Reporting Cycles and Deadline Workflow

A reporting cycle is a GrantLink record of one required report, with its covered period, due date, report type, and status. GrantLink shows reporting cycles as reporting obligations under Reporting > Obligations, so this article calls them obligations. GrantLink creates obligations from a grant's reporting schedule, counts them on the dashboard, and lets you prepare a funder template or link a web report to them.

Reporting obligations are separate from these other GrantLink features:

• Budget periods organize planned and actual spending in the grant's Budget matrix.
• Published reports are web pages you share. Publishing a report doesn't submit it to the funder or record that the funder accepted it.

GrantLink doesn't track other deadlines, such as events, deliverables, compliance tasks, or internal approvals.

Before you start

Have the award agreement or funder instructions ready, including these details:

• Grant start and end dates
• Required reporting frequency and the period each report covers
• Number of days from the end of each period to its due date
• Any final report or other special deadline
• How you must submit each report, and what proof of submission your organization must keep

You must be a Member or Admin of the organization to change grants or reports. Viewers have read-only access.

Set up the reporting schedule

When you create a grant, fill in the Reporting Schedule section. To change it later, open the grant and select Reporting > Setup. The section has these fields:

• Reporting Cadence: Monthly, Quarterly, Semiannual, Annual, Final Only, or Custom.
• Quarter Scheme: Calendar Quarters (Mar/Jun/Sep/Dec), Fiscal Year Quarters, or Grant Period Quarters. The field appears only for Quarterly.
• Days Until Due: The number of days after each period ends that the report is due. The field doesn't appear for Final Only or Custom.

For Monthly, Quarterly, Semiannual, or Annual, GrantLink creates obligations as follows:

1. The first period starts on the grant start date.
2. Each period lasts 1, 3, 6, or 12 months, depending on the cadence.
3. The last period ends on the grant end date, even if that makes it shorter.
4. Each due date is the period end date plus Days Until Due. If you leave the field blank, GrantLink uses 30 days.
5. Annual obligations are labeled Annual report, and the others are labeled Interim report.

GrantLink creates these obligations when you create the grant, if the grant has a complete start and end date. When a due date is already past at the time you create the grant, GrantLink dismisses that obligation automatically, so older deadlines don't appear as overdue.

Quarter Scheme limitation: GrantLink saves the Quarter Scheme you choose, but it doesn't use it to set quarter dates yet. Quarterly periods always run three months at a time from the grant start date. Check the generated dates against the funder's calendar.

Final report and custom deadlines

Final Only and Custom don't create any periodic obligations. The grant forms don't have a field for a final report due date, and GrantLink doesn't have a way to add a custom deadline.

To track a final report, ask the Assistant in chat to set the grant's final report due date. GrantLink then creates a Final report obligation that covers the whole grant period. Check Reporting > Obligations afterward to confirm that it appears. Keep any other custom deadlines in your own deadline system.

Check the generated schedule

Right after you create a grant with a periodic cadence, follow these steps:

1. Open Reporting > Obligations and find the grant's obligations.
2. Compare each covered period and due date with the funder instructions.
3. Record any deadline that GrantLink can't track in your own deadline system.

When you change the grant's dates, Reporting Cadence, Quarter Scheme, Days Until Due, or final report due date, GrantLink rebuilds the schedule. It replaces obligations that are still Upcoming and that nobody has worked on. It keeps obligations that have another status, a dismissal, reminders, or submission details. Check the schedule against the funder instructions after every change.

Obligation statuses

GrantLink shows these statuses for reporting obligations:

GrantLink sets Upcoming when it creates an obligation and In progress when a web report is linked to it. GrantLink doesn't currently have a way for you to set the other statuses, such as Submitted or Accepted. An open obligation counts as overdue as soon as its due date passes, even when its status is In progress.

Reporting > Obligations groups obligations as Needs attention, In progress, Upcoming, Dismissed, and Completed. An obligation needs attention when it's past due or has the Due soon or Revision requested status. Completed holds submitted, accepted, and skipped obligations.

Track due work

The dashboard's Reporting section shows three counts:

• overdue: Open obligations whose due date has passed
• due soon: Open obligations due within the next 30 days that aren't overdue
• in progress: Open obligations with the In progress status

Below the counts, the section lists up to five obligations that are overdue or due within the next 30 days. Select a row to open that obligation's page. Use Reporting > Obligations to work across all obligations.

