing, biopharma and medtech, construction, transport and logistics, hospitality, financial services, and the other priority disciplines listed in the current Call. Recording the ISCED discipline at the row level lets an auditor verify the course was within Springboard+ scope when the marketing spend was incurred.
• SkillsDirect course ID. The system-side identifier. This is what links a workbook row to the proposal record on SkillsDirect, and onwards to the drawdown return. Without it, reconciling spend to a SkillsDirect submission becomes a manual lookup exercise.
• Reporting period. The month, quarter, or Call cycle the row covers. Match to the cadence of the SkillsDirect return.
• Total allocated marketing spend (gross of Irish VAT). The funded-cost line value. The basis is gross of VAT for the reasons covered in the VAT section.
• Supplier breakdown columns. One column per supplier where each carries enough volume to warrant separation: Meta Platforms Ireland Ltd, Google Ireland Ltd, the named digital-agency supplier or suppliers. The breakdown lets the row reconcile to multiple invoice references without losing the aggregate total.
• Invoice references. Supplier invoice number and invoice date for every invoice line that contributed to the row. A row that draws from one Meta invoice line plus one Google invoice line plus one agency invoice line carries three invoice references.
• Allocation rationale. A short prose paragraph explaining why this spend belongs to this Springboard+ course code. If the campaign tag matches the course code one-to-one, the rationale is brief. If the spend was apportioned across two courses, the rationale states the apportionment basis and the supporting evidence reference.
• Supporting campaign-tag or UTM evidence. The artefact that proves the rationale: the campaign-naming convention reference, the Meta Ads Manager export filename, the Google Ads cost-report filename, the agency back-up schedule reference, the destination URL with UTM parameters. The workbook does not need to contain the artefact, but the column points to where it sits in the audit pack.

Three concrete rows show how this lands in practice.

Row A — Meta consolidated invoice line, attributed in full to a single Springboard+ course. Course code SB-25-0142 (Diploma in Cloud Computing, ICT). One Meta consolidated invoice line for campaign SB-25-0142_Cloud_Sept, net €4,820, VAT €1,108.60, total €5,928.60. Allocation rationale: "Campaign tag SB-25-0142_Cloud_Sept matches Springboard+ course code SB-25-0142 one-to-one per the institution's campaign-naming convention. Full cost attributed." Supporting evidence: Meta invoice 28304-IE, September period; campaign-naming convention v3 in the marketing operations handbook.

Row B — Google Ireland invoice line where one campaign supports two Springboard+ courses, split by impressions. Course code SB-25-0117 (Postgraduate Certificate in Data Analytics, ICT) takes 62%; course code SB-25-0119 (Specialist Diploma in Applied Analytics, ICT) takes 38%. The originating Google Ireland invoice line for campaign SB-25-Analytics_Bundle totalled €3,210 net, €738.30 VAT, €3,948.30 total. The 62% / 38% split was drawn from the Google Ads campaign-level impressions report for the period. Course SB-25-0117 row carries €2,447.95 gross from this invoice; course SB-25-0119 row carries €1,500.35. Allocation rationale on each row: "Campaign Bundle covered SB-25-0117 and SB-25-0119. Split by impressions per Google Ads campaign report (62% / 38%)." Supporting evidence: Google Ireland invoice 4471209831, October period; gads_analytics_bundle_oct.csv impressions export.

Row C — Agency managed-service line apportioned across a Springboard+ course and an unfunded sibling. Course code SB-25-0066 (Specialist Diploma in Lean Six Sigma, advanced manufacturing) is the funded leaf. The unfunded sibling is a CPD short course on the same module that the institution sells commercially. Agency invoice line for "Programmatic media October" totalled €6,400 net, €1,472 VAT, €7,872 total. The agency back-up schedule allocates €4,800 to Springboard+ campaign tags and €1,600 to the CPD campaign. The Springboard+ row carries €4,800 plus the agency's apportioned VAT (€1,104) for €5,904 gross. Allocation rationale: "Agency programmatic media October. Springboard+ portion €4,800 net per agency back-up schedule, allocated to SB-25-0066 by campaign tag. CPD sibling apportionment of €1,600 net excluded as not Springboard+ funded." Supporting evidence: agency invoice INV-2025-1097 with back-up schedule sb_25_oct_backup.xlsx.

Auditors do not read these rationales as a paragraph each. They read them in sequence down a column, and consistency in shape across the column is its own form of evidence — a row that suddenly explains its split in a different cadence than the rows above it draws scrutiny first.

