Grant Management
Find, win and administer grants in one place: an eligibility gate, a ranked pipeline, allowability checked against the regulation when a cost is coded, the SEFA and single-audit test, SF-425 figures from your own ledger, and closeout with release from restriction.
Muin’s Grant Management covers an inbound grant from the day someone spots the opportunity to the day the award closes. One record holds the whole life of the award, and the money charged to it is traceable in the general ledger by award, not by fund.
Why Grant Management?
Managing grants in spreadsheets leads to:
- Missed opportunities - funding you never heard about
- Missed deadlines - application and reporting dates slip
- Questioned costs - a cost the regulation forbids, discovered at audit
- Figures that do not tie - a report to the funder that your books cannot support
With Muin:
- A ranked pipeline - the opportunity that deserves the next hour, with the reason
- An eligibility answer before you write - five criteria, each naming the record it read
- Allowability at the point of coding a cost - the refusal arrives before the money moves
- Figures derived from your ledger - the funder report is built from what you actually spent
Where it lives
| Surface | How to reach it |
|---|---|
| The pipeline board | Nonprofit > Grant Seeking > Received Grants |
| One award | click any card on the board |
| Proposals and the answer library | Nonprofit > Grant Seeking > Proposals |
| The grant calendar and alerts | the Grant Calendar tile on the Nonprofit Overview |
| Analytics, the SEFA and the single-audit test | Nonprofit > Reporting & Analytics > Grant Seeking |
Grant Discovery
Where opportunities come from
Muin reads two kinds of public source:
- Grants.gov, the federal catalog.
- Sub-federal government portals published as open data for the jurisdictions your organization operates in.
Each source is declared in a registry rather than hardcoded. A portal that is named in the registry and cannot be read is reported as unread, so a quiet source never looks like an absence of funding.
Muin does not aggregate private foundation databases or corporate giving portals. Those opportunities are recorded by hand on the pipeline board.
AI matching
Muin scores published opportunities against your organization profile: what you do, where you are incorporated, the size of award you can absorb, and the eligible-applicant language in the notice. Scoring ranks what to read first. It does not decide eligibility, which has its own gate below.
Turning a finding into a tracked grant
On a Grant Finder match row, Track creates the opportunity as an identified grant on your
pipeline and links straight to it. Tracking the same opportunity twice does not create a second
record, and the action says which of the two happened, so a repeat scan cannot inflate your
pipeline. Tracking researches the funder; drafting starts only after you decide to pursue the
grant.
The Pipeline
The board
The board groups every inbound grant by stage, from identified through to completed,
declined, withdrawn or lapsed. Four of those are terminal, and every transition button
confirms with the consequence stated in plain words before it fires. Recording funds as
received creates a contribution and posts a journal entry, so that one asks you to type the
status.
Ranking
Above the board, Opportunity ranking orders your pre-award pipeline on three axes: eligibility, award size and urgency. Eligibility carries twice the weight of award size, and award size twice the weight of urgency.
Two rules keep the ranking honest:
- An axis nobody can answer yet is left out of the score. It is never scored zero.
- An opportunity you are not eligible for sorts last on its own flag, with the block named. “Ranked last” and “cannot be applied for” read differently, because they are different facts.
Eligibility
Open an award and go to the Compliance tab. The eligibility panel answers five questions, and each answer names the single record it was resolved from:
| Criterion | Read from |
|---|---|
| Entity structure the notice admits | your filing profile’s entity structure |
| Faith-based exclusions in the notice | your exempt status |
| Charitable registration in the states required | your registration records, state by state |
| Capacity to meet the required match | the funder’s match percentage against your committed match |
| Cash to float a reimbursement award | unrestricted fund balance |
The verdict has three values, not two. A criterion nobody has answered yet comes back as
incomplete. It never comes back as eligible.
Writing And Deciding
Score a draft against the funder’s rubric
Record the notice of funding opportunity’s own rubric on the award, then score a draft against it criterion by criterion. A criterion the rubric does not contain is dropped and reported. A rubric line the model did not score comes back unscored rather than as a zero.
