Identify the recipient, purpose, currency and person associated with each actual payment.
Keep the records attributable
An adviser’s invoice, a banking record and an official confirmation establish different facts. Preserve the actual documents and follow current official instructions. Neither a private invoice nor a government receipt is itself an approval or current work authorization.
Identity and immigration-history records for both spouses, evidence of the lawful origin of the funds for the gift and fee, marriage and birth certificates for any dependants, and a dated copy of the official program terms. Keep passports, birth and marriage certificates, prior U.S. immigration records, and name-change documents orderly, but do not assume that every standard immigration document is automatically requested. Use a dated official source as the index for the file, then collect identity, civil-status, and financial records that the published vetting process calls for. Confirm the payment channel is the official one, since a programme involving large transfers attracts imitation, and money sent to the wrong place is not recoverable.