The workbook is the artefact in the audit pack, but it is not the audit pack on its own. The supplier invoices, the agency back-up schedules, the Meta Ads Manager and Google Ads exports, and the campaign-naming convention reference all sit on file and are referenced by the workbook's invoice-reference and supporting-evidence columns.

A Springboard+ provider can build the workbook by hand from supplier invoices and platform exports, and that is how most providers begin. As the volume of Meta consolidated invoices, Google Ireland invoices, and agency invoices for a Call cycle grows, hand entry stops scaling. The product covered in the per-supplier sections that follow handles the extraction step — uploading a batch of supplier invoices and prompting for a structured per-line-item output, with a source-file and page reference on every output row, then mapping each row to the Springboard+ course code from the campaign-naming convention. The allocation rationale and supporting-evidence columns remain hand-entered work, as they should — the rationale is judgement about why the split is defensible, and that has to live in the finance officer's head before it lives on the spreadsheet.

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Extracting Meta Consolidated Invoices to Springboard+ Programme Codes

The Meta Platforms Ireland Ltd consolidated invoice arrives monthly. It is addressed to the institution as billing entity, not to a campaign owner inside it, and it consolidates spend across all of the institution's Meta ad accounts for the period. Each invoice carries a header with the Meta legal entity and Irish VAT number, the institution's billing entity, the invoice number, the issue date, and the billing period. The body lists charges keyed to ad accounts, with line-level breakouts to campaigns, ad sets, and (depending on the institution's billing arrangement) ad-level identifiers. Every line carries the campaign ID from Meta's system and the campaign name as it was set in Meta Ads Manager. Net amounts and Irish VAT (charged at the standard rate) appear separately, with a gross total per line.

Two preconditions make the Springboard+ overlay clean. First, every campaign that supported a Springboard+ course should already encode the Springboard+ course code in its campaign name — a campaign-naming convention agreed with the marketing team that prefixes or suffixes Springboard+ campaign names with the course code (SB-25-0142, for example) so the invoice line is self-attributing. Second, where a campaign cannot be renamed cleanly (for example, an inherited evergreen account-level campaign), a map from Meta campaign ID to Springboard+ course code lives in the working papers. The audit chain accepts either; what it does not accept is reconstructed attribution after the fact.

When a campaign maps cleanly to a single Springboard+ course code one-to-one, the invoice line becomes one row in the workbook with full attribution. The rationale is short — "campaign tag matches course code per naming convention" — and the supporting-evidence column points to the campaign-naming convention document and the Meta Ads Manager export that confirms the campaign was active in the period.

When one campaign covered more than one Springboard+ course (a "Springboard+ analytics bundle" campaign promoting two related courses, say), the Meta invoice line has to be split before it lands on the workbook. The split is sourced from a Meta Ads Manager export for the period, segmented by ad set or ad-level identifier where the institution structured the campaign that way, or by impressions or clicks at the campaign level where it did not. The mixed-class-of-learners section that follows covers the apportionment basis in detail; the workbook entry inherits whatever basis the rationale defends.

The generic Meta consolidated-invoice extraction step — pulling line items from the PDF invoice into a structured per-campaign breakdown — is the same job covered in extract Meta Ads consolidated invoice line items into Excel for any business processing Meta invoices. The Springboard+ workflow specialises that step by adding the course-code attribution layer on top: the extracted per-campaign rows feed into the workbook's supplier breakdown column, and the campaign-naming convention or the campaign-ID-to-course-code map then drives the row assignment.

Our product is built for the extraction step at the volume a Springboard+ provider's Call cycle generates. A finance officer can upload the month's Meta consolidated invoice (or the batch of monthly invoices for the full quarter) and prompt for a structured per-line-item output: campaign ID, campaign name, ad-set identifier, net amount, VAT, total, and a source-file and page reference on every output row. The output drops into Excel as a working layer underneath the workbook; from there, mapping each row to the Springboard+ course code through the campaign-naming convention is a column lookup. This is how the product's first-hand capability to extract per-programme line items from Meta, Google, and agency supplier invoices plays into the workflow — the extraction step is volume-tractable, and the audit-trail discipline (one row per invoice line, every row referencing back to its source) is preserved in the source-file-and-page column the output carries.

Extracting Google Ireland Invoices to Springboard+ Programme Codes

Google Ireland Ltd invoices share the consolidated shape — one monthly invoice covering the institution's full Google Ads activity for the period — but the reconciliation has an extra step. Where Meta invoices already carry campaign IDs and campaign names on the invoice itself, Google Ireland invoices typically itemise to the account or campaign level depending on billing arrangement, and the granular attribution lives in a Google Ads cost-report export rather than on the invoice line itself.

