Preparing and Tracking Reimbursement Claims

Use Claims to bundle eligible grant expenses into a reimbursement record. GrantLink preserves the selected allocation amounts and source context as local claim lines, then organizes claims as Draft, Submitted, Paid, or Canceled.

Verified current QuickBooks warning: Submit to QuickBooks is visible on draft claims, and Settings > Permissions includes Create claim invoices, but QuickBooks invoice creation is currently fail-closed. The provider handler is globally blocked, so enabling that permission does not make submission operational. Selecting Submit to QuickBooks fails without creating an invoice or moving the local draft to Submitted. Create the invoice under your accounting controls directly in QuickBooks; do not describe the GrantLink draft as submitted merely because it is ready.

Before You Start

Confirm that:

• QuickBooks is connected and active. GrantLink currently requires an active QuickBooks connection even to create the local draft.
• The grant is Active or Awarded in the Create Claim grant selector.
• Each expense has an effective allocation for the same grant with status Approved or Posted. Pending, rejected, reversed, and release-from-restriction allocations are not claimable.
• The allocation is not already on another non-canceled claim. Canceling a draft releases its allocations for reuse.
• You are an organization member with write access. Viewer is read-only; cross-organization records are rejected. Claim creation and claim actions do not require the organization-admin role, although only an admin can change organization-wide QuickBooks permissions.
• Your plan has claim capacity remaining for the calendar month.

For the work that precedes a claim, see Allocating Transactions to Grants and Reviewing and Correcting Grant Allocations.

Create a Draft Claim

1. Open Claims at /claims.
2. Select Create Claim in the page header or the empty state.
3. Under Grant, choose an eligible grant.
4. Under Unclaimed Allocations, select one or more rows. Use Select All only after reviewing the complete list for that grant.
5. Review each row's transaction date, vendor or memo, and amount. GrantLink derives the claim period start and end from the earliest and latest selected transaction dates.
6. Optionally complete Period Label, Claim Label, and Internal Notes.
7. Review Total Claim Amount, then select Create Claim.

The saved claim and its claim lines are GrantLink records. Each line snapshots the allocation amount, transaction and line IDs, transaction date, vendor, memo, budget category, and program available at creation. The total is the sum of the selected allocation amounts. Creating this record does not create an invoice, request cash from a funder, post accounting activity, or change QuickBooks.

The selector is intentionally narrower than a general expense list. An allocation is omitted when it is already attached to an active claim. The server also rechecks ownership, grant, status, duplicate use, and restriction-release treatment when saving, so a stale dialog fails rather than claiming an ineligible row.

Understand the Draft Lifecycle

The current /claims page supports these user-facing actions:

Status	Current action	Result
Draft	Submit to QuickBooks	Currently fails closed; no QuickBooks Online invoice is created and the claim remains a local draft
Draft	Cancel Claim	Marks the local claim Canceled and makes its allocations available to a future claim
Submitted	Refresh from QuickBooks	Reads the already-linked QuickBooks Online invoice; zero balance marks it Paid, and a positive balance remains Open
Paid or Canceled	No row action	Retained as lifecycle history

GrantLink's backend supports changing lines only while a claim is Draft, but the current /claims table does not expose add-line, remove-line, or edit-details controls. You also cannot remove the final line through that backend operation; cancel the draft instead. A submitted claim cannot be canceled with Cancel Claim and would require a separate void workflow, which is not exposed on this page.

Refresh from QuickBooks is a read operation for a claim that already has a stored QuickBooks Online invoice ID. It cannot submit a local draft, discover an unrelated invoice, or refresh a claim that was never successfully linked. When it can run, GrantLink verifies the saved connection ownership and current QuickBooks Online account binding before applying the returned balance and sync token.

Filter and Inspect Claims

Use the compact view buttons at the top of the table:

• All claims
• Draft
• Submitted
• Paid
• Canceled

All claims groups records into collapsible lifecycle sections. Draft and Submitted start open; use a status view to focus on one group. Each row shows Claim, Created, Grant, Amount, and Submitted where screen width permits. The claim identity uses Claim Label, then a claim number, then a shortened record ID. Select the grant name to open that grant.

The current page has no text search, date/amount filter, sort control, row-selection details inspector, or claim-detail route. Use the status views and visible columns; retain the source support outside this list, and verify allocations in the grant's Allocations tab when detailed reconciliation is required.

Roles, Permissions, and Monthly Limits

• Organization members and admins can create and cancel claims; Viewers cannot write.
• Organization ownership is enforced for grants, allocations, claims, and the saved QuickBooks connection.
• Only admins can configure Settings > Permissions. The Create claim invoices option is an additional policy check, not proof that the provider writer is available.
• The creation limit counts local claim drafts per calendar month: Free 2, Starter 10, Professional 30, all agency plans 30, and Enterprise unlimited.
• GrantLink records usage only after inserting a claim and uses the claim ID as the usage event identity. Canceling a claim does not restore that month's plan capacity.

When the limit is reached, Create Claim opens the upgrade-required experience instead of creating another draft.

Reconcile the Claim Package

Before treating a draft as ready:

1. Reconcile its displayed amount to the selected approved or posted allocations.
2. Confirm every cost belongs to one grant and the intended reimbursement period.
3. Review budget categories and source support in the grant's Allocations tab.
4. Confirm none of the selected allocations represents a restriction release.
5. Create and submit the actual invoice through the currently approved external process.
6. Keep the local claim status distinct from the external invoice status. Because current GrantLink invoice submission is blocked, a newly created local claim remains Draft.

For broader source-system boundaries, see Welcome to GrantLink and Working with Your Accountant.