Nonprofits and grant-funded programs

Restricted funds, grant budgets and the statement of functional expenses, from one set of books.

For nonprofits that run on grants and restricted gifts. Fintra keeps each fund's permitted uses, releases restrictions when the terms are met, and checks every grant charge against its budget line.
Book a demoLog in

Restricted funds this month

Example figures
Literacy grant, Smith Foundation: Release ready
$12,400
Capital campaign pledge, second payment: Waiting for the gift
$25,000
Supplies charged to the youth fund: Held, outside permitted use
$1,180
Federal award claim, third quarter: Claim ready
$48,300
Example figures from a sample nonprofit

Where nonprofit books go wrong today.

  1. Restricted money spent as if it were free

    A gift for the youth program pays a utility bill, and nobody sees it until the audit.

  2. Grant budgets kept in a spreadsheet

    Charges land in the ledger, the budget lives elsewhere, and each claim is rebuilt by hand.

  3. Releases booked late

    A restriction is met in March and released in December, so net assets are wrong all year.

  4. Functional expenses split once a year

    Program, management and fundraising costs are divided at year end instead of as they happen.

What Fintra does for nonprofits

Fintra keeps a nonprofit's books with restricted funds, grant awards and the statements your board and auditor read. Each fund knows what it may pay for, every grant charge is checked against its budget line, and a release from restriction posts when its terms are met.

  • Restricted funds and releases
  • Grants, claims and federal awards
  • Functional expenses and net assets
  • Endowment and the board pack

Statement of functional expenses

Example figures
Program services, youth literacy
$412,000
Management and general, administration
$96,500
Fundraising, events and appeals
$41,200
Example figures. Each column foots to the ledger.

How it fits what you keep.

Your bank, your payroll provider and your donor database stay. Fintra keeps the funds, gifts, grants and statements on its own books.

Stays in your bank, payroll and donor database

Kept as they are

  • Bank accounts
  • Payroll provider
  • Donor database
  • Your auditor's workpapers

Fintra does not connect to donor databases: donors, gifts and pledges are recorded in Fintra, and each gift can be matched to the bank deposit it arrived in.

Fintra runs

Finance, Trust and People, plus the two nonprofit jobs below

  • Funds and their permitted uses
  • Gifts, pledges and releases
  • Grant awards, budgets and claims
  • Indirect rates and amendments
  • Time and effort, and cost allocation
  • Federal awards schedule
  • Endowment valuations
  • Statements and the board pack

Moving from another ledger? Fintra runs the books itself. A guided import turns your current ledger's export into a balanced opening entry, and opening restrictions carry each fund's balance across.

Two jobs built for nonprofits.

Each runs on the same ledger, approvals and evidence as the rest of Fintra.

Funds, gifts and releases

Restricted money kept to its terms

Each fund carries its terms and the uses it permits. Gifts and pledges post to the right fund, a spend outside a fund's permitted uses is held or sent for a decision, and a release moves the money when its terms are met, approved by someone other than the person who asked for it.

  • Funds with terms and permitted uses
  • Gifts, pledges and recurring gift plans
  • Spend review that holds or routes a charge that does not fit
  • Releases from restriction, with the reason kept

Grants and federal awards

From award terms to the money received

An award carries its budget lines and indirect rate, and an amendment to its budget is approved by a second person. Charges are checked against the budget, a claim lists the charges behind it and is approved by a second person, and the schedule of expenditures of federal awards is built from the same entries, with its notes.

  • Award budgets and indirect rates
  • Amendments with their approval
  • Claims built from allowable charges
  • Schedule of expenditures of federal awards, with notes

One grant award

Example figures
Award
$250,000
Budget lines and indirect rate set
Claimed to date
$148,300
Each claim lists its charges
Left to claim
$101,700
Example figures from a sample nonprofit.

Everything else your business runs on

Accounting, budgeting, HR and security run on the same books, approvals and evidence as everything above, so nothing is copied between systems.

Accounting and the month-end close

Transactions are recorded, categorized and reconciled, and the close entries are drafted for a named person to approve. Double-entry, ASC 606 and multi-currency, with statements from the posted books.