The answer library
Answers you have already written are saved, keyed on a normalized form of the question, so two phrasings of one question resolve to one answer. The library is ordered most-used first. Browsing does not count as use, because counting a browse would make that ordering meaningless within a week.
The readiness checklist
Per funder, the checklist names what is still missing and the record behind each gap. Filing it creates one task and refreshes that same task as gaps close, rather than adding a second one.
Decision tracking
Two signals tell you an award has been decided:
- The mailbox. Inbound email from the funder’s own address or domain after your submission.
- USAspending.gov. A published federal obligation to your organization.
Each leg says what it did. A federal leg that was not consulted reports that it was not looked up, which is different from reporting no match.
The Award Record
An award opens on seven tabs. Six are always present and one appears only where it applies.
| Tab | What is on it |
|---|---|
| Overview | funder, amounts, period, owner, status, and the decision signals while a decision is pending |
| Compliance | readiness, eligibility, the funder’s rubric, allowability, the spend plan, and the obligations you owe |
| Federal award | present only on an award you have declared federal: indirect cost, match, subawards, effort certification, the SAM watch, and SF-425 |
| Reporting | the reports this funder is owed, and the ones generated |
| Documents | the award letter, the agreement, reports and supporting files |
| Timeline | what happened on this award, in order |
| Financial | the general-ledger view of this award, and closeout |
Allowability At The Point Of Coding A Cost
This is the part that changes how a grant is administered.
Rule packs
Muin ships eight versioned rule packs:
| Pack | Covers |
|---|---|
| Federal cost principles | 2 CFR 200 Subpart E, 18 rules, each citing its own section |
| DHS NSGP | assistance listing 97.008 |
| HUD CDBG | assistance listing 14.218 |
| AmeriCorps | assistance listing 94.006 |
| USDA TEFAP | assistance listing 10.568 |
| Faith-based conditions | conditions that attach to a faith-based recipient |
| State grant conditions (two packs) | the conditions a state attaches to its own grants, one pack per state Muin models; the award’s Compliance tab names the governing pack and its authority |
Every rule carries the dates it was in force, so a pack resolves as of a date. The question asked at audit is not “what does the regulation say today” but “which version governed this approval”, and a pack with only a transcription date cannot answer that.
Packs are layered general first and specific last, so a program notice can permit something the general principles only gate. A prohibition is the exception: once any rule in force prohibits a cost, a later pack cannot quietly reverse it, and the answer names the rule and the pack that forbade it. The result does not depend on the order the packs happen to be listed in.
The check at approval
Name an award on a cost and that cost comes under the award’s rules at approval. The picker is on expenses, bills, purchase orders, aid payments, manual journal entries, grant disbursements and funder reports.
At approval, Muin returns one of four answers:
| Answer | What happens |
|---|---|
| Cleared | the approval proceeds, and the decision is recorded with the rule that permitted it |
| Blocked | the approval is refused, naming the pack, the rule in plain words, and the regulation citation |
| Overridden | a blocked cost approved anyway, with a written reason stored on the same record as the treatment it overrode |
| Not assessed | no pack addressed this cost, reported as such |
Three details matter:
- A cost requiring the agency’s prior approval is blocked. Muin cannot see the agency’s letter, and clearing it would clear exactly the costs that produce audit findings.
- “Not assessed” is never reported as allowable. The sentence says how many packs govern the award and that none of them addresses this cost.
- A blocked approval records nothing. The approval did not happen, so no record claims it did.
Every cleared and overridden decision is stored with the pack identifier and version and the regulation cited, because the question is asked two years later and the pack may have been revised since.
The spend plan
The Compliance tab’s spend plan shows the balance remaining per budget category, matches open needs against the categories the regulation allows, and flags the ones that need prior approval or a procurement process. Where there is still time, it drafts the budget modification or the no-cost extension request, and one tap turns the plan into assigned work.
The unspent warning is pack data with its citation, not a rule of thumb. An award governed by no pack reports that no threshold is on file rather than reporting that nothing is at risk.
Federal Award Management
The Federal award tab appears once you declare an award federal.
