How-To Guides

Grants management refers to post-award administration - the compliance, financial tracking, and documentation work that starts when an award letter arrives

What 2 CFR Part 200 requires for federal grant reporting, including SF-425 deadlines, Single Audit thresholds, record retention rules, and agency-specific

A practical guide to building pre-approval workflows that prevent grant expenditure findings - covering who approves what, when, and how to document the trail

A practical guide to building a grant compliance program for a resource-constrained nonprofit - the four pillars (policies, procedures, training, monitoring)

A grant spend-down report shows budget versus actual by category, remaining balance, and projected burn rate to the end of the award period. This guide covers

Monthly grant reconciliation has four steps: bank and ledger, grant to ledger, restricted balance check, and upcoming drawdown review. This guide covers each

A practical guide to subrecipient risk assessment under 2 CFR 200.332 - risk factors, scoring approach, documentation requirements, and what to do when you

An executive director needs to see total restricted fund balances, risk flags, upcoming reporting deadlines, and expiring funds - without reading a finance

A practical guide to 2 CFR 200.430 personnel cost documentation - contemporaneous records, split-funded positions, what a defensible T&E system looks like

A practical guide to disallowed costs on federal grants - what makes a cost disallowed vs. questioned, the 2 CFR 200 cost principles, when to self-report, the

A practical guide to maintaining SEFA records year-round - why SEFA errors happen, maintaining a running schedule, cluster program identification

When rebudgeting requires prior approval, how to write the request, how to track cumulative transfers, and how federal and private funder requirements differ.