Welcome to GrantLink
Learn how GrantLink turns synced QuickBooks activity into grant budgets, allocations, income tracking, reports, claims, and review workflows without changing QuickBooks.
On this page
GrantLink is a grant-management and reporting workspace for nonprofit finance teams and accountants. It syncs accounting data from QuickBooks Online (QuickBooks Online), matches that activity to grants, and adds GrantLink-owned budgets, allocations, reporting classifications, documents, reports, claims, and history.
Accounting boundary: QuickBooks remains the accounting source of truth. GrantLink does not replace the general ledger, decide whether a cost is allowable, or remove the need for your organization's accounting policies and review.
Before You Start
Confirm that you have:
- Access to the correct GrantLink organization
- An Intuit user who can authorize the intended QuickBooks Online company, if it is not connected yet
- Agreement on which QuickBooks Online Customers, sub-customers, Projects, Locations, or Classes identify each grant's expenses and money received
- Award documents, approved budgets, dates, and reporting requirements for the grants you will add
- An accounting owner who can resolve incorrect source transactions in QuickBooks Online
The GrantLink Workflow
| Stage | Where to work | What GrantLink owns |
|---|---|---|
| Connect and sync | Settings > Sync | Connection status, sync controls, and imported QuickBooks Online data |
| Set the product boundary | Settings > Permissions | The organization's saved permission configuration; see the current limitation below |
| Create grants | Grants > Add Grant | Grant metadata, documents, dates, status, and reporting setup |
| Match QuickBooks Online activity | Grant Details > QuickBooks links | Rules that match existing QuickBooks Online records to a grant |
| Build the plan | Grant Budget | GrantLink budget periods, lines, and amounts |
| Review spending | Ledger, Allocations, and grant Allocations | Grant reporting assignments, splits, budget-line categories, and exception review |
| Review funding | Grant Income and Funding Shares | GrantLink views and reporting classifications for receipts, match, cost share, in-kind share, and related requirements |
| Prepare outputs | Chats > New Chat, grant Reports, and Claims | Draft reports, saved report records, and claim preparation |
| Resolve work | Todos and Activity | Queued follow-up and GrantLink history |
The sidebar also includes Dashboard, Funders, and Settings. Releases appears only when restriction-release or restricted-funds functionality is available. Agency-plan organizations have a different sidebar.
Add and Organize a Grant
Open Grants and select Add Grant. The page is a manual grant form with an optional document-assisted path:
- Enter the details directly; or
- Use Browse, or drop PDF award letters, RFPs, or agreements anywhere on the page, to auto-fill fields.
Document extraction creates suggestions, not authoritative award data. Review every field before creating the grant. If extraction fails, continue manually.
After the details are saved, the flow offers a QuickBooks-linking step. You can link existing QuickBooks Online records or skip linking and keep the grant app-only. If your organization already represents grants as QuickBooks Online Classes, Customers, Locations, or Projects, Import from QuickBooks is a separate bulk-creation path; it is not the document auto-fill workflow and may require compatible mapping configuration.
For full field guidance, see Creating and Managing Grants.
Understand QuickBooks Links
On a grant's Details tab, open QuickBooks links and configure the existing QuickBooks Online records used for:
- Expenses
- Money received
The purposes may use different records, and a grant may use more than one compatible record. GrantLink uses these links to match synced activity and drive reporting workflows.
Product boundary: Adding, removing, or changing a grant's QuickBooks links changes GrantLink matching only. It does not create, edit, retag, or relink anything in QuickBooks Online.
An empty link set is valid for an app-only grant, but QuickBooks Online transactions will not automatically match it. If activity is missing or incorrectly coded at the source, correct it in QuickBooks Online and sync again.
Use the Grant Workspace
Current grant tabs are:
| Tab | Primary use |
|---|---|
| Overview | Position, progress, and exceptions at a glance |
| Details | Award metadata, documents, reporting setup, and QuickBooks links |
| Budget | Approved budget structure and budget-versus-actual context |
| Income | Synced and tracked grant receipts |
| Allocations | Expenses assigned to the grant and their budget categories |
| Releases | Restriction-release records; shown only when available for the grant and organization |
| Indirect Costs | Indirect-cost configuration and calculations |
| Funding Shares | Match, cost share, in-kind, program income, and related requirements |
| Reports | Reports associated with the grant |
| Activity | Grant history and changes |
QuickBooks Permission Status
Settings > Permissions opens the QuickBooks Permissions page, which currently displays these configuration choices:
- Read-only reporting
- Selected writebacks
- Full writeback / automation
However, the current backend globally blocks all QuickBooks Online company-data mutations while its writeback control plane is being rebuilt. Saving Selected writebacks or Full writeback / automation does not currently enable company-data writeback. Importing synced records, linking existing QuickBooks Online entities, and making GrantLink-only reporting assignments can still work because they do not mutate QuickBooks Online.
If no policy has been saved, the effective backend policy defaults to read-only, even though the page may display a legacy-policy notice. For a clear organizational record, an admin should save Read-only reporting. Do not rely on the selected or full options as evidence that a QuickBooks Online write occurred; verify accounting changes in QuickBooks Online itself.
Verify Your Setup
Before relying on a grant report:
- Confirm the company shown in Settings > Sync is the intended QuickBooks Online company and the latest sync succeeded.
- Open the grant's Details > QuickBooks links and verify both Expenses and Money received, or confirm that the grant is intentionally app-only.
- Compare the grant dates, award amount, funder, and Budget with approved source documents.
- Trace a sample item from Ledger to its grant Allocations record and QuickBooks Online source.
- Review Todos and allocation exceptions rather than assuming every synced transaction matched.
- Reconcile Income, spending, and report scope to the accounting records before submission.
See Quick Start Guide for a first-grant walkthrough and Grant Detail Navigation for a closer tour of the grant workspace.
Explore related areas
Related help
Quick Start Guide
Connect and verify QuickBooks, create or import a grant, configure matching links, build its budget, review allocations and income, and prepare a draft report.
Understanding GrantLink Dashboards
Interpret GrantLink's organization dashboard and grant-level expense position, verify their formulas and source records, and open the workflow behind an exception.
Inviting Team Members
Learn how to add team members to your organization and manage their permissions.
See how this workflow fits your QuickBooks data
Review how GrantLink adds grant budgets, transaction allocation, and funder reporting without replacing QuickBooks Online.