Indirect cost recovery
The de minimis rate and the base are pack data. The base is Modified Total Direct Costs as 2 CFR 200.1 defines it, which excludes the portion of each subaward above the pack’s cap. A cost category Muin does not recognize is excluded from the base and reported, so the base is never quietly wrong.
Cost share and match
Required, committed and documented, with each gap named. The required amount is derived from the award amount and the match percentage the funder set. Muin does not derive what you have actually contributed; that is documentation you record.
Subawards and pass-through
Every subaward under the award, with the subrecipient’s unique entity identifier that 2 CFR 200.332(b)(1) requires, and both liquidation clocks. The subrecipient’s clock is the shorter one. A required data element that is missing is named one by one.
Time and effort certification
Certification periods are created once they have ended. An award with no period of performance reports that the windows cannot be stated.
SAM.gov registration watch
The watch reads your own filing entity and names each finding, including an expiring registration. An organization with no filing entity on record is itself the finding.
Procurement
An order funded by an award is checked against the buying method for its band on the procurement date: micro-purchase up to $15,000, small purchase with quotes up to $350,000, and a formal method (sealed bids or competitive proposals) above that. A self-certified micro-purchase threshold, up to $50,000, applies when you have recorded one. An order charged to no award is left alone. The full rules are in Grant Procurement Compliance.
The SEFA And The Single-Audit Test
Nonprofit > Reporting & Analytics > Grant Seeking carries the Schedule of Expenditures of Federal Awards.
- Rows are grouped by assistance listing number as 2 CFR 200.510(b)(2) requires, with the portion passed through to subrecipients on each row per 200.510(b)(6).
- The total is what was expended, which is the figure 2 CFR 200.501 turns on.
- The window is your fiscal year, resolved from your organization profile. A calendar year applied to a July-to-June organization totals the wrong twelve months and can decide the single-audit question either way.
- The threshold is pack data resolved for the year being reported. Where no pack states one, the schedule says so and makes no determination.
- An award with nothing attributed in the window is counted and reported as such. It is never published as a zero row, because “nothing charged here” and “zero spent” are different facts.
This readout is organization-wide, because the single-audit test is a property of the organization rather than of any one award.
Reporting
SF-425 from your own figures
The Federal award tab derives the Federal Financial Report and labels every value with its own form line number.
- Lines 10a to 10c are left empty with a stated reason. They are cash-basis and depend on drawdowns Muin cannot see. The accrual expenditure Muin can defend is on line 10e.
- Lines 10d through 10h are cumulative for the whole award, so 10h is a subtraction of like for like.
- An unliquidated obligation lands on 10f and moves 10g and 10h with it.
- An award with nothing attributed says so on line 10e.
- A reporting period whose end precedes its start is refused.
An empty line with a reason is the honest answer. A derived guess on a form filed with a federal agency is not.
Funder reports
The Reporting tab generates the reports a funder is owed from the award’s own figures and records what was submitted and when.
Obligations and reminders
Record what the funder requires as typed obligations on the Compliance tab: reports, audits,
certifications, procurement steps, prior approvals and closeout items, each with its due date.
Each obligation is pending, met, not met or waived. “Due soon” is derived from the due
date rather than stored, so a roll-up can never disagree with the rows it summarizes.
The reminder ladder is one task that escalates rather than a series of separate notifications:
| Rung | Priority |
|---|---|
| 30 days before due | medium |
| 7 days before due | high |
| overdue | urgent |
The award-level compliance state is derived from these rows, with three values: compliant, at risk, and non-compliant. “No obligations on file” is carried as its own fact, because it is not the same as compliant.
Financial Tracking
The grant ledger
The Financial tab reports revenue recognized and expenditure for the award from the general ledger, by award. Every money path that can be attributed to an inbound grant carries the award on its posting, so the figure is the award’s own and not its fund’s.
Two details:
- A posting with no award on it is reported as unattributed. It is not counted as zero.
- A reversed posting and its reversal are both excluded, so a reversal nets to zero on the award rather than appearing twice with opposite signs.
Budget versus actual
Spend against the award’s budget by category, with an overspent category reporting a negative balance rather than a floor of zero.
