How UDIN affects NGO Utilization Certificate?

UDIN is made compulsory from 01.02.2019 on all the Utilization Certificate of Grants.The first question comes in your mind what is this UDIN is all about? Oh God..another update or compliance? But, Do not worry. This is applicable to NGO Grant but not to be done by NGO itself. So, Let us discuss in detail what is UDIN and how its applicable to NGOs.

UDIN = Unique Document Identification Number

Back story of UDIN

Let us assume that, you have submitted an Audited Utilization Certificate to Funding Agency, which may be foreign funding or CSR or Government. How this Funding Agency verify the genuiness of this certificate?

So, there was no such way to verify the Certificate given by Chartered Accountant, that it is signed and certified by the Chartered Accountant or someone has faked his/her signature or whether the person is CA or not and so on. Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI), regulatory authority for CAs were getting such kind of complaints from agencies like Banks, Embassy, Income Tax, Funding Agency etc..

What is UDIN?

It is 12 digit unique identification number for every documents signed by Chartered Accountant as Certificate.

How UDIN Works?

ICAI has started a portal https://udin.icai.org . And make it mandatory for evry Chartered Accountant to get UDIN for each Certificate issued by them. ICAI has listed out 30 such kind of certificates for which UDIN is mandatory for now.

Under this list of 30, Point no 13,14,15 and 16 are specifically applicable to NGO grant. They are as under :-

• Certificates for  funds/ Grants utilisation  for NGO’s
• Certificates for  funds/ Grants utilisation  for Statutory Authority
• Certificates for  funds/ Grants utilisation  Under FERA/FEMA/other Laws
• Certificates for  funds/ Grants utilisation  Charitable trust/institution

Who is responsible?

Responsibility to generate and quote UDIN in each such certificate is with Chartered Accountant and not on NGO. However, it is advisable for NGOs to ask auditor to quote UDIN on each such utilization certificate. Also, after some times, once awareness created, funding agency will not accept UC without UDIN.

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