How Sage Intacct Helps Non-Profits Manage Grants and Funds
From claiming back reimbursable costs to keeping track of how funds are spent, non-profit organisations that are funded by grants face extra responsibilities to meet grantor requirements.
It can be difficult to keep track of everything, so many finance teams turn to spreadsheets to manage these important processes. But this can easily lead to mistakes, inaccuracies and missing information.
There are lots of different ways Sage Intacct can help non-profits. In this article, we’ll focus on grant tracking and fund accounting.
Sage Intacct for Non-Profits
Sage Intacct has many built-in features which meet the needs of charities and non-profits, including:
- Built-in reports for SOFA (Statement of Financial Activities) and SORP (Statement of Recommended Practice) compliance
- IFRS 15 and ASC 606 compliant revenue recognition
- Built-in grant tracking and billing module
- Multi-entity and global consolidation
- Dimensional chart-of-accounts
- Customisable dashboards and detailed reporting tools
The dedicated Grant Tracking and Billing module helps non-profit organisations ensure they’re compliant with grant requirements. We’ll cover more ways Sage Intacct helps with managing grants and funding below.
Storing Grant Details in One Place
All the documents and details relating to grants can be stored in one centralised space in Sage Intacct, regardless of type or source. This brings multiple benefits:
- Prevents documents and information from getting lost
- Accessible online anytime for the relevant people to view and edit
- Search function helps you easily find what you’re looking for
- Reduces manual data input and human error
By ditching error-prone spreadsheets, you get a secure and reliable space for all your grant documents and details. The grant information also feeds into other areas of the system, such as purchasing, invoicing, reporting and dashboards.
Flagging Reimbursable Costs
Using the grant dimension, line items in purchase invoices, purchase orders, journal entries, employee expenses and timesheets can be flagged as reimbursable and tagged against the grant, ready for reimbursement.
You can also use integrated timesheet data to ensure all employee efforts are tied towards the relevant grant. Sage Intacct multiplies the time incurred by the relevant billing rate which you define, helping you to prevent calculation errors.
These handy features help you save time, record costs accurately, provide a traceable audit trail and ensure you never miss a reimbursable charge.
Tip: All Sage Intacct accounts have the dimensions functionality, so you can flag line items against grants for reporting, even if you don’t have the Grant Tracking and Billing module.
Invoicing Costs for Reimbursement
Taking things a step further, the Grant Tracking and Billing module can also help you automate the process of generating invoices for reimbursable costs.
When the time comes to put in a claim, all it takes is a few clicks to gather all the transactions that have been marked as billable but not yet invoiced. You also get the flexibility to deselect any line items you don’t want to include. Once you’re happy with everything, Sage Intacct creates the invoice for you.
This saves even more time and prevents mistakes by reducing manual data entry and ensuring that all the relevant costs are included.
Tracking How Grants & Funds Are Spent
The module also provides a single place for tracking progress and spending against grants, including:
- Tracking progress on tasks to meet grantor conditions and milestones
- Monitoring spending against the budget plan as you use up funding
- Keeping track of multiple funds with different periods
- Detailed expense tracking to ensure funds are used according to the grantor’s requirements
You can also connect Grant Tracking and Billing with Project and Resource Management to extend project tracking and delivery, with insights into staffing, capacity and utilisation capabilities.
Reporting On Grant & Fund Usage
The dashboard and reporting tools in Sage Intacct help you to:
- See how funds were used for each project and grant
- Report and compare budget to actuals on grants, using reporting periods that differ from or cross over your fiscal year
- Share reports with grantors and stakeholders, while only giving them access to what you want them to see
- Grant dimensions add context to your data and allow you to organise and group data in columns or rows
Plus, Sage Intacct enables you to create separate closes for each revenue source for more flexibility and detailed analysis. With various built-in automation features, closing the books and generating the insights you need is also faster than ever.
Making Grant Management & Fund Accounting Easier
If you’re a non-profit looking for tools to make grant management and fund accounting easier, you’re in the right place. As a Sage Business Partner, we implement and support a variety of Sage solutions, including Sage Intacct.
To discuss your individual needs with our experts, complete the enquiry form and we’ll get back to you.
For more information about Sage Intacct for non-profits, complete the enquiry form.
