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Plan Grant Spend

Goal: Spend every restricted dollar inside its period of performance. A grant that ends with money unspent gets clawed back and damages the next application; a grant that is behind its plan is the earliest warning you get. This page is how you write the plan, how the posted costs are set against it, and how the Grants page flags a grant that will not spend out.

The plan on a grant​

Open an awarded grant and choose the Fund Tracking tab. The Spend plan card lists one row per month of the grant's period of performance (the first and last months are partial when the period starts or ends mid-month) with three figures:

  • Planned — what you expect to charge the grant that month. It starts at zero for every month until someone forecasts it.
  • Actual — what has actually been charged to the grant in that month, worked out from the posted costs by their accounting date. It is never typed in and cannot be edited.
  • Variance — planned minus actual, for the months that have started. A negative variance in warning colour means the month spent less than planned.

The totals row sums the plan across the whole period, and the actual and variance to date. When the plan says the grant will not spend out, the card says so at the top: At risk of underspend, with the figures behind it.

A grant with no period of performance has no plan card: set the period dates on the grant first.

Reforecast a grant​

Click Reforecast on the card. Type the planned amount for each month and click Save plan. The total beneath the months is set against the award so you can see at once whether the plan covers it or leaves money out. A month that is closed in accounting shows a lock and cannot be changed; every other month can be reforecast as often as the picture changes.

Spend planning across every grant​

On the Grants page, choose the Spend Planning tab. It lays every awarded grant across a horizon of months (six, twelve or eighteen from this month) in one grid, with a column for each month and the plan's total in the footer:

  • The four tiles show the plan for the horizon, the plan and the actual to date, and the variance between them, worked out across every grant on the grid. Behind plan reads in warning colour.
  • Planned vs actual by month charts where the portfolio expects to spend against what it has spent; Cumulative burn shows the drift between the two compounding over time.
  • Each grant is a row. Its Remaining is what is left of the award; a grant whose remaining balance is well above what the plan still lands before the period ends carries an At risk badge, and the banner above the charts names every such grant.
  • Each month is a cell you can type into. The charts, tiles, totals and at-risk flags recalculate from your edits as you type, so you can see what a reforecast does before you keep it. Beneath a month that has started, the cell shows its actual.

Click Save reforecast to write every changed grant's plan back; the button counts how many grants you have touched. Export plan downloads the grid as a spreadsheet.

A grant that has not been awarded appears on the grid only once it carries a plan of its own: forecasting an application you expect to win is allowed, it just does not happen by default.

Months closed in accounting​

When accounting closes a fiscal period, every plan month inside it locks: the cell is greyed, the column header carries a lock, and a save that would change a locked month is refused with the month's name. The plan for those months is a record of what was expected at the time, alongside what actually happened; the forecast lives in the months still open.

Who can do what​

Anyone who can view grants sees the plan on the grant and the Spend Planning tab. Reforecasting — on the card or in the grid — needs the Manage Grant Spend Plans permission, which admins, staff and project managers have by default.