Grants are important for non-profits which enables them to make a positive impact in the community. Through non-profit fundraising, non-profit organizations provide financial support for education, healthcare, food, and other essentials. However, managing this money effectively can be challenging when you are using spreadsheets or legacy software – be it for handling the complex application process or to stay compliant with the regulations.  This is why finding the right grant management software solution can help you in building a sustainable grant strategy. For instance, NetSuite offers an integrated solution for non-profits that manages data collection, reporting, and detailed financial tracking for multiple grants, so that all stakeholders remain aware about the activities. 

Implementing a custom grant management solutions will primarily aid in four key areas – efficiency, organization, collaboration, and reporting, making it easy for you to pursue and secure funding, and focus on mission-critical activities. 

How Grant Management Software Simplifies the Process?

For many non-profits, the complex process of pursuing, applying for, and responding to handling functions can be daunting and overwhelming. While the stakes are incredibly high, any errors in handling funds can label you as a risk to future grants, jeopardizing your future funding for projects and initiatives. 

Here’s why choosing the right grant management software will make a significant difference in your process. Let us find out how the digital solution simplifies the phases of nonprofit grant management.

1. Discovery and Research

There are plenty of grants available, and sorting through them all to find the right ones that best align with your mission isn’t an easy task. That’s why fund allocation tools in grant management software will give you a comprehensive database of funding opportunities. They include detailed profiles of various funders and grantmakers, indicating their history, priorities, and guidelines. 

2. Compliance and Due Diligence

Grant compliance management software is built with the necessary tools to help you stay compliant with the regulations. It will help you keep track of grant funds, ensuring that they are appropriately allocated and spent by the terms outlined in the agreement. This system can help in allocating funds based on time and programs restrictions, like: 

1. Time-based allocation: Track how the funds are used, and ensure that the unused funds are carried forward as required or returned. 
2. Program-based allocation: If funds are designated for specific program, then system ensures that each program receives necessary resources and funds are used appropriately. 

The software helps you stay on top of your compliance requirements by delivering automated reminders, suit reports, and detailed budget projects. 

3. Streamlined Workflow Processes

In addition to managing your grant funds and compliance, grant reporting automation software will also help you streamline your internal workflows. You will have a single platform to store all your data in one place where you can access reports and information anytime and anywhere.

You will have a centralized platform to store all your data in one place, where you can access reports and information anytime and anywhere. 

1. Organizations can utilize constituent management that helps in applicant tracking, donor/partner relationships, and communication and reporting. 
2. With grant opportunities workflow, administrators can create new funding opportunities, and with search functionality, applicants can find opportunities based on their specific criterias. 
3. The grant management workflow can assist with award tracking, risk management, and monitoring and evaluation. 
4. The payment and invoicing components is a critical part of grant management system as it helps with proper fund disbursement and financial management. 

In addition, the grant tracking system will allow you to create custom tasks and workflows, which can be automatically assigned to your team or external providers.

4. Simplified Visibility

Non-profit data integration with grant tracking software will also provide visibility into every step of the workflow process. A grant management system should provide financial oversight to ensure that the expenses are aligned with the allocated budget. 

It includes defining a grant budget and you can categorize the funds through categories, and the system tracks the expenses as they occur. Grant management system should have a functionality of soft credits to track and recognize donors that are indirectly funding for improved reporting purposes. 

Most system supports variance analysis that highlights if the expenses exceeds the budget and helps in avoid overspending. The reporting helps in getting complete visibility over the project progress to monitor spending, approve reimbursements, and prepare for audits. 

For cases involving individual recipients, the grant management system should support household tracking feature. This feature determines the household’s eligbility to get th grant, ensures all individuals in a household are accounted for when receiving the grants, and avoids duplication of benefits. 

5. Generate Detailed Reports 

With a centralized grant database, you can quickly generate reports on where the grant money is being used. The software will allow you to sort, filter, and group data according to your needs, view activities related to each grant, including budget information, and export comprehensive reports.

With a motive to streamline grant management, the grant management system track and highlight the performance of a grant through different reports, like grant pipeline reports and spending reports. Besides, most system provides interactive dashboard that provides detailed insights, like number of beneficiaries reached, percentage of project goals achieved, fund usage, and other impact metrics. 

6. Third-Party Integration

The functionalities of grant management software can be enhanced with third-party integration. Third-party applications, like Smart Simple, Airtable, and Fixx.io, can streamline grant management, application, and reporting process. Smart Simple is a scalable, configurable cloud-based solution for overseeing your non-profits funding portfolio. 

Similarly, Airtable is a user-friendly platform that can features database, spreadsheet, and powerful visualization tools, to keep a tab on grant activities and progress. Fluxx.io integration offers features like applicant tracking, grant reporting, and collaboration tools. 

Implement NetSuite’s Social Impact Bundle to Streamline Grant Management

NetSuite provides a suite a cloud software specifically build for non-profits of all sizes to improve their operations and achieve their mission objectives. Their Social Impact Bundles focus on the following three pillars that helps non-profits to successfully implement and accelerate their impact: 

1. Breaking down the silos by integrating all the systems into one single consolidated platform
2. Boosting the resources by strengthening the connections with existing donors
3. Fueling your mission by leveraging NetSuite’s products and services to streamline the operations. 

This Social Impact integrated application includes grant accounting feature that provides complete visibility into the grant lifecycle with the ability to: 

1. Track terms and conditions 
2. Monitor many projects to different grants 
3. Automate time and expense management for billable and non-billable transactions 
4. Manage expenses across multiple years 
5. Provides detailed reports regarding all grant-related expenses, including journal entries, vendor bills, and expense reports. 
6. Schedules billing to bill grants automatically with notification setup to remind the accounting staff to invoice on the specific dates. 
7. Automate data entry transactions against a grant by setting up GL segment combination codes. 

Grants in the NetSuite maintains all the vital information regarding donor, grantor, funder, and funding in one single place, making it easy for non-profits to get visibility regarding grant contributions. 

The NetSuite’s Social Impact Bundle for Non-Profits also include features, like financial management, which is a fiscal management system that automates the transaction and reduce manual data entry requirements. It also features fund accounting, which is a GAAP-compliant fund accounting framework that manages different revenue streams, fund restrictions, grant requirements, and correlate revenue sources to expense transactions. 

The NetSuite Bundle also features, like automated FASB reporting, simplified flexible financial segmentation, KPIs, Roles, and Dashboard, program efficiency tracking, spend management, global cloud, and constituent relationship management. 

The Social Impact Bundle constitutes all the essential components into one integrated cloud application that can streamline the management operations of non-profits. 

The Bottom Line, 

Grant management for non-profits requires strategic planning, dedication and effective execution. From the research to the post-grant phase, each step is crucial to the success and sustainability of your funding. Knowing the nuances of grant management and best practices will help you get the resources you need. However, managing grants doesn’t have to be hard when you have the right technology with you!

Are you seeking a way to make grant management easier? We can help non-profit organizations to simplify their grants process – from pre-award and post-award to subrecipient management through our end-to-end, streamlined, grants management software. Our powerful grant management solution will empower you to automate the application process, track your grant budget, and measure your impact – everything in one place, so that you will have the resources and time to deliver on what matters the most to your community!