Grant management reporting challenges

Grant milestone reporting can vary depending on a few factors: how you measure the milestone, how the recipient institution tracks and monitors the milestones, and what the sponsor requires. When grant reporting and invoicing depends on time rather than milestones, such as a six month period, the process is direct and simple. But it’s more challenging when reporting is based off of milestones.

Following is some insight, adapted from a presentation that Tracey Fraser of the Smithsonian and Glenda Bullock of Washington University in St. Louis gave for NCURA.

The challenge in grant milestone reporting happens when the post-award office doesn’t know when you reach the milestone. When invoicing is time-based, administrators just have to track the deadline and hit “submit” when appropriate. With milestone-based funding, you have to ensure everyone knows when they’ll complete a technical milestone.

Grant management reporting solutions

Establish a system and process across the institution that communicates expectations and progress. The faculty and the research offices understand how much funding is necessary to achieve a particular milestone. During the pre-award process, all relevant parties should discuss whether they’ll need an advance in funding from the sponsor or if they can reimburse after the invoice is sent.

To make project management faster and easier for all stakeholders, consider a grant management software system. Depending on the software, it should be able to generate alerts for relevant parties to be aware of deadlines and budgetary needs. Grant milestone reporting requires personnel from a variety of departments, whether central or research, so you need a system that gives everyone access to the information they need.

If funds are tied to milestones, rather than a specific time frame, it’s important to involve faculty and/or team members in discussions regarding the completion of each milestone. As discussed above, the ones implementing the grant project will know when the milestones are completed. This is often tied to their contribution of effort on the project. You can document information associated with the milestones in a report provided to the central office that explains the who, what, when, why, and the cost of their sponsored project. The central office will then have documentation from the research team which can be used to complete the invoicing process. It is usually a best practice to send the reports to the sponsor when submitting required invoices. The right software (like Fund Manager) will make it easy for you to create user-friendly reports.

Cayuse customers have found tremendous value in our comprehensive software platform, which makes it easy to adhere to these best practices. To learn more about how we can customize our grant milestone reporting tools to best fit your office, contact us today!

Free whitepaper:

What every finance leader needs to know about research fund management