Client Stories
What finance and programme teams say after a grant spending compliance review — with one or two longer cases.
Voices from recent reviews
They caught three consultancy invoices booked to a capital grant line before we submitted the mid-term report. The funder never raised it — because we corrected the coding first.
The sample felt heavy in week one, and I pushed back on the volume of payroll allocation sheets they requested. Once we saw the findings register, the depth made sense — two shared-staff percentages had never been updated after a budget revision.
We only booked the pre-disbursement check for a single contractor payment. The clearance note arrived in four days and our board treasurer signed off the same afternoon.
Funder audit preparation saved us from scrambling on the day. The evidence index matched the auditor’s list almost line for line. One hospitality claim still drew a question, but we already had the clarification letter drafted.
Case: Mid-term report for a multi-year community grant
A Kowloon charity holding a three-year district grant approached us six weeks before the funder’s mid-term review. The ledger showed clean totals, but budget categories had been merged after a staff change.
We sampled sixty expenditure lines across personnel, venue hire, and subcontracted outreach. Twelve items needed reclassification; two related-party venue invoices required written disclosure. The final pack included a one-page board summary and a remapping table the finance officer used to adjust the mid-term schedules.
The funder’s written queries after submission focused on programme outcomes only — not on cost coding.
Case: Capital equipment charged to an operating grant
An Island social enterprise planned to purchase workshop machinery from an operating grant with thirty days left in the financial year. A pre-disbursement check showed the funding agreement capped capital items at a lower threshold than the quote.
We recommended either a funder variation request or charging the purchase to unrestricted funds. The organisation chose the variation path; the purchase proceeded two months later with written approval on file.