Use one GrantLink grant when one award spans several years and you need a cumulative award view. The grant record holds the full award and grant term; its Budget tab can divide budget lines into monthly, quarterly, or funder-defined budget-year columns.

Create separate grant records when each renewal is a separate award or must remain operationally independent. GrantLink does not link annual grant records into one schedule or carry budget between them.

Important: Budget periods and reporting cycles are separate. A budget schedule controls planning columns and actuals in Budget. Reporting Schedule settings create report deadlines. Changing one does not update the other.

Before You Start

Confirm that:

You know whether the funder issued one multi-year award or separate annual awards.
The grant's Start date, End date, and full Award amount are available.
The grant's budget lines have been created in Budget.
You have the approved amount for each budget year, if the budget is not spread evenly.
You understand the funder's carryforward rule. GrantLink can re-plan future period amounts, but it does not obtain funder approval or determine whether carryforward is allowed.
You are an authenticated organization member with write access. Read-only viewers cannot change grant or budget records.

Choose the Record Structure

One grant with several budget periods

Use one grant when the award agreement provides one total award across the full term.

Create the grant with the full award amount and complete grant term.
Add the approved budget lines in the grant's Budget tab.
Create a budget schedule as described below.

This keeps lifetime allocations, income, budget actuals, documents, and reports under one grant.

Separate grants for annual awards

Use separate records when each year is awarded independently, renewal is not guaranteed, or the funder requires separate award records.

Create one grant for each award year.
Use consistent names, such as “Community Program 2026” and “Community Program 2027.”
Associate each record with the same funder when appropriate.
Maintain any cross-award continuity or approved transfer in your external accounting and compliance records.

There is no parent/renewal relationship or cross-grant carryforward calculation in the current product.

Create a Budget Schedule

Open the multi-year grant.
Select Budget.
Open Create budget schedule.
Choose one schedule type:
- Monthly creates calendar-month periods across the grant term.
- Quarterly creates calendar-quarter periods across the grant term.
- Budget years lets you enter each funder-defined label, start date, and end date.
For Budget years, add every required period. Periods may have gaps, but they cannot overlap, and each needs a label, start, and end.
Leave Spread evenly selected only if each current budget-line total should be divided evenly across the periods.
Create the schedule.

Monthly and quarterly schedules require grant dates. Their first and last periods are clipped to the grant term. GrantLink calculates period amounts in cents and places any rounding remainder in the last period so the period amounts equal the budget-line total exactly.

The schedule supports at most 120 periods.

Enter or Review Period Budgets

Use the matrix controls to review:

Budget: planned amount in each period
Actuals: effective operating-expense allocations attributed to each period
Variance: period budget minus period actual
Cumulative: cumulative budget through the selected column minus cumulative actual

Periods appear as columns rather than as a separate “Period” view. The matrix also identifies Undated and Outside schedule actuals when present. Those amounts remain in total actuals even though they do not belong to a scheduled period.

If no schedule exists, the matrix uses one whole-grant Total column.

Adjust an uneven multi-year budget

If the approved period amounts are not equal, edit the period cells to match the funder-approved budget. Confirm that the period amounts for each line still equal that line's total.

Regeneration boundary: Regenerate budget schedule replaces the current periods and clears all per-period line and category amounts before rebuilding them. Export or document the current schedule first if you need to preserve it. Clearing a schedule removes period data but leaves the budget-line totals.

Carry Unspent Budget Forward

Use Carry unspent forward only after prior-period actuals and allocations are current.

Sync QuickBooks and resolve the allocations that should count as operating expenses.
Open the grant's Budget tab.
Review Actuals, including uncategorized, undated, and outside-schedule amounts.
Open Carry unspent forward for one budget line or for all lines.
Choose how the net unspent amount should be added to remaining periods:
- Match remaining shape distributes it in proportion to the existing future-period budget.
- Evenly distributes it evenly across future periods.
Enter the required Reason.
Apply the change and review the revised matrix.

For each adjusted budget line, GrantLink treats periods whose end date has passed as completed, replaces their planned amount with actual spending, and moves the net underspend into periods that have not ended. Completed-period over- and underspending are netted together.

The budget-line total does not change. If completed periods are net overspent, no future period exists, or nothing remains to carry, GrantLink leaves the line unchanged. Category-total-only budgets are not adjusted by this action.

Verify the Multi-Year Budget

After setup or carryforward:

Confirm the period labels and dates match the award agreement.
Confirm every line's period amounts equal its approved line total.
Compare Actuals with the grant's Allocations and investigate Uncategorized, Undated, or Outside schedule amounts.
Review Variance for the current period and Cumulative for the award-to-date position.
Confirm the overall budget still agrees with the approved budget and award.
Retain the carryforward reason and any funder approval with your controlled grant records. GrantLink records the budget-line revision and activity, but it is not the funder's approval record.

Reporting Deadlines Are Separate

Configure reporting cadence under the grant's Reporting Schedule settings. Do not use budget years as evidence that a report cycle exists. Current reporting-cycle generation and its limitations are described in Reporting Cycles and Deadline Workflow.

The budget schedule dialog may initially select monthly or quarterly based on the grant's reporting cadence, but that convenience does not link the schedules. Funder-defined Budget years also do not create report deadlines.

Important Boundaries

GrantLink can organize one award across period budgets, attribute effective expenses by accounting date, calculate period and cumulative variances, and re-plan line-level future budgets. It does not:

Decide whether separate award notices should be combined into one grant
Determine whether carryforward is permitted
Request or record funder approval as a dedicated carryforward approval workflow
Transfer budget between separate grant records
Change the total award or budget-line total when carrying unspent budget forward
Treat a budget period as a reporting-cycle status or submission record

Use the award agreement, approved amendments, QuickBooks, and your organization's accounting policy as the authoritative records for those decisions.