Grant Reporting Workflows for Charities

A grant reporting workflow is the repeatable process your charity follows to collect data, draft reports, review them internally, and submit them to funders on time. Getting it right means fewer missed deadlines, stronger funder relationships, and less panic at quarter end.

TL;DR: UK charities managing three or more grants typically spend 15-20 staff days per year on funder reporting alone. A structured workflow — covering data collection, drafting, internal review, and submission — cuts this by up to 40%. The key is standardising your internal process even when every funder asks for something different. Software like Plinth automates the heaviest stages.

What Does a Grant Reporting Workflow Look Like?

A grant reporting workflow is a defined sequence of steps that moves raw programme data into a finished funder report. Most effective workflows follow five stages: data collection, narrative drafting, financial reconciliation, internal review, and submission. The workflow repeats on each funder's reporting cycle — monthly, quarterly, or annually.

Without a workflow, reporting becomes reactive. Staff scramble to locate data, draft narratives under pressure, and submit reports without adequate review. Plinth's own research estimated that UK charities spend 15.8 million hours per year completing grant monitoring reports — approximately £204 million in staff time — with the average report taking 40 hours to compile across data collection, drafting, and review. For the many small and micro-organisations that make up the sector, this burden is felt most acutely.

The five stages explained

1. Data collection — Gathering quantitative outputs (attendance figures, referrals made, sessions delivered) and qualitative evidence (case studies, beneficiary feedback, survey results) from frontline teams. This is where most workflows break down, because data sits in multiple systems or in staff members' heads.

2. Narrative drafting — Turning raw data into a coherent story that addresses the funder's specific questions. Good narratives connect outputs to outcomes: not just "we delivered 48 sessions" but "48 sessions reached 120 young people, of whom 78% reported improved confidence."

3. Financial reconciliation — Matching expenditure against the approved budget. Funders want to see that money was spent as agreed, with explanations for any significant variances. A Charity Finance Group post-budget survey in late 2024 found that 80% of charities were exploring cost-cutting measures, with 6 in 10 running deficits and over a third having made staff redundant in the preceding year. With many charities operating on tight margins, accurate financial reporting is essential for maintaining trust.

4. Internal review — A second pair of eyes checks accuracy, consistency, and tone before submission. For charities with governance requirements, this may include sign-off from a senior manager or trustee.

5. Submission — Delivering the report in the format and via the channel the funder requires, on or before the deadline.

How Do You Manage Multiple Funders with Different Requirements?

You standardise your internal data collection and then tailor the output for each funder. The most common mistake is trying to build a separate process for every funder; the most effective approach is collecting a comprehensive dataset once and extracting what each funder needs from it.

A charity running three programmes funded by five different grant-makers might face five distinct reporting templates, three different financial formats, and deadlines spread across the year. It is common for charities in this income range to hold grants from several funders simultaneously, each with its own expectations.

Definition: Grant Reporting Workflow

A grant reporting workflow is a structured, repeatable process that a charity follows to collect programme and financial data, compile it into a report that meets a specific funder's requirements, review it for accuracy, and submit it by the agreed deadline. It encompasses people (who does what), timing (when each step happens), tools (what systems support the process), and standards (what quality looks like).

The solution is a layered approach:

• Maintain a master dataset that captures all outputs, outcomes, and financial data across all programmes.
• Map each funder's requirements against your master dataset so you know which data points each report needs.
• Create a reporting calendar with internal deadlines set at least two weeks before funder deadlines, giving time for review.
• Use templates to speed up narrative sections that recur across reports — organisational context, methodology descriptions, and safeguarding statements.

Should You Use Templates or Software?

Software is better for charities managing more than two grants, but well-designed templates are a reasonable starting point for very small organisations. The choice depends on the number of grants, the complexity of your reporting requirements, and the size of your team.

Templates work when your charity has one or two straightforward grants. Once you reach three or more, with overlapping deadlines and different reporting formats, the manual overhead of templates typically exceeds the cost of software. Plinth's analysis of 2,018 grants found that the all-in cost of administering a single grant is approximately £6,600 — and 46% of grants were below this threshold, meaning nearly half of all grants cost more to administer than they delivered. The NCVO Almanac 2024 reports that the voluntary sector employs 978,000 people — approximately 3% of the UK workforce. With recruitment challenges widespread across the sector, using staff time on avoidable manual work is a cost most organisations cannot afford.

Plinth's Monitoring & Reporting feature pulls data directