See an excerpt of the article, Managing Grant Funds, below. It was re-printed with permission.
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You were awarded the money: Now the fun begins
“Thinking about the end from the very beginning will prepare your office for the reporting and measuring ramifications of receiving a grant.
StreamLink AmpliFund is a software that monitors the entire grant’s funding life cycle. Programs like AmpiiFund first assist in identifying the funding mechanism, and then with the grant submission. Once funds have been awarded, it’s used to manage reporting.
All grants have management guidelines. Recipients also have to follow the regulations or statues of state, local, federal, foundation and sometimes quasi-governmental entities as well. Annual, semi-annual, quarterly and “special” reports are often required and sometimes audits. And when applying for federal grants, an entity must follow the federal audit authority trail. Grant reporting programs streamline the activity and give both entities confidence that the money is being administered as intended.
Grant reporting requirements are not standard across the government—not even across the levels of government.
“What we find is, folks don’t have solutions to manage their grants. Where’s the continuity of communication? How do we report, and to whom?” said Brenner.
The Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board published a white paper in June 2013 on the Grants Reporting Information Project, which addressed the issues with reporting the administration of federal grants.”