You can dismiss an obligation that needs attention. Dismiss records who dismissed it and when, and it hides the obligation from attention lists, the dashboard, and reminders. The obligation stays open, because dismissing it doesn't submit, skip, delete, or complete it. To undo a dismissal, open the obligation in Reporting > Obligations and select Restore to Needs attention.

Prepare and review a funder template

1. Open the grant, select Reporting > Templates, and add the funder's .xlsx or .xlsm workbook or fillable PDF form. The file can be up to 3 MB.
2. Open Reporting > Obligations, select the obligation, and select Prepare in chat. If the obligation already has a preparation, the button is Prepare new report.
3. In chat, check the obligation, period, due date, and template, and answer any questions about missing information.
4. Review the prepared copy's field evidence and warnings, or select Open full review.
5. Select Mark reviewed, and then select Download copy. Check the downloaded file before you submit it yourself.

You can also start from the obligation's own page. Select Prepare in chat when the grant has no saved template. When you choose a saved template, select Prepare copy, or Prepare new copy if an earlier copy exists. Both paths continue in chat. GrantLink never changes your template, leaves missing fields blank, and never adds signatures. You can't start a preparation for a closed or archived grant.

Filling a template doesn't require a Professional, Enterprise, or agency plan, and you don't need to publish anything. Marking the copy reviewed lets you download it. It doesn't certify the form or record that you submitted it or that the funder accepted it.

Create and review a web report

1. Open the grant, select Reporting > Reports, and select Draft report with Assistant. You can also start from Chats > New chat.
2. Name the grant, the covered period, the purpose of the report, and the funder's requirements.
3. Review the financial scope, allocations, budget comparison, narrative, and any files that chat produces.
4. When a number is wrong, correct the QuickBooks data or GrantLink allocation first, and then revise the draft.
5. Confirm that the report appears on the intended grant's Reporting > Reports tab.
6. Publish only after your required internal review.

New chat has no field for choosing an obligation. The Assistant can look up the grant's obligations and link the report to one when it creates the report. GrantLink allows the link only when the obligation and the report belong to the same grant, and it then sets the obligation to In progress. Naming a deadline in your prompt doesn't guarantee the link, so check the obligation afterward.

Only grant reports can be linked to obligations. When someone updates a linked report, GrantLink sets the obligation back to In progress, whatever status it had before.

Publish, submit, and keep proof

Creating, publishing, submitting, and acceptance are separate steps:

1. Create or revise a report in GrantLink.
2. Publish the reviewed report as a web page you can share.
3. Submit the required report through the funder's own process.
4. Acceptance is the funder's response.

Publishing doesn't submit the report to the funder, and it doesn't change the obligation to Submitted or Accepted.

GrantLink doesn't currently have a place to record the submission date, method, confirmation number, or funder feedback. Keep portal receipts, emails, confirmation numbers, attachments, and acceptance notices in your organization's document system.

Corrections and special cases

• Wrong generated dates: Correct the grant dates or reporting schedule in Reporting > Setup. GrantLink rebuilds only untouched Upcoming obligations, so record the correct deadline externally for any obligation it keeps.
• Final or custom report: Confirm that an obligation exists. If it doesn't, use your own deadline system.
• Wrong report numbers: Correct the QuickBooks or allocation data where it starts, sync if needed, and revise the report.
• Report linked to the wrong obligation: Check the report's grant. A link requires the same grant, and your prompt text doesn't prove that a link exists.
• Overdue but still required: Keep working on the report and submit it. Dismissing the obligation only hides the notice.
• No longer required: Don't use dismissal to mean skipped or completed. Keep the funder's decision in your own records.
• Revision requested: Revise the report and keep proof of the new submission. Publishing and the obligation status stay separate.

What GrantLink does and doesn't track

The award agreement and funder instructions are the final authority for periods, deadlines, formats, submission, and acceptance. GrantLink creates periodic obligations, helps you sort and dismiss them, fills funder templates in chat, can link a grant's web report to an obligation, and records publish activity. GrantLink doesn't let you set submission or acceptance statuses, record proof of submission, or track other kinds of deadlines. It also can't confirm that a funder received or accepted a report.