A GrantLink budget is the approved spending plan for one grant. GrantLink uses it to group the grant's allocations and to compare budgeted, actual, and remaining amounts. The budget is separate from the award amount and from the QuickBooks chart of accounts.

Accounting boundary: Adding a budget line or matching a QuickBooks expense account to a line doesn't create, rename, or change a QuickBooks account or transaction. GrantLink uses the match only to group the grant's synced allocations.

Before you start

Confirm that:

The grant exists, and its Award Amount and period are correct on Details.
You have the Member or Admin role. Viewers can look at the budget but can't change it.
You have the approved budget, and you know whether its categories must follow the funder's terms, your internal categories, or indirect cost rules.
QuickBooks is connected and synced if you want to build lines from QuickBooks expense accounts.

Categories, lines, and accounts

A budget category is a group, e.g., Personnel or Travel. Categories belong to your organization, so every grant can use them. Manage their names, codes, and functional categories in Settings > Reporting categories.
A budget line belongs to one grant and has a name and a budgeted amount of zero or more. A line can sit inside a category or stand on its own.
A QuickBooks account match tells GrantLink which synced expense accounts feed a line. More than one account can feed the same line.

You can also give a whole category one budget amount instead of budgeting each line. When a category has its own budget, the lines inside it show the category's amount and you edit the amount on the category row.

Use the funder's names for categories when the funder requires them. Don't assume that a cost type or equipment threshold is allowed for a particular award.

Open the budget

Open the grant, select Budget, and then select Matrix. The worksheet has these views:

Actuals shows spending from the grant's allocations that count against the award, not every allocation linked to the grant.
Budget shows the planned amounts. You add and edit budget items in this view.
Variance shows the budget minus the actual amount.
Cumulative shows the running budget minus the running actual amount.

When the grant has committed amounts, the views also include Committed. The summary above the worksheet shows the award, the budgeted total, the unbudgeted amount, the actual amount, and the budget left.

Build a new budget with GrantLink AI

A grant with no budget shows No budget yet and offers example prompts for GrantLink AI. The example prompts ask GrantLink AI to do one of these tasks:

Build a starter budget for the award
Set up a monthly budget schedule
Create budget lines from your active QuickBooks expense accounts

Only an organization Admin can approve budget changes from GrantLink AI. GrantLink AI works in this order:

GrantLink AI reads the current budget.
GrantLink AI explains each change it plans to make and what will happen.
You review the explanation and choose Approve or Do not approve.
After you approve, GrantLink makes all of the related changes together, and it doesn't change budget records that you didn't mention.

If someone changed the budget after GrantLink AI read it, GrantLink rejects the change. GrantLink AI must then read the budget again and ask for a new approval. Before a change that deletes budget data, GrantLink saves a copy of the earlier budget so that the change can be undone. GrantLink AI never writes the budget to QuickBooks.

Your approval in GrantLink isn't funder approval. Check category names, line totals, period amounts, and account matches against the approved budget.

Add lines and categories in the worksheet

In the Budget view, the last row of the worksheet adds a budget item.

Select Add line… or Add category….
Under Add budget item as, choose Line or Category.
For a line, search for an active QuickBooks expense account by name or account number, and select it. GrantLink names the line after the account.
For a category, select an existing category or type a name to create a new one.
Enter the budgeted amount and press Enter, or select Add line.

Each category row also has Add line to followed by the category name, which adds an account line inside that category. The amount must be zero or more. If the budget already has periods, GrantLink spreads a new item evenly across them. Review the period amounts afterward.

A category that you create from the worksheet starts with the Program Services functional category. If that's wrong, change it in Settings > Reporting categories.

Change the accounts that feed a line

In the Budget view, select the QuickBooks accounts button next to the line name.
Search by account name or number, and select one or more expense accounts.
Select Save.
Review the line's actual amounts.

An account that already feeds another line shows that line's name, and you can't move it from here. Account history isn't an approved budget, so enter the amounts that the funder approved.

Import a budget spreadsheet

You can attach a budget spreadsheet in a GrantLink AI chat about the grant. GrantLink accepts CSV, XLS, XLSX, and XLSM files up to 10 MB.

Open GrantLink AI from the grant and attach the file.
Ask GrantLink AI to import the approved budget.
GrantLink AI reads the sheets and leaves out section and total rows.
Review the proposed lines, periods, and amounts that GrantLink AI explains.
If you're an Admin, choose Approve or Do not approve.
After the import, compare the imported total and line count with the source spreadsheet.

GrantLink keeps a copy of the source file. GrantLink AI changes the budget only through the approval step described above, so an import follows the same rules as any other GrantLink AI budget change.

Budget periods

Budget periods split the budget into columns, e.g., months, quarters, or funder budget years. The grant Budget tab doesn't have a button that creates periods, so ask GrantLink AI to set up the schedule. Periods can't overlap, and a schedule can have at most 120 periods. See Managing Multi-Year Grants for multi-year schedules.

Budget periods aren't reporting cycles. A report can cover part of a budget period, and changing the budget schedule doesn't change report due dates.

Edit budget amounts

In the Budget view, select a cell and type the new amount. Amounts must be zero or more.

Edit one or more cells.
If your edits change a line or category total, enter the reason for the change.
Select Save changes, or select Discard to cancel.

When a budget has periods, edit the period cells, and the line total follows them. A line inside a category that has its own budget doesn't have editable cells, because the category owns the amount.

If someone else changes the budget before you save, GrantLink asks you to refresh and review your pending edits. It doesn't overwrite the newer budget.

To rename a line, delete a line, or remove a category budget, ask GrantLink AI. GrantLink blocks a deletion when the line has allocation history or when an account match or allocation rule points to it. GrantLink AI explains the reason when it blocks a change.

Budget compared with actual spending

Actual amounts exclude allocations classified as cash or in-kind funding share, unrecovered indirect match, other local share, program income, or excluded. Unclassified allocations, grant-funded allocations, and allocations classified as Needs review remain subject to the normal spending rules. Needs review is a funding share classification, not approval that a cost is allowable.

GrantLink doesn't count all QuickBooks spending automatically. Included spending that doesn't belong to a line appears in the Uncategorized row until you match its account to a line or assign a line in Allocations.

Select Export to Excel to download the worksheet.

You can get alerts when grant spending crosses budget thresholds. Turn on the Budget thresholds topic in Settings > Notifications. Alerts don't replace your review of whether a cost is allowed, your funder's rules for budget changes, or your controls for unusual transactions.

Recommended practices

Reconcile the budget total to the approved award, and explain any difference.
Compare the actual amounts from matched accounts with Allocations, because an account match doesn't prove that a cost is allowed.
Review the Uncategorized row regularly.
Write reasons that explain what changed, rather than "updated budget."
Keep the funder's approval for budget changes outside GrantLink.

To assign actual expenses to lines, see Allocating Transactions to Grants.