Grants & Restricted Funds Management — What's New in v1.0.40

Release: v1.0.40 · Date: 2025-07-18

Version 1.0.40 ships a dedicated Grants & Restricted Funds Management module. This release addresses one of the most operationally complex areas for mission-driven and research-oriented organizations: managing the full lifecycle of grants, enforcing funder-imposed spending restrictions, and generating the reports that keep funding relationships healthy.

Why This Matters

Organizations that depend on grant funding face a unique set of finance challenges. Award conditions vary by funder. Budgets are ring-fenced. Reporting deadlines are non-negotiable. A missed restriction or a late report can jeopardize both the current award and future funding. Until now, teams have managed this in spreadsheets or disconnected tools. With v1.0.40, the entire workflow lives inside the platform alongside payroll, spend management, and financial planning.

What's Included

Grant Application Tracking

Log grant opportunities and track every application through its full lifecycle — from draft to submission to decision. Each application record captures:

Funder name and program
Requested amount and budget narrative
Submission deadline and status
Key contacts and required documentation
Link to the resulting award (if successful)

Award Management

Once a grant is awarded, convert the application into an award record that serves as the authoritative source of truth for that grant. Award records include:

Confirmed funding amount and any funder-approved budget modifications
Grant period start and end dates
Funding conditions and restricted use categories
Funder reporting schedule

Spend Tracking Against Grant Budgets

Allocate transactions — including expenses, vendor payments, and payroll costs — directly to grant budget line items. The platform provides:

Real-time budget vs. actuals view per grant
Burn rate calculations and end-of-period projections
Multi-grant allocation support for shared costs
Drill-down from budget line to individual transactions

Restricted Fund Enforcement

Encode each funder's use restrictions as rules on the award record. The platform then evaluates every allocation against those rules and:

Blocks transactions that clearly violate permitted use categories (configurable per organization)
Flags borderline allocations for finance team review
Maintains a full log of enforcement decisions for audit purposes

This reduces the risk of inadvertent non-compliance and provides documented evidence of due diligence during funder audits.

Automated Funder Reports

When a reporting deadline approaches, generate funder-ready reports directly from actuals — no manual data assembly required. Reports:

Pull financial data from confirmed allocations against the grant
Apply funder-specific templates and line-item structures
Cover the correct reporting period automatically
Are exportable in standard formats for submission

Compliance Reporting

Internal compliance reports give finance leads and auditors a cross-grant view of:

Active restricted fund rule violations and their resolution status
Upcoming funder reporting deadlines
Grants approaching budget limits or end dates
Historical enforcement log for each award

Getting Started

Navigate to Finance → Grants in the platform sidebar.
Create your first grant application or import existing awards.
Define restricted fund rules on each award record.
Begin allocating transactions to grant budget lines.
Schedule automated funder reports against each award's reporting calendar.

Related Modules

Spend Management — Expenses and vendor payments can be allocated to grant budgets directly from the spend workflow.
Payroll — Salary and benefits costs can be split across grant budget lines for accurate effort reporting.
Financial Planning — Grant awards can be incorporated into organizational budgets and forecasts.