BEAR and SPI Invoice Deadline:
The deadline for filing applicant BEAR or vendor SPI invoices is normally 120 days after the last date to receive services. Normally (and assuming that the 120 days does not end on a weekend or holiday), the invoice deadline for recurring services ending June 30th is October 28th. The deadline for non-recurring services ending September 30th is January 28th of the following year. Historically an applicant or service provider missing the invoicing deadline could apply for, and generally would be granted, an additional 120-day invoice deadline extension.
But E-rate history no longer serves as a reliable guide. In terms of the invoice deadline, this can be good, as it was last year, or bad, as it may be for some applicants this year.
Last year’s October 28th invoice deadline for recurring FY 2012 services was effectively a non-event as the result of FCC instructions to USAC to issue automatic one-year invoice deadline extensions to any applicant or service provider missing the FY 2012 deadline. This year’s October 28th deadline, therefore, applies to recurring service invoices for both FY 2012 and FY 2013.
The important changes, beginning this year as a result of the E-rate modernization Order, are three-fold:
- USAC will automatically grant, upon request, a single 120-day extension to an applicant’s invoice deadline.
- The request for that extension must be made on or before the original invoice deadline.
- A request for an additional extension, or a late-filed request for one from USAC, must be made to the FCC.
From a practical viewpoint, here’s what these changes mean:
- Hopefully, given last year’s automatic one-year extension, most valid recurring service invoices for FY 2012 have already been filed. For any such invoices not yet filed, October 28th is a critical date. Given that there has already been a one-year extension, it is not yet clear whether the new invoicing rule will permit USAC to grant an additional 120-day extension for FY 2012.
- Under current rules, invoices that are filed by the October 28th deadline, but subsequently rejected by USAC (i.e., “zero-funded”) after the deadline, can be re-filed only if an invoice extension has been previously granted. Otherwise, an extension from the FCC will be required. Logically, a re-filing extension should be granted for timely filed, but zero funded, invoices, however there is currently no automatic process to do so.
- Applicants still working on BEAR submissions must recognize that their service providers need to formally acknowledge those BEARs before those filings can be finalized. In particular, applicants filing online BEARs just prior to the deadline run the risk of not having those BEARs actually submitted on time. BEARs acknowledged after the October 28th deadline will be considered only if an invoice extension has been previously granted.
To play it safe for the upcoming invoice deadline, and to avoid the need for a subsequent request for an FCC extension, we recommend that 120-day Invoice Extensions be submitted to USAC for all active FRNs for which invoices have not yet been submitted and approved.
Form 486 Deadline:
The deadline for filing a Form 486 to confirm the start of service and CIPA compliance is the later of 120 days from the FCDL issuance date or the start of service (typically July 1st). The most common Form 486 deadline for early FY 2014 funding waves 1-7, issued this year before July 1st, therefore is October 29th. Based on subsequent FCDL dates, the next few deadlines are:
Wave 8 10/30/2014
Wave 9 11/07/2014
Wave 10 11/13/2014
Wave 11 11/20/2014
Wave 12 11/27/2014
If an applicant misses its Form 486 deadline, USAC will reset the service start date on the applicable FRN(s) to a later date calculated as 120 days prior to the actual Form 486 filing date. Funding will be provided only for services received on or after the revised service start date.
The penalty for missing a recurring service Form 486 deadline becomes progressively more severe for later deadlines. For example, an applicant missing an October 28th deadline by a month would lose funding for the month of July. A similar one-month late filing for the November 27th deadline would mean the loss of funding for both July and August. Note that missing a non-recurring Form 486 deadline could have an all-or-nothing impact on funding depending upon whether the work was actually done before or after the new service start date.