For many colleges and universities, grant administration can feel like a juggling act — balancing deadlines, compliance needs, budgets, and reporting, often with limited staff and resources. Manual processes and disjointed systems only add to the complexity, making it harder to stay on track and compliant while adhering to the necessary deadlines, reviews, and approvals.
Enter automation. Implementing automation in your grant management program isn’t just about saving time and reducing manual tasks (while that is a plus!) — it’s about building a scalable, consistent, and more accurate system. Let’s dig into 5 key ways that automation can really help you step up your grant management program.
#1 Fewer Manual Errors = Less Risk
Manual data entry and multiple spreadsheets open the door to unintended mistakes — whether it’s a missed deadline, inconsistent reporting, or budget inaccuracy, it’s hard to ensure complete accuracy when you rely on manual data entry. Automation reduces the risk of error by centralizing key tasks and eliminating the need to update the same information in multiple places. With automation tasks set up, compliance becomes more proactive and ‘audit-ready’, helping your institution avoid errors or funding issues.
#2 A Single Source of Truth for Everyone
Many institutions often struggle with cross-departmental communication, especially when new staff come on board or responsibilities shift hands. An automated, centralized system offers one consistent place for all your grant information — deadlines, budgets, reports, documentation, and approvals. Cayuse Sponsored Projects provides you with one centralized, cloud-based solution that allows you to easily manage every step of the award lifecycle – from proposal creation to close out – alongside automated workflows that reduce the need for manual entry. It also provides data and analytics that you can easily share with leadership or use for necessary compliance requirements.
We recently spoke with a Director of Grants at West Hills Community College:
“The question was, can we find a uniform place where everybody can agree that this is what we’re going to do; this is what it’s going to look like, then people can reference this single-stop system, even if they’re new to the district.”
— Director of Grants, West Hills Community College
#3 Easier Approval Routing, Less Chasing
Routing forms, tracking approvals, and chasing signatures are not only time-consuming for you or your teammate to manage, it’s also frustrating to follow up constantly via email. Utilizing automation tasks will help to speed up the process with built-in workflows that notify the reviewers and approvers at the right time, every time — no more bottlenecks, no more chasing, and no more confusion over “who’s next.”
#4 Audit Ready with Built-in Reporting
Staying compliant with federal, state, and private funding requirements can be a lot to manage and even overwhelming at times, especially when each grant has different reporting needs. Utilizing a platform that helps you manage grants in one centralized location, helps you flag upcoming deadlines, easily generate the reports that you need for each grant, and track all activities for audits. For institutions with lean teams, this is especially important to keep all necessary components organized and ready to submit.
#5 Sustainable Long-Term Growth
Planning for long-term growth in grant funding is often a leadership-driven goal. But while securing more grants may suggest additional resources will follow, that isn’t always the reality. Manual processes that are already stretched thin can quickly break under added growth, creating even bigger challenges to keep up with demands. Establishing automated workflows and using a centralized platform like Cayuse provides the foundation to handle increased volume smoothly, empowering your grant office to scale effectively without the need to add staff.
Ready to see how automation can work at your institution?
West Hills Community College took advantage of utilizing Cayuse to set up automated workflows and tasks, and by implementing Cayuse Sponsored Projects, they were able to provide their faculty a solution for the problems everybody routinely encountered. Check out the full case study here.
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