Two forces are pulling today’s nonprofits in opposing directions. The first is an increasing demand for services as nonprofits are called to meet the needs of more people. The second is declining funding as grants and other sources become increasingly scarce.

In a climate where nonprofits must do more with less, grants management takes on new importance. Carefully tracking how every dollar flows in and out of the organization confirms that your nonprofit is making the biggest impact with the funds available. Similarly, eliminating waste and inefficiency from the grants management process helps to prevent unnecessary financial obstacles. To put it differently, there’s never been a better time to upgrade grants management—or a worse time to allow mismanagement.

That’s a big reason Sage Intacct has become one of the most powerful and popular financial management solutions in the nonprofit world. It’s not just capable of managing grants; it takes the whole process to the next level, creating a smarter and stronger foundation for nonprofit finances in the process.

A quick primer on grants management

Grants move in two directions. Incoming grants are funds awarded to a nonprofit organization, while outgoing grants are funds awarded by a nonprofit to individuals and organizations. Both kinds of grants can involve restricted funds, which must be used for a particular purpose, and unrestricted funds, which can be used for any purpose.

Incoming and outgoing grants can be awarded for many reasons: to seed an unproven program, expand a successful program, replicate an existing program or sustain an ongoing program. Incoming grants can also be “pass-through grants,” with a nonprofit serving as an intermediary between the funder and the recipient.

In addition to being complex, grants management comes with high expectations for oversight and accountability. Nonprofits can’t afford to make mistakes. Yet many rely on spreadsheets, basic accounting software and tools that were never designed with nonprofits in mind. The result is a grants management process that causes more stress and strain—for nonprofit staff and grant recipients—than anyone wants.

How to manage outgoing grants in Sage Intacct

As a nonprofit financial management solution, Sage Intacct offers a robust toolkit for grants management, far too big to cover in a single overview. What all those features have in common, however, is a flexible, user-friendly workflow built around how grants managers actually work.

A good example is how Sage Intacct manages outgoing grants. Anyone who has used other solutions to track when, where, why and how grant funds leave a nonprofit knows it can quickly become complicated, time-consuming or even chaotic. Not in Sage Intacct. Here’s how it works:

1. Utilize the purchasing module: Built to provide complete visibility and seamless control of outgoing funds, the Sage Intacct purchasing module helps your nonprofit standardize the payment of outgoing grants, preventing errors, inefficiencies and inconsistencies. 
2. Define grant transactions: The dimensional accounting structure in Sage Intacct allows for “tagging” grant transactions—orders, invoices, conditional commitments, awards, etc.—to easily track and automate how those transactions are handled. 
3. Create user-defined books: Transactions tagged with the “user” dimension can be consolidated into a user-defined book, which helps track how grant commitments are paid down incrementally over an extended period. 
4. Enrich reporting: Managing outgoing grants in the same system and tagging all transactions with consistent dimensions allows decision makers to easily create reports showing the funds remaining in each grant and where commitments have already been made. 
5. Upgrade due diligence – Deciding who will receive grants matters just as much as how the funds are dispersed. Sage Intacct syncs with Fluxx, a popular tool for evaluating grant recipients, to create a streamlined workflow and integrate all aspects of grants management in one place.

The takeaway

Effective grants management is essential for the ongoing success and sustainability of nonprofit organizations. With the current fluctuations in giving levels and the need for services, now is a pivotal time to evaluate the efficiency and effectiveness of grant management processes and how powerful software solutions like Sage Intacct can optimize and streamline critical financial functions.

At RSM, our team has equal experience in Sage Intacct and nonprofit accounting, so we’re in a unique position to help clients use the former to improve the latter. We know everything Sage Intacct can do, not just to optimize grants management but to transform how nonprofits of all shapes and sizes manage their money.

Whether your nonprofit needs new technology, better processes, different strategies or a combination of all three, RSM is here to help. Contact us about Sage Intacct, grants management or any other priority.