Closeout
The checklist
The Financial tab’s closeout panel runs up to six checks and reports the count beside the verdict, so you see “N of M checks met” rather than a bare verdict. Every open check names the record behind the gap.
| Check | Met when |
|---|---|
| Period of performance has ended | the award’s period end has passed |
| Every reporting obligation met or waived | no obligation is still open |
| No money is still committed against the award | nothing is unliquidated |
| Award money is accounted for in the ledger | the award’s ledger reconciles |
| Satisfied restriction released | present only on a restricted award |
| Every subaward carries its required data elements | present only where there are subawards |
Release from restriction
On a restricted award, Release restriction posts the ASC 958-205-45-9 reclassification: debit net assets with donor restrictions, credit net assets without. It is a reclassification rather than revenue, so it nets to zero across the two classes, and your Statement of Activities reports it on its own line in both columns with the total change in net assets unchanged.
Three safeguards:
- The amount available to release is the satisfied spend less what has already been released. It is never the award amount.
- A request above that amount is refused, with the three figures named. It is not capped silently.
- The same release submitted twice on one day posts once and reports the entry that already exists.
The audit pack
Download audit pack produces one archive for the award whose manifest lists what is inside and names anything that could not be included, with the reason. For a federal award it carries the federal files; for a non-federal award it names the federal files that do not apply. It includes the allowability decisions with the pack that governed each one.
Calendar
Grant obligations recorded on the Compliance tab are published to the Muin calendar as dated events, so a reporting deadline appears alongside everything else the organization has to do that week. The calendar is the same one the rest of the platform writes to; the obligation rows remain the authority for what the award still owes.
Access
Grant surfaces are gated on the grants feature in your plan plus the permission on the user’s role. View permission opens every readout. Edit permission is required to change award terms, declare rule packs, approve an override, post a release, or move an award’s status. One owner can be assigned per award.
On A Phone
The Muin app’s home screen surfaces the one grant deadline that needs attention, naming the award, the subject and the days remaining. Tapping it opens a read-only view of the award with its deadlines, money and obligations, and names where the actions live. The card hides itself when there is no live award or nothing due inside 30 days.
What Muin Does Not Do
Stated plainly, because knowing the edge of a tool is part of using it:
- It does not draw down federal cash. SF-425 lines 10a to 10c come back empty with a reason.
- It does not file anything with an agency. It derives the figures and labels them by form line. A person files the form.
- It does not perform your single audit. It tells you whether the threshold is crossed and gives the auditor the schedule.
- It does not aggregate private foundation or corporate funder databases.
- It does not decide a cost the regulation is silent on. It reports that it was not assessed.
Best Practices
Before you apply
- Check eligibility first. The gate reads your own records and takes a minute.
- Work the ranking, not the inbox. The order findings arrive in has no relation to what deserves your time.
- Record the rubric. Scoring a draft against the funder’s own criteria beats a read-through.
- Save the answer. The next application asks the same question.
Once you hold the award
- Declare the rule packs on day one. The allowability check cannot help an award whose governing regulation is not recorded.
- Record the obligations with their dates. The reminder ladder has nothing to escalate otherwise.
- Name the award on every cost. A cost charged to no award is invisible to the ledger, the SEFA and the release ceiling.
- Read the unspent warning early. A liquidation window closes faster than a procurement.
- Write the override reason for the person who reads it in two years. It is stored with the rule it overrode.
Troubleshooting
The Federal award tab is missing
The award is not declared federal. Declare it on the Compliance tab’s rule-pack form; the tab appears from that flag.
The allowability check says nothing was checked
No rule pack governs the award. Record whether it is a federal award and its assistance listing number, then re-check.
The grant ledger shows nothing spent
Costs were approved without an award named on them. Name the award on the cost and re-approve; the ledger reads the award on the posting.
A SEFA row shows nothing attributed
Nothing has been charged to that award inside the fiscal year on the schedule. Check the award’s own ledger before concluding the spend is missing.
Closeout will not let the award close
Read the check that is not met. Each one names the record behind the gap: an open obligation, an unliquidated commitment, a subaward missing a required element, or a release that has not been posted.
Next Steps
- Cash Flow - overall financial management
- Invoices - invoice processing
- Building Workflows - automate grant tasks