The institution's Google Ads structure usually sits under a manager account — historically called an MCC (My Client Center) and now branded as a manager account — with sub-accounts per faculty, school, or recruitment function. Springboard+ campaigns can sit inside any of these sub-accounts, or in a dedicated Springboard+ sub-account where the institution chose to ringfence the billing. Inside each sub-account, campaigns hold ad-groups, and the ad-group is the level at which Springboard+ course attribution resolves cleanly when a campaign promoted more than one course.

The reconciliation is two-step. The Google Ireland invoice line for the period reconciles to a campaign-level cost report exported from Google Ads for the same period — the totals match by sub-account and by campaign. The cost report then attributes campaigns or ad-groups to Springboard+ courses through the same campaign-naming convention or the same map-from-ID-to-course-code that Meta uses. A campaign with one ad-group dedicated to a single Springboard+ course is a clean one-to-one row. A campaign whose ad-groups split across two or more Springboard+ courses is split at the ad-group level, with each ad-group's spend pulled from the cost report and assigned to the appropriate course code.

Search-network campaigns lend themselves to ad-group-level attribution because the ad-group typically represents a coherent keyword set tied to one course. Display-network campaigns can be looser — a single campaign promoting multiple Springboard+ courses through generic creative — in which case impressions or clicks at the campaign level become the apportionment basis, and the supporting-evidence column references the relevant campaign report. The mixed-class-of-learners section covers the basis hierarchy in more detail.

The generic Google Ads invoice extraction step sits in convert Google Ads invoices to Excel for campaign-level reconciliation for any business handling Google Ireland invoices at volume. The Springboard+ overlay adds the course-code mapping and the audit-trail expectation: every workbook row points back to a Google Ireland invoice number, a campaign or ad-group identifier, and a campaign-level or ad-group-level cost-report export filename retained in the audit pack. Where Google's billing changes between periods (a campaign moves between manager-account sub-accounts mid-cycle, or an account is consolidated), the working papers should record the change so a reconciling auditor can follow the spend across the boundary without having to reconstruct it.

Splitting Digital-Agency Managed-Service Invoices Across Springboard+ Programmes

Agency invoices are where the Springboard+ allocation gets harder. A digital agency engaged to run the institution's paid-media activity issues a monthly invoice that consolidates its work into a small number of lines: a managed-service or retainer fee for the agency's labour, a media-spend line that aggregates Meta, Google, LinkedIn, and any programmatic platforms behind a single number, and sometimes a combined fee that bundles labour and pass-through media into one figure. The invoice surface text is not enough to attribute spend to Springboard+ course codes — the campaign-level detail the audit chain needs sits in the agency's own working papers, not on the invoice.

The practical step is to ask the agency for monthly back-up schedules. The schedule should tie the agency's invoice to underlying platform spend by campaign — Meta spend by campaign, Google Ads spend by campaign, LinkedIn spend by campaign, programmatic spend by campaign or by line item — with the agency-fee component shown separately rather than buried in a managed-service total. Most agencies running paid media for institutional clients produce these schedules already; where one does not, the funding agreement and the audit chain are the leverage to ask. The same campaign-naming convention or campaign-ID-to-course-code map that drove the Meta and Google reconciliations applies here, against the agency's underlying campaign list rather than the invoice line.

Once the schedule is in hand, the workbook entry follows the pattern from earlier sections. Each campaign line in the agency's schedule maps to a Springboard+ course code (one-to-one or split per the apportionment rule) and lands as a workbook row with the agency invoice number and the agency back-up schedule filename in the supporting-evidence column.

The agency-fee component needs apportionment of its own. A retainer or a media-percentage fee is generally apportioned across Springboard+ courses on the same basis as the underlying media spend the agency managed in the period. If the period's media split across courses ran 60/30/10, the agency fee splits 60/30/10 across the same courses. State the basis explicitly in each row's allocation rationale ("agency retainer apportioned pro-rata to media spend per back-up schedule") so the auditor reading the rationale column down the page sees the same logic applied consistently.

The apportionment basis hierarchy holds for agency invoices as it did for platform invoices: campaign-level spend where the agency's schedule resolves to it, learner-enrolment proxies where the campaign clearly converted to enrolments, impressions or clicks where neither of the first two is available. The choice has to be defensible and consistently applied across the workbook — a row that splits by clicks while a structurally-similar row splits by impressions invites a question.

The generic methodology for reconciling agency invoices against underlying campaign delivery is in reconcile media agency invoices against campaign delivery records, and the Springboard+ overlay specialises that workflow by adding the per-course attribution and the audit-trail expectation.

