Grants Management – Planning and Close-Out Meetings

​Since the grants management process is usually decentralized, your agency’s effectiveness and efficiency in managing grants depends heavily on how well employees in Finance communicate with the grants managers in various departments.
 
In this post below, we’ll explain how to achieve the best-possible results for governments grants management by incorporating planning and close-out meetings into your agenda.

What happens if you don’t communicate well?

​Lack of effective communication makes it more likely that your agency will experience the following common problems:

• Inefficiency due to redundant record keeping
• Inaccurate reimbursement requests due to obtaining expenditure information from records that are not correct or not reconciled to the general ledger
• Incorrect account coding
• Lack of compliance with key grant requirements due to either not identifying the most important such requirements or confusion over who is responsible for assuring compliance
• Lack of timely filing of grant reports
• Inefficiency due to employees being unable to easily locate important grant files

​In order for your agency to minimize the risk of encountering these problems, we strongly recommend that you hold a planning meeting when each grant is received, and a close-out meeting when each grant ends.

​Below, we’ll go over the items both of these meeting should cover and achieve.

​First, in the Planning Meeting, you will:

1. Review responsibilities and procedures – Review your entity’s grants management procedures and clarify who is responsible for grants accounting, billing compliance, record keeping, etc.
2. Agree on key compliance requirements – Review the grant agreement to determine the key compliance requirements your agency is responsible for following. Make a list of these requirements and determine (a) who is responsible for assuring compliance, (b) how frequently compliance will be checked, and (c) how compliance will be documented.
3. Identify required billing information – Determine what information is needed to be reported to the grantor. Identify how such information will be accumulated and where it will be maintained.

​Who should be in the Planning Meeting?
We recommend that the grants manager and all Finance Department employees responsible for grant accounting participate in the Planning Meeting. This will ensure that all key people stay informed and know which action items to follow up on.

​When should you hold the Planning Meeting?
The planning meeting should be held immediately upon the grant being awarded to your agency.

​Next; near the end of the grant but before the final bill is submitted, we recommend you hold a Close-out Meeting with the same employees who participated in the planning meeting (i.e. the grants manager(s) and Finance Department employees responsible for grant accounting).

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​In the Close-out Meeting, you will:

1. Assure Grant Files are complete (see the link for a list of what grant files need to include).
2. Review the final bill to assure all eligible costs have been billed.
3. Review required grantor close-out documents and agree on who will prepare.
4. Identify open items.

​The Close-out Meeting should be held near the end of the grant but before the final bill is submitted.

Holding both a planning meeting when a new grant is received, and a close-out meeting when a grant ends, will help your government stay informed on open items and to-dos, and helps keep track of all grant status. Need help on how to create a proper grant status report? Download a useful Excel template for free in our post here.
For even more tips on better grant record keeping, check out this post.

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If you’d like a personalized consultation for your grants management, please email or call Kevin directly – at no cost:
 
Kevin Harper, CPA
kharper@kevinharpercpa.com
(510) 593-503

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