If a funder emailed today asking where last year’s grant went, could you answer before Friday?

You open the drive, the old spreadsheet, the emails, and start reconstructing last March.

That reconstruction takes a fortnight, and it lands in the same weeks as the next application.

Or read on to see how it works.

What happens between the award letter and the funder’s question

Award letter arrives
Delivery starts immediately
Costs coded roughly
Salaries mapped backwards
Restricted pot unvouched
Funder asks for evidence

Nothing here is careless. The work was done and the money was spent on it.

The problem is that the record of which award paid for what was assembled afterwards, from memory. By then a hire has been made, a contract has been taken on, and reserves have quietly covered the difference.

Five questions a funder or a trustee can ask at any meeting

Most chief executives can answer these eventually. The cost sits in how long eventually takes.

Which grant is paying which salary this month?
Does the restricted money last until March?
What would you show a funder tomorrow?
Which contract are reserves currently subsidising?
Has every award been claimed in full?

That makes everything downstream harder.

ClaimsBoard meetingsReservesHiringApplicationsReporting

Check your funding evidence

The other way round: the evidence exists before anyone asks for it

Same week. From live numbers. With the reasoning.

Every award is reconciled against the income received and the costs charged to it, month by month, as the year runs.

1 registerevery award, updated monthly
Awards reconciled line by line
Salaries mapped to grants
Restricted balances visible monthly
Funder answered the same week

You decide the hire with the salary already mapped, and you know before you apply whether the funding covers the work.

See if your evidence holds

If your accountant can’t tell you which grant is funding which salary

You have the wrong accountant.

What changes by day ninety, and what has to happen first

Ninety days, with a defined order, because the register is only as good as the bookkeeping underneath it.

Before day one
Records collected, handover managed
We agree the scope, complete AML checks and deal with your current accountant or bookkeeper ourselves.
Day 30
Every award reconciled against income
Awards, claims and income received are matched line by line, so any unclaimed or unfinished funding surfaces early.
Day 60
Restricted funds visible each month
Salaries and costs are coded to the award that pays for them, so restricted balances are current rather than reconstructed.
Day 90
A funder pack that already exists
The board pack and the evidence a funder asks for come out of the monthly routine on an agreed date.

Start the ninety days

The review costs a fixed fee, credited in full if you go ahead

Sixty minutes with Gavin on your actual records: how funding flows in, how restricted money is tracked, what evidence you could produce this week and what a funder would send back.

It is a review of your funding evidence, not a sales meeting.

You leave with the gaps written down, a claims and reporting timetable, and the priority actions for the next ninety days, whether or not you engage us.

60 minuteswith Gavin, on your records

Credited in fullagainst onboarding if you go ahead

Capacity is four new clients a month, so the start date is the real constraint.

Who this works for, and who should not book the review

It is a short list on both sides, and being honest about it saves everybody an hour.

This fits if

You run a CIC, charity or community organisation with more than one funding stream.
A funder or a trustee has asked a question you could not answer in the meeting.
You are deciding on a hire and need the salary mapped to an award before you commit.
The chief executive is doing the finance as well as running the organisation.
You want board figures and claim evidence on the same date every month.

This does not fit if

You want a year-end filing exercise and nothing between now and then.
The organisation runs on cash income.
The work depends on CIS-based construction subcontracting.
You will not complete client due diligence and AML checks.
You want the records presented in a way the underlying evidence does not support.

See if this fits you

Two minutes. If it fits, you’ll book the review with Gavin.

£200,000

of funding where the paperwork had never been completed

We found it at a grant-funded not-for-profit by reconciling funding awards against income received, line by line, during onboarding. The claims were completed and submitted, and the organisation now runs a funding register updated monthly and reviewed at each board meeting.

“”

UK SME owner

The next funder question is already written. What goes back, and how fast?

Which grant pays which salary
Whether restricted money reaches March
What a funder gets sent
Whether the award covers the work

Those four answers come out of the same monthly routine, on a date you already know.

Think your numbers should be answering this?

Check your funding evidence

Two minutes, and you will know whether a review is worth booking.

See if your finance function fits your size / structure

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