Public procurement matters here too. The agency engagement itself is the procurement event, and where the engagement value crossed the institution's procurement thresholds, the audit chain expects the procurement evidence (the tender, the award, the resulting framework or contract) in the audit pack alongside the invoices. The funding agreement and the procurement evidence sit at the top of the chain; the workbook sits at the bottom; the back-up schedules and invoices fill the middle.

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The Mixed-Class-of-Learners Rule and How to Document the Split

The Call FAQ's mixed-class-of-learners rule is the source the audit chain reaches for when more than one cohort sits behind a single Springboard+ delivery line. The rule, in its operational reading, is that where a Springboard+ course is delivered to a class containing both Springboard+ funded learners and other learners (full-fee, employer-sponsored, internally-funded, or otherwise), the cost claimed against Springboard+ must reflect the share properly assigned to the funded portion rather than the full delivery cost. The same principle extends back up the chain to marketing: a campaign that promoted a Springboard+ course alongside an unfunded sibling has not been a Springboard+ cost in full, and the workbook row for that campaign cannot claim it as such.

The apportionment basis ranks by evidence strength, and the workbook should reach for the strongest available basis the campaign data supports.

• Documented learner-enrolment outcomes per course is the strongest basis. After the campaign period, the institution knows how many enrolments came from each course on the campaign, and the share of marketing spend that landed Springboard+ enrolments versus unfunded sibling enrolments is the most defensible split. A 70/30 outcome attribution is far harder for an auditor to challenge than a 70/30 forecast.
• Click or conversion data segmented by ad-group or destination URL is the next strongest. Where ads in a campaign linked to course-specific landing pages and the analytics record clicks or conversions per landing page, the click or conversion ratio in the period gives a defensible split. The supporting evidence is the analytics export filename and the landing-page-to-course mapping.
• Impressions data where the campaign content was clearly course-specific comes after that. A campaign whose creative split impressions across two course-specific ad sets carries a defensible impressions-based split. Where creative was generic across two courses, impressions are a weaker proxy because the impression doesn't distinguish which course the viewer was being prompted toward.
• Pro-rata allocation by enrolment forecast is the weakest defensible basis and applies where actuals are not yet available — an in-cycle drawdown submission where enrolment outcomes will only land at cycle end, for example. State the forecast source in the rationale and replace the basis with outcome data when the cycle closes.

The audit-trail record is a short paragraph in the allocation rationale column, not a separate document. It states the apportionment basis ("70% / 30% by enrolment outcome — 35 Springboard+ enrolments out of 50 total"), the supporting evidence reference ("enrolment register enrolments_2025_Q3.csv, course code SB-25-0142"), and the date of allocation. Auditors read the rationales in sequence down the column, and consistency in cadence — the same shape of justification, the same evidence types, the same level of specificity — is itself evidence the workbook was built with discipline rather than reconstructed at deadline.

The no-double-funding constraint sits over the whole exercise. The same marketing spend cannot be claimed under Springboard+ and under any other public funding stream simultaneously. Where the institution runs HCI Pillar 3 Micro-Credentials on the same module the Springboard+ course covers, and a single learner is enrolled through the HCI Pillar 3 stream rather than Springboard+, the marketing-cost share for that learner cannot land on the Springboard+ funded line. The workbook for HCI Pillar 3 spend and the Springboard+ workbook do not overlap on a per-learner basis. Where two public funding sources support the same activity through different cost categories, the audit chain expects to see explicit no-double-funding evidence — usually the funding agreements together, with the cost-category splits documented.

The judgement on mixed-class-of-learners cost attribution is genuine — the workbook's allocation rationale and supporting-evidence columns are where it has to be defensible.

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Irish VAT Treatment: Why the Funded-Cost Line Is Gross of VAT

Meta Platforms Ireland Ltd, Google Ireland Ltd, and Irish-resident digital agencies are all Irish-established suppliers. A supply from any of them to an Irish HEI is a domestic Irish supply, and Irish VAT is charged on the invoice at the standard rate — the reverse-charge B2B mechanism does not apply. (Where an agency is established outside Ireland and supplies to the HEI as a non-resident provider, reverse-charge B2B rules can apply on the institution's side; the article's primary case is the Irish-resident supplier shape, which covers Meta, Google Ireland, and most of the Irish-domiciled agency market.)

An Irish HEI is a Recognised Body for the purposes of the educational exemption set out in Schedule 1 to the Value-Added Tax Consolidation Act 2010 (VATCA 2010). Educational services supplied by a Recognised Body are exempt from VAT on the output side. The mechanical consequence on the input side is that VAT incurred on costs attributable to the exempt educational activity is irrecoverable — the HEI cannot reclaim the input VAT on those costs through its VAT return. The institution's VAT recovery position is set HEI-wide by the partial-exemption method it operates, but the principle holds at the activity level: input VAT on costs wholly used for exempt educational delivery is not recoverable.

