Evidence gathered monthly takes minutes. The same evidence gathered nine months later takes days, because nobody remembers which invoice related to which project.

Here is the monthly list I’d keep for any organisation holding restricted grants.

• Bank accounts reconciled to the last day of the month, with no unexplained items carried forward.
• Every purchase invoice and receipt attached to its transaction in the accounting system, not stored in a folder elsewhere.
• Payroll journals posted, with staff time allocated to projects where a funder requires it.
• Grant income recorded against the specific award, never posted to a single general income line.
• Timesheets or activity records for any staff whose costs are charged to a restricted fund.
• Copies of purchase orders or contracts for anything above the threshold your funder specifies.
• A short note of any spend that could be questioned, written while you still remember the reason.

The note that matters most

That last item is the one organisations skip and later regret. When a funder queries a payment eleven months on, the difference between a quick answer and an awkward one is usually a sentence written at the time. Two lines explaining why the venue was booked, or why the equipment cost more than budgeted, is enough.

Do this and the finance pack is already assembled when someone asks for it. Skip it and every request becomes an archaeology project.

Restricted funds are where most organisations lose visibility. The money is in one bank account, the conditions are in several award letters, and the tracking lives in a spreadsheet that one person updates when they get a moment.

What the tracker needs to show

For each award, on one line:

• Funder and award reference.
• Total awarded and the period it covers.
• Conditions in short form, including any eligible and ineligible cost categories.
• Spend to date, agreeing to the accounting records rather than a separate estimate.
• Amount claimed and amount received, which are frequently not the same figure.
• Remaining balance and the date the award ends.
• Next reporting date and what that report must contain.

The important word is agreeing. A tracker that disagrees with the ledger is worse than no tracker, because it gives the board confidence in a number nobody has checked.

Why line-by-line reconciliation earns its keep

At one grant-funded not-for-profit, reconciling awards against income actually received turned up over £200,000 of funding where the claim paperwork had never been completed. The money had been awarded. The work had been done. The claims had simply never been submitted, and nobody had a record that showed the gap. Those claims were completed and submitted, and the organisation now runs a funding register updated monthly and reviewed at every board meeting.

That gap existed because nothing sat between the award letter and the bank statement. A tracker is that something.

Boards and trustees ask reasonable questions. They are usually unpaid, often attending after a working day, and they carry responsibility for how the money was used.

The board reporting checklist

• Cash position at the month end, with the split between restricted and unrestricted money stated plainly.
• Income and expenditure for the month and year to date, against budget.
• The funding register: each award, spend to date, remaining balance, next claim date.
• Debtors and creditors, with anything overdue flagged and explained.
• Reserves against the reserves policy, with a note if the policy is under review.
• Any claim or report due before the next meeting, and who is preparing it.
• A short list of decisions needed at this meeting, with the number attached to each.

That last point changes the meeting. A board asked to approve a hire wants to know what it costs, what is already committed, and which fund carries it. A pack that answers those three questions in advance turns an hour of speculation into a decision.

Timing beats detail

A short pack circulated four working days before the meeting is more useful than a detailed one tabled on the night. Nobody reads a thirty-page document while the meeting is starting. Agree a fixed reporting date each month and hold it, and the board starts making decisions with current figures rather than last quarter’s.

Claims go late for predictable reasons. The deadline was known, the evidence wasn’t ready, and the person who understood the award was on leave.

How to set the timetable

Work backwards from each funder deadline and write down four dates:

1. Deadline. The date the funder must receive the claim, taken from the award letter rather than memory.
2. Submission date. At least five working days before the deadline, so a portal failure or a query doesn’t cost you the claim.
3. Evidence cut-off. The date by which all invoices, timesheets and narrative sit in one place.
4. Preparation start. Usually two weeks before the evidence cut-off, so gaps surface while they can still be filled.

Put all four in the same calendar the whole organisation uses. A date known only to one person is a risk, not a plan.

Claims that need narrative as well as numbers

Many funders want outputs alongside spend: people supported, sessions delivered, miles covered. Those figures usually live with delivery staff, not finance, and they are collected last. Add them to the evidence cut-off and ask delivery colleagues for them on the same day each month, whether a claim is due or not.

Year end sits inside this too

Independent examination or audit draws on the same records. If claims are supported month by month, the year-end file is largely built already. If they aren’t, year end becomes the second reconstruction of the same year.

Document control sounds dull. It decides how quickly you can answer a funder, which is anything but dull when a payment is being held.

The document-control checklist

• One agreed home for financial documents, with the accounting system as the primary store wherever possible.
• A naming convention that includes date, supplier and award reference, applied consistently.
• Signed award letters and variations stored together, not scattered across individual inboxes.
• Board minutes recording approvals for anything a funder might later question.
• A named person responsible for each record type, with a named deputy.
• Retention periods that meet the longest requirement across your funders, which frequently exceeds the statutory minimum.

What changes in 2026

Two things are worth putting in the diary. The Charities SORP issued for 2026 applies to financial years beginning on or after 1 January 2026, and brings revised treatment of certain income and lease arrangements, along with refreshed expectations for the trustees’ annual report on reserves, future plans and impact.

Separately, for charities in England and Wales, the accounts and examination thresholds change for financial years ending on or after 30 September 2026. Independent examination becomes required above £40,000 of income, the threshold for a qualified examiner rises, and the audit threshold moves upward as well. Check the Charity Commission guidance for your structure at gov.uk, because the detail differs between a trust, a charitable company and a CIO.

CICs filing accounts at Companies House should also note that CIC accounts must be filed using software from 1 April 2026.

Before you submit anything, sit down for twenty minutes with these questions. They’re the ones I’d ask during a review.

On the money

• Does the spend in this claim agree to the accounting records, or to a spreadsheet nobody has reconciled?
• Is every cost eligible under this specific award, or under a similar award you’re thinking of instead?
• Has any cost been charged to two funds? Shared staff and shared premises are where this happens.
• What has already been claimed and received against this award, and does the running total still make sense?

On the evidence

• If the funder asked for supporting documents for five transactions tomorrow, could you send them the same day?
• Are staff costs supported by timesheets or an allocation the board has approved?
• Do the output figures in the narrative agree to the delivery records, or were they estimated?

On the organisation

• Who signs this off, and have they actually read it?
• If the claim is queried while that person is away, does anyone else know where everything sits?
• What happens to cash if this payment arrives six weeks later than expected? That’s the question most worth having an answer to.

If several of these leave you uncertain, the claim isn’t the problem. The monthly routine underneath it is.