Case studies / Public Sector and Non-profit
Case studyDonor reporting for a non-profit organisation
A non-profit working from several offices replaced hand-assembled donor and grant reports with common fund accounting, procurement and reporting processes on shared data.
Overview
A non-profit organisation delivering community health, education and livelihood programmes through several regional offices, funded by institutional donors, foundations, public grants and individual giving.
Scale. Around 5 offices, about 40 active grants and restricted funds, more than 20 institutional donors with their own reporting formats and a shared procurement team, delivered as a phased, multi-location programme.
The challenge
Reports were assembled by hand. Each donor wanted spending reported against its own budget lines, periods and formats. Programme and finance staff in each office exported data into spreadsheets, re-coded it to match each donor's categories and sent it to head office, where it was checked, corrected and combined. A single quarterly donor report could take a week of work.
Fund and grant accounting was handled differently in each place. Some offices coded costs to grants as they were incurred, others allocated them at month-end and shared costs such as rent and salaries were split using different methods. Nobody could say with confidence how much of each grant had been spent, or how much remained, without a manual exercise.
Procurement rules varied. Donors set thresholds for quotations, approvals and documentation, and offices applied them inconsistently. When auditors asked for evidence that rules had been followed, staff searched folders and inboxes. There was no single view of grant spending, commitments or compliance across offices.
The solution
Every office now records income and costs against grant, fund and activity codes as transactions happen. Shared costs are allocated monthly using one agreed method, and each grant has a live view of budget, spending, commitments and remaining funds that programme managers and finance both use.
Donor reports are produced from the system. Mapping tables translate the organisation's codes into each donor's budget lines and periods, so a report that once took a week to assemble can be prepared, checked and submitted in a fraction of the time, with every figure traceable to the underlying transactions.
Procurement follows donor rules automatically. Purchase requests are routed by value and funding source to the right approvers, with the required quotations and documents attached. Shared master data for grants, suppliers and cost centres links time and expense capture, billing, banks and payments, and management and board reporting.
The engagement
- Seven months
- Four specialists, with the finance director, head of grants, procurement manager and regional programme managers
- Process mapping, fund and grant accounting, cost allocation, procurement rules and approvals, donor and board reporting, time and expense capture, bank and payment integration, shared master data, pilot and phased rollout.
Integrations
- Time and expense capture
- Billing and client portals
- Banks and payments
- Management reporting
How we delivered it
- 01
Map the work with the people who do it
Four weeks
We worked alongside finance officers, programme managers and procurement staff in each office, following real transactions from purchase request to donor report. With the finance director and head of grants we agreed the scope: fund accounting, cost allocation, procurement, and donor and board reporting.
- 02
Design common processes and integrations
Nine weeks
Finance agreed one chart of accounts with grant, fund and activity codes, and a single method for allocating shared costs. Procurement turned donor rules into thresholds and approval routes built into the purchasing process. We connected time and expense capture so staff time was charged to grants as it was recorded, and linked bank and payment feeds to the ledger.
- 03
Pilot in one location
Six weeks
One regional office ran the new processes for two months. The pilot showed that some staff split their time across more grants than timesheets allowed, and that two donors' budget lines did not map cleanly to the new codes. Timesheets were extended and mapping tables added for each donor.
- 04
Roll out in waves and track results
Nine weeks
The remaining offices moved in two waves, with training for finance and programme staff and a grants champion in each office. Leadership reviewed grant spending, commitments and procurement exceptions monthly.
Results
- Reporting time fell
- Grant spending visible at any time
- Procurement evidence held against each purchase
- Teams worked from the same data across locations
Reporting time fell. Donor reports were prepared from one set of data rather than rebuilt in spreadsheets each quarter, and finance staff spent their time checking and explaining figures rather than compiling them.
Grant managers could see spending and remaining funds at any time, so underspends and overspends were spotted early and discussed with donors before deadlines rather than after them. Procurement evidence was held against each purchase, and audit preparation took days rather than weeks.
Teams worked from the same data across locations, and leadership and the board could review grant performance and compliance monthly, by office and by donor.
We used to spend the first week of every quarter rebuilding the same reports. Now we spend it talking to donors about what the numbers mean.
What made the difference
An organisation prepared audits in days, not weeks. Involving the people who do the work early, from finance officers to programme managers, made adoption easier.
