Adding Existing Grants and Budgets

You can add existing grants to GrantLink in three ways:

1. Create one grant by hand.
2. Fill in one grant from PDF award documents.
3. Review the grants that GrantLink proposes from your QuickBooks data during first-time setup of a new workspace.

GrantLink doesn't create grants in bulk from a CSV file or spreadsheet. You add budget data inside each grant after you create it.

Important: Linking a grant to existing QuickBooks Online records tells GrantLink which synced activity belongs to the grant. It doesn't import an award document, funder decision, approved budget, or cash receipt, and it doesn't treat every QuickBooks transaction as a grant expense.

Before you start

For manual or document-based entry, confirm the following:

• You have the Member or Admin role and you're in the correct organization. Viewers can't add grants.
• You have the grant's name, type, status, period, award amount, funder, reporting terms, and approved budget.
• If you plan to link grants to QuickBooks records, the organization is connected and a recent sync has copied those records. Only an Admin can add or remove a grant's QuickBooks links.
• Your plan allows another active grant.

Ways to add existing grants

Method 1: enter one grant by hand

Use manual entry when you already have the approved details:

1. On the Grants page, select Add Grant.
2. Enter the grant name, type, status, and period, then add the known award, funder, indirect cost, and reporting terms.
3. Select Create grant. For a grant with the status Awarded or Active, the button says Create grant & set up QuickBooks.
4. In the QuickBooks setup step, link an existing QuickBooks record, create a new QuickBooks record after a review step, or choose Not now to keep the grant without QuickBooks links for now.
5. Check the new grant before you add the next one.

Method 2: fill in a grant from documents

On the Add Grant page, drop up to five PDF award letters, RFPs, or agreements on the page, or select Browse. Each PDF can be up to 20 MB, and all the files together can be up to 25 MB. GrantLink reads the documents and fills in the fields you haven't edited.

Check every filled field against the documents before you create the grant. GrantLink attaches the uploaded files to the new grant. After you create it, complete the same QuickBooks setup step as for manual entry.

Method 3: review QuickBooks proposals during first-time setup

QuickBooks-first setup is available for eligible new workspaces. It is not an import tool for a workspace that is already set up. The setup steps are Connect, Read books, Confirm grants, Fill gaps, and Positions.

After you connect the company, the Read books step loads your QuickBooks lists and recent transaction history. GrantLink then proposes Classes and Projects that have activity in that history. If no Class or Project has activity, it proposes Customers instead. A record with no activity isn't proposed, and Locations are never proposed. The detection rules apply only to the proposals, and you can still choose any supported link for each grant later.

In Confirm grants, select only the proposals that are your grants. Some spending can carry more than one QuickBooks tag, for example a Project and a Class. When that happens, GrantLink warns you, so review those selections to avoid counting the same spending twice. In the next steps, review the amounts and fill in missing terms, then select the final Create action, which shows how many grants it will create.

When the company uses Projects, a QuickBooks project status filter narrows the list. The default is All projects. The other choices are In progress and not started, In progress, Not started, Completed, and Other or unknown. Programs and funders stay visible.

Filtering doesn't change your selections. If selected Projects are hidden by the filter, GrantLink tells you how many will still be included. Select Deselect hidden projects if you don't want them. The button changes your selection in GrantLink, and it doesn't change the Project's status in QuickBooks.

Proposals are not approved awards or final accounting results. Amounts and suggestions can change while the sync is still running. If GrantLink stops before it finishes looking for grants, retry on Read books instead of assuming that the company has no grants.

QuickBooks linking edge cases

• Projects are missing: Run a full sync from Settings > QuickBooks > Sync and confirm that the Projects exist in the connected company.
• The record is already linked: One QuickBooks record can belong to only one active grant. Review the other grant before you change the link.
• Transactions fall outside the grant period: Correct the grant period on Details if it is wrong. GrantLink doesn't automatically assign costs from outside the period.

Add the approved budget

Open each grant's Budget section and add budget lines by hand, map synced QuickBooks expense accounts, or attach a budget spreadsheet to a GrantLink AI chat about the grant. The grant setup flow has no separate bulk budget import button. See Setting Up Grant Budgets.

Bring in historical transactions

When an Admin adds an expense link to a grant that has a complete period, GrantLink assigns matching synced activity inside that period to the grant. If the history you need isn't in GrantLink yet, use the full sync controls in Settings > QuickBooks > Sync, then review the grant's allocations.

The assignments exist only in GrantLink. They don't correct dates, accounts, vendors, Classes, Customers, Projects, Locations, or amounts in QuickBooks. Correct source errors in QuickBooks and sync again.

Import historical allocations from a CSV file

You may have historical allocation detail in an accounting CSV file that isn't yet linked to synced QuickBooks activity. To import it, open the grant's Transactions > Allocations page and select the Import allocation CSV button. Every accepted row is assigned in full to that grant.

The file must be a UTF-8 .csv file that isn't empty. It can be up to 10 MB and up to 2,000 transaction rows, and its amounts must be in your organization's accounting currency. GrantLink reads QuickBooks Transaction Detail by Account and General Ledger reports directly. For other layouts, GrantLink uses AI to find the header, dates, columns, and amount signs, which uses an AI credit. Check the mapping it shows, including how it treated debits and credits.

1. Select the file and choose Preview import.
2. Reconcile the expense, credit or refund, and net totals to the source report.
3. Review the included, outside-period, and excluded rows. Rows with invalid dates, zero or invalid amounts, or a different currency stay excluded. Rows outside the grant period are warnings, and they stay included unless you exclude them.
4. Import the reviewed rows before the preview expires, which is seven days after you create it.

The import saves all rows together, or none of them. It creates approved manual allocations in GrantLink and never writes to QuickBooks. Imported rows keep the file and row details, and they count in grant spending right away.

If a later sync finds exactly one matching QuickBooks transaction or line, GrantLink links it to the imported row without counting the expense twice. Unclear or conflicting matches need your review. Open an imported allocation's details to see the retained file details, to attach a nearby unallocated QuickBooks transaction by hand, or to keep it as GrantLink-only. The attachment search looks within 90 days and orders the results by how close the date and amount are.

Check your setup

After you add each grant, check the following:

1. Details: the type, status, period, award, funder, reporting terms, and QuickBooks tracking are correct.
2. Budget: the category and line totals match the approved budget.
3. Transactions > Allocations: the matched transactions, dates, amounts, and Uncategorized items are correct.
4. Transactions > Invoices & receipts: the expected synced receipts appear, and any receipts from outside QuickBooks are recorded separately.
5. Activity: the creation, link, and correction history is complete.

Tips for moving your grants into GrantLink

1. Start with one representative grant and reconcile it fully.
2. Keep a list that maps your old grant identifiers to GrantLink grants and QuickBooks records.
3. Don't treat matched QuickBooks spending as proof that a cost is allowable.
4. Keep Read-only reporting in Settings > QuickBooks > Permissions unless your organization has approved specific QuickBooks changes. Importing allocations never writes to QuickBooks.