Managing Restricted Funds

GrantLink organizes donor-restricted grant income, expense allocations, restriction releases, evidence, and fund-balance reporting. QuickBooks remains the accounting record; GrantLink's restricted-fund workflows are a reconciliation and reporting layer.

Important: An expense does not reduce the exact restricted balance by itself. In GrantLink's restricted-fund rollforward, recognized income increases the balance and approved release activity reduces it. Expenses can support a release as evidence, but linking them does not create a release or post a journal entry.

For detailed release instructions, see Understanding and Using Restriction Releases in GrantLink.

Before You Start

Confirm that:

• The award agreement identifies whether the contribution is donor-restricted.
• The grant exists with the correct restriction classification and grant dates.
• QuickBooks is connected and current if income, expenses, or release entries originate there.
• The grant is linked to the correct QuickBooks tracking entity.
• Qualifying expense allocations are approved or posted before using them as release evidence.
• Your accountant has established when restrictions are satisfied and how release entries are recorded in QuickBooks.
• You are an authenticated organization member with write access. Read-only viewers cannot record receipts, allocations, or releases. Establishing initial fund-balance openings and preparing fiscal-year carry-forward are administrator actions.

Classify the Grant

When creating or editing the grant, select the classification that matches the award:

GrantLink classification	Use when
Without Donor Restrictions	The donor did not impose a time or purpose restriction
With Donor Restrictions – Time/Purpose	Funds must be used for a specified purpose or in a specified period
With Donor Restrictions – Perpetual	The principal must be maintained in perpetuity

Release workflows are available only for grants classified With Donor Restrictions. GrantLink does not determine the classification; use the executed award and your accounting policy.

Review Grant Income

1. Open the restricted grant.
2. Open its income area.
3. Use All income, QuickBooks, or Manual to review the source.
4. Confirm the amount, date, payer/customer, source transaction, and grant attribution.
5. If funds were received outside QuickBooks, select Add receipt, then complete Amount, Received Date, and optional Source, Reference, and Notes.

GrantLink's grant-income total combines recognized, grant-attributed QuickBooks income with manual receipts recorded outside QuickBooks. It suppresses legacy QuickBooks receipt rows already represented by recognized source activity to avoid duplicate income.

Income dated before the grant start is marked Prior-period income. It remains in lifetime income and opening-balance context but is excluded from current-period income and expense totals.

Source boundary: Not every QuickBooks revenue line automatically becomes grant income. Resolve missing, ambiguous, or incorrect grant attribution at the appropriate QuickBooks or GrantLink review surface, then sync again when the source changed.

Allocate Qualifying Expenses

1. In Ledger, identify synced operating expenses that belong to the grant.
2. Allocate each expense to the correct grant and, when known, budget line.
3. Complete the review process so qualifying allocations are Approved or Posted.
4. Open the grant's Allocations and reconcile those expenses to the source transactions and budget.

Only positive approved or posted expenses for the same grant can be used as restriction-release evidence. A release-side QuickBooks line cannot be used as evidence for another release. Evidence already applied to an active release is not available again beyond its unused amount.

Record or Sync Restriction Releases

Use one source for each release:

Situation	Workflow
The release entry exists in QuickBooks	Configure the release and paired accounts, sync, and resolve it in Releases
No synced QuickBooks release represents it	Record the release manually in the grant's Releases tab
Approved or posted expenses are already selected	Create the release from those selections in Allocations

Do not create a manual release that duplicates a QuickBooks-sourced entry.

Manual release boundary

A manual release is saved immediately as an approved GrantLink release record. It does not move cash, create an expense, or create or post a QuickBooks journal entry. Coordinate the underlying general-ledger entry with your accountant.

Evidence status

GrantLink compares active linked evidence with the release amount:

Status	Meaning
Missing	No qualifying expense evidence is linked
Partial	Evidence supports only part of the release
Complete	Evidence supports the release amount
Over-supported	Evidence exceeds the current release amount and needs review

Time-based, donor-modification, or other non-expense releases may require support outside expense allocations. Use the correct release reason and reference your controlled documentation.

Review Fund Balances

Use Fund Balances for the organization-wide restricted-fund rollforward. For an authoritative exact row, GrantLink calculates:

Ending restricted balance = opening restricted balance + recognized income − restriction releases + reviewed adjustments/transfers

Expenses are shown separately and help reconcile release support; they do not directly reduce this formula.

1. Open Fund Balances.
2. Select a valid reporting period that is not in the future.
3. Review opening balance, recognized income, releases, reviewed adjustments/transfers, expenses, and ending balance.
4. Investigate any readiness, attribution, release-attention, source-coverage, or reconciliation warning.
5. Export the workbook only after the rows and organization total are usable for your review purpose.

Exact reporting requires one active QuickBooks connection, a supported known home currency, source provenance, bounded data volume, and successful row and total reconciliation. When those requirements are not met, GrantLink withholds exact values rather than presenting them as authoritative; the export may fall back to a legacy report.

Administrator-only controls can establish an initial opening and prepare carry-forward for a completed fiscal year. Those controls support the GrantLink workpaper; they do not create accounting entries.

Verify the Restricted-Fund Lifecycle

On each close or reporting cadence:

1. Confirm the grant's restriction classification still matches the award and amendments.
2. Sync QuickBooks and clear relevant attribution or release exceptions.
3. Reconcile recognized income and manual receipts to source records without duplication.
4. Confirm qualifying expenses are allocated, approved or posted, and categorized correctly.
5. Reconcile each release to its QuickBooks entry or documented manual schedule.
6. Review missing, partial, and over-supported evidence.
7. Confirm the Fund Balances rollforward reconciles to the general ledger and approved release schedule.
8. Export the fund-balance and release workbooks needed for the reviewer or audit file.

Corrections and Edge Cases

• Wrong QuickBooks income or release entry: Correct the source in QuickBooks and sync. Do not create a manual duplicate to make GrantLink agree.
• Wrong manual receipt: Edit or remove the manual receipt, then recheck lifetime and period income.
• Wrong release: Reverse the GrantLink release with an effective reversal date and reason, then record the correction separately. Correct a QuickBooks-sourced entry in QuickBooks too.
• Expense evidence changed: Review the active evidence and release status. Linking evidence does not change the allocation or count the expense twice.
• Prior-period income: Keep it in opening/lifetime context; do not expect it in current-period income.
• Ambiguous attribution: Exact restricted reporting may withhold the amount until the source and grant assignment are resolved.

Important Accounting Boundary

GrantLink can organize restricted-grant records, recognized income, manual receipts, effective expenses, release records, evidence, exceptions, rollforwards, exports, and activity history. It does not decide when a restriction is satisfied, provide accounting advice, post a manually recorded release to QuickBooks, or replace the general ledger, award agreement, accounting policy, or professional review.