Grant Postaward Compliance

---
name: grant-postaward-compliance
description: "Manage a grant AFTER the award — set up, spend only on allowable/allocable/reasonable costs, track budget-vs-actual monthly, report on cadence, stay audit-ready through close-out. Reach for this once a grant is won (the post-award/compliance side; the pre-award qualify→write side is qualify-the-funder)."
---

# Skill: Grant post-award compliance

The proposal is what you said you'd do; the award is now money you must spend, track, report, and defend. This is the post-award lifecycle. Read [`../../knowledge/grant-management-post-award.md`](../../knowledge/grant-management-post-award.md) for the cited decision trees and the regulatory specifics — **every regulatory number there is `[verify-at-use]`; this is advisory, not legal/accounting/audit advice (§2).**

## Step 1 — Set up the award
Read the award terms and budget end-to-end. Build a budget ledger by category, assign an owner per line, and calendar **every** deadline (financial reports, programmatic reports, drawdown windows, period-of-performance end). For federal/pass-through money, note the indirect-rate basis (NICRA or de-minimis) and the records-retention period.

## Step 2 — Spend within allowable costs
Before charging any cost, run the **allowable-cost determination** tree (knowledge doc): allowable → allocable → reasonable, then classify direct vs indirect. Pay anything that fails from unrestricted funds, not the grant. Keep the source document with every charge.

## Step 3 — Track budget-vs-actual every month
Reconcile actuals to the approved budget by category **monthly, not at report time** — approved vs YTD-actual vs remaining vs % expended vs burn rate. A line trending past ~10% variance is the early signal to correct spending or request a modification. Use [`../../templates/grant-budget-vs-actual-tracker.md`](../../templates/grant-budget-vs-actual-tracker.md).

## Step 4 — Report on cadence
Submit both the **financial** report (budget-vs-actual + variance narrative) and the **programmatic** report (outcomes vs objectives) on the funder's cadence, before the deadline. Write the programmatic report results-forward (see [`../../best-practices/grant-reporting-is-the-next-grant-relationship.md`](../../best-practices/grant-reporting-is-the-next-grant-relationship.md)). Tie drawdowns to recorded, allowable expenditures.

## Step 5 — Modify before you need to
If the plan must change, request the budget revision or no-cost extension **in writing, before** acting — many changes need prior written approval, and an unapproved change can create a disallowed cost. Document request, approval, and revised budget in the file.

## Step 6 — Close out audit-ready
Keep a retrieval-ready document trail at all times (ledger → source doc → budget line → award terms), monitor any subrecipients, and check the **Single Audit threshold** each fiscal year `[verify-at-use]`. At close-out: final report + final drawdown + retain the file for the records-retention window.

## Output
A post-award compliance read: a set-up checklist, an allowable-cost determination for the costs in question, a current budget-vs-actual, the next reporting deadlines, any needed modification, and an audit-readiness status — each regulatory specific carrying a `[verify-at-use]` confirmation step (§3 #8) and an owner + date.