Springboard+ delivery is exempt educational activity. Marketing spend wholly attributable to a Springboard+ course is therefore a cost on which the input VAT is irrecoverable. The cost that hits the HEI's books, and the cost that should appear on the Springboard+ funded-cost line in the workbook, is the gross-of-VAT figure (net amount + Irish VAT). The total allocated marketing spend column in the workbook is gross of VAT for that reason, and the row-level treatment is consistent: the Meta, Google Ireland, and agency invoice references in the supporting columns reconcile to net-and-VAT lines on the underlying invoices, while the funded-cost column carries the gross.

Dual-use complications exist where a single campaign supports both Springboard+ exempt activity and a non-exempt activity (for example, a commercial CPD short course delivered through the same module, or executive-education output that does not sit under the Recognised-Body exemption). On those campaigns, partial-exemption rules apply on the institution's side, and the input-VAT recovery on the dual-use cost depends on the apportionment method the HEI's VAT-recovery policy operates. This is HEI-wide tax-treatment territory rather than a Springboard+-workbook decision — refer to the institution's partial-exemption method and current Revenue partial-exemption guidance rather than improvising a percentage on the workbook itself. The Springboard+ row carries the Springboard+-attributable share of the cost gross of the non-recoverable VAT on that share; the rest sits on the HEI's general accounts under whatever recovery treatment the policy specifies.

The Irish-tax-context anchor for related Irish supplier-invoice work — relevant principal-contractor activity, in particular — is the Irish tax invoice requirements and the eRCT workflow reference. Springboard+ marketing spend on Meta, Google Ireland, and agency suppliers is not RCT territory, but Irish AP staff handling Irish supplier invoices across the institution will recognise the broader compliance shape from there.

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Handing Over to HEA: SkillsDirect Drawdown Submission and the ESF Audit Pack

The handover splits in two directions. SkillsDirect receives the summary returns required by the current Call's reporting framework — typically course-level expenditure totals (with marketing as a covered component of the total cost) and any Call-specific narrative or learner-outcome reporting tied to the drawdown cycle. The institution retains, on file, the underlying audit pack: every supplier invoice referenced in the workbook, the agency back-up schedules, the Meta Ads Manager and Google Ads cost-report exports, the campaign-naming convention and the campaign-ID-to-course-code maps, the per-Springboard+-programme workbook itself, the allocation rationale records, and the procurement evidence for any agency or supplier engagement that crossed procurement thresholds. SkillsDirect drawdown marketing cost reporting is the surfaced summary; the audit pack is the depth behind it.

Cycle-specific submission templates, deadlines, and field requirements move between Call cycles. The current Springboard+ Call documentation on SkillsDirect carries the cycle's submission template, the reporting cadence (quarterly or otherwise), and the field names expected on the marketing-cost return. Refer to the current Call documentation rather than to any cycle's example, and adjust the workbook's reporting period column to match.

An ESF Audit Authority visit walks the standard ESF chain. The Authority will ask for the funding agreement between HEA and the provider; supplier invoices and supporting documentation behind every cost line claimed; evidence of public-procurement compliance for agency engagements above procurement thresholds; expenditure records that reconcile, line by line, to the returns the institution submitted to HEA, the funding bodies, and onward to the EU Commission; and explicit no-double-funding evidence where the Springboard+ activity sat alongside other public funding streams (HCI Pillar 3, Skillnet Ireland, employer-sponsored learning through other routes). The workbook is the central artefact in that walk — one row per Springboard+ course code, supplier breakdowns reconciling to invoice references, allocation rationale defending each split, supporting-evidence column pointing to the campaign-tag or UTM artefacts that prove the rationale, gross-of-VAT funded-cost totals reconciling to the SkillsDirect return.

A Springboard+ provider running HCI Pillar 3 Micro-Credentials (MicroCreds.ie) on parallel modules will recognise the same allocation pattern with one overlay: HCI Pillar 3 typically sits under a 50% subsidy on the learner side and applies its own per-course audit-trail expectation. A parallel HCI Pillar 3 workbook with the same shape — one row per micro-credential code, supplier breakdowns, allocation rationale, supporting evidence — sits alongside the Springboard+ workbook in the institution's audit discipline, with the no-double-funding constraint enforced where the same campaign or the same learner crossed the schemes.

The audit handover is not a one-shot exercise. The drawdown submission is the surfaced layer; the audit pack is the substrate; the workbook discipline is what keeps the two in agreement throughout the cycle.