Many organizations are spending more time on grant reporting than ever before. Reporting to grantors is not only key to maintaining good funding relationships, but also key to ensuring new opportunities for grant funding. Fund accounting solutions are designed to handle specialized nonprofit accounting requirements.
One of the most important items found in a grant report is a financial statement, which tells funders how you spent their money. A financial statement should include all costs associated with the project, including staff and contractor salaries; equipment purchases; and travel expenses.
Is your staff spending large amounts of time gathering, analyzing and reporting outcome measures for complex grants? The cost in time for grant reporting is increasing as nonprofits and organizations are more often required to report to grantors on a monthly basis instead of a quarterly basis. Grantors also are seeking both qualitative and quantitative information in the reporting.
When you’re preparing your grant report, remember to review your original budget submitted to funder so that you can accurately present your use of the funds. Different funders will set different guidelines as to how detailed your financial statement should be. Generally funders are going to look at how closely the project’s actual budget aligns with the original budget you submitted.
The data and program highlights you provide to grantors help underscore their giving and help them make decisions about funding your organization in the future. Making sure to document all activities and costs associated with them ensures a fuller picture of how you put the funds to work. You also need to reflect in your grant reporting your key outcomes and successes from the funding.
By the way, if you need the latest insight, tips and tactics for grant reporting you won’t want to miss our Accounting For Grants webinar on March 31st – 11:30 CST.
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