See accounting and the close

Budgets, forecasts and budget vs. actuals

Budgets, scenario forecasts and driver models that read the posted books directly, so there is no export to keep in step.

See budgeting and forecasting

HR and people

Onboarding, time off, cases and an HR help desk that answers routine questions, with hiring and headcount plans kept against the finance budget.

See HR and people

Security with SentriAI

A bill payment a person records, a change to a vendor's bank details and a change to a person's role, whether a person or an AI agent asks for it, are each allowed, held for approval or blocked before they happen, with the reason written down. Every decision is sealed into a hash-chained record an auditor can recompute.

See how SentriAI checks actions

Payroll

Coming soon

Payroll on the same books as your accounting, budgets and HR is coming soon.

Read about payroll

The same books, approvals and controls, set up for nonprofits

Finance

Statements that foot to the ledger, by fund and by function.

The statements of financial position, activities, functional expenses and cash flows, the net asset roll-forward and the board pack all read the same posted entries.

See budgets against actuals
  • Statement of functional expenses
  • Net asset roll-forward
  • Grant and program budgets against actuals
  • Board pack

Trust

Every spend against a restricted fund is checked before it posts.

A charge outside a fund's permitted use is held for a person, and the decision is kept as evidence for your auditor.

See how actions are checked
  • Permitted-use check on every charge
  • Approval by a named second person
  • Evidence kept with each decision
  • Controls from the funds held for others set

People

Time and effort certified, and shared costs allocated by approved rules.

Staff certify their time and effort, allocation runs spread shared costs by rules a second person approved, and payroll stays with the provider you use today.

See people and HR
  • Time and effort certification
  • Allocation rules and runs
  • Each allocation run approved by a second person
  • Approvals kept with the evidence

Customer success

Funder requests and partner delivery.

Support and success work from the same accounts and invoices as the books. A billing question is answered from the customer’s own open invoices, and a request is assigned to the person who owns the follow-up.

  • Billing answers from the customer's own open invoices
  • Requests assigned to an owner
  • Service policies and response times
  • Customer satisfaction kept with each case

The workpapers, the board pack and the deadlines, from the same books.

What a preparer, an auditor and a board read is laid out from the posted entries, with the accounts behind each figure.

Form 990 workpaper

The year's books laid out on the lines of Part VIII (revenue), Part IX (functional expenses) and Part X (the balance sheet), with the accounts behind every line; an account with activity and no line is listed with its amount, so nothing is left out unseen. It is a workpaper for your preparer, not a return.

Reports your firm signs

Your accounting firm can prepare the financial statements, the statement of functional expenses, grant compliance, the schedule of expenditures of federal awards and the net asset roll-forward from your records, each signed by a preparer and a reviewer and kept as a version.

A board pack frozen as it stood

Freezing a meeting's board pack keeps the figures for its period and the statements a second person reviewed. A later posting changes the books, never the pack, and board members read it without changing anything.

Deadlines on one calendar

Each filing deadline is a row on the compliance calendar with an owner and a due date, marked done only with its evidence, and which annual return your receipts and assets point to is read from the rule in force.

Fintra for nonprofits today

Fintra keeps a nonprofit's books on its own ledger, with its own screens: funds and their permitted uses, gifts, pledges and releases, grant awards with budgets, indirect rates, claims and subawards, time and effort and cost allocation, the schedule of expenditures of federal awards, endowment, and statements by fund and by function that foot to the ledger. A release, a change to what a fund may pay for, a budget amendment, a spend review's decision, an allocation run and a claim each need a second person. Fintra does not connect to donor databases: donors, gifts and pledges are recorded in Fintra. Fintra does not file Form 990: its Form 990 workpaper lays the books out on the form's lines, and your preparer files the return.

Pages by role

One set of books runs the whole back office. These pages start from the job you do.

Bring one grant to a 15-minute demo.

We will set up the award, charge a cost against its budget, release a restriction and show the statement of functional expenses, on sample data or your own.

Book a demoLog in