Bookkeeping
Grant acquittals
An acquittal shows a funder what you received, what you spent it on, and that it went where the agreement said it would. We prepare them, and we set the bookkeeping up so that each one is a report you can run instead of an investigation.
Why acquittals are harder than they look
Ordinary bookkeeping organises money by account and by period. An acquittal needs it organised by grant: against that grant’s conditions, over that grant’s period, which almost never lines up with your financial year.
If nobody set that structure up when the money arrived, somebody has to recreate it afterwards from bank statements and memory, usually against a deadline. That is the whole difficulty, and it is entirely avoidable.
What we do
- Track each grant separately from the day the money lands, against its own agreement.
- Code expenditure to the right grant as it happens, not retrospectively.
- Keep the unspent balance visible so the board knows where each grant stands during the year.
- Prepare the acquittal in the funder’s format, reconciled to your accounts.
- Reconstruct where needed when a corporation comes to us mid-stream or behind.
The number boards get surprised by
Unspent grant money is where acquittals and annual reporting meet, and it catches boards out in two directions.
A funder wants to know what is left and what happens to it. Separately, how unspent grant money is treated in the accounts affects the income figure your ORIC reporting obligations are tested against, which can change whether your corporation needs a financial report or an audit at all. See corporation size.
Tracking each grant properly during the year answers both questions from the same records. Not tracking it means answering neither well.
The treatment itself is what surprises people. Under the accounting standard that governs not-for-profit income, the default is that grant money is income when you receive it, spent or not. Carrying an unspent balance forward as a liability is the exception, not the rule, and it applies only where the grant agreement is enforceable and sets out what you have to deliver in terms specific enough to tell when you have delivered it. Plenty of grant agreements do not.
Which way a particular grant falls is decided by its agreement, not by a rule of thumb, and it is a much better conversation in April than in December. The full test, with the standard quoted, is in unexpended grants: income, or a liability?
If your acquittal is due now
Tell us the deadline first. It changes what is realistic, and it changes whether the sensible move is to prepare at speed or to talk to the funder. Funders are generally more receptive to a corporation that contacts them before a deadline than to one that misses it silently. The same principle applies to reporting deadlines.
Where this fits
Acquittals are part of bookkeeping through the year, not a separate exercise. Corporations that run several funding streams also tend to benefit from board-level reporting that shows the position across all of them at once, instead of one acquittal at a time.
Frequently asked questions
What is a grant acquittal?
A report back to a funder showing what you received, what you spent it on, and that it was spent in line with the funding agreement. Each funder sets its own requirements, format and deadline — acquittals are not an ORIC obligation, they are a condition of the funding.
Why are acquittals so much harder than they look?
Because they cut across the way accounts are normally kept. Bookkeeping is organised by account and by period; an acquittal needs it organised by grant, against that grant’s own conditions and its own period, which rarely matches your financial year. If nobody set that up at the start, it has to be reconstructed at the end.
We have several grants running at once. Can you handle that?
That is the normal case and it is exactly where the value is. Multiple funders, different periods, different conditions, some overlapping — tracked separately from the day the money lands so each acquittal is a report rather than an investigation.
Does an acquittal connect to our annual reporting?
They draw on the same records, and getting the grant tracking right serves both. How unspent grant money is treated also affects the income figure your reporting obligations are tested against, which can change whether you need a financial report or an audit at all. The default under the accounting standards is that grant money is income when you receive it, spent or not — deferring an unspent balance is the exception and depends on what your grant agreement says. See our guides on unexpended grants and corporation size.
Our acquittal is due and our records are behind. Can you still help?
Usually yes. Reconstructing from bank statements, funding agreements and invoices is normal work. Tell us the deadline first — it changes what is realistic and what should be raised with the funder.