Grant Tracking Functionality for Non Profits

Many not-for-profit (NFP) organizations are funded at least in part by government and private sector grants. These funding organizations often demand specific reporting of grant related expenditures from the grant recipient.

Historically, non-profits have had limited choices for tracking grant expenditures:

1. Set up the General Ledger account structure to allow for this type of recording. Pitfalls to this approach include establishing a large number of GL accounts and increasing the complexity of recording expenses.
2. Buy an expensive NFP accounting system that includes a Grant Tracking system. This approach often means great expense for the non-profit, which can be problematic for small and mid-size not-for-profit organizations.

Keep separate journals of grant related expenses, which often mean error prone double entry.

With the release of CYMAIV Version 8, CYMA offers a great alternative to these flawed choices. The CYMA Grant Tracking System, an optional part of the CYMA General Ledger, provides a simple and cost effective method for capturing, tracking and reporting grant related expenses back to the funding source.

New Standard for Electronic Submission of Grant Reports

Federal agencies and other funding sources are establishing standards for the electronic submission of grant reports. Specifically the National Association of State Auditors, Treasurers and Controllers (NASACT), in conjunction with many leading federal and state organizations involved in grant funding, has recently published a proposed standard for the use of data elements in grant reporting. The purpose of this document is to standardize how expenses are classified and to provide a uniform method of reporting grant expenses back to funding sources.

This standard calls for non-profit organizations to track the grant identifier, funding source, funding source type, core object expense (salary, travel, etc.), program and activity for grant related expenses. It then proposes sample spreadsheet-like templates for the transmission of this data.

The CYMA Grant Tracking system was specifically designed around this specification, ensuring our customers that their grant tracking system can accommodate the latest in federal, state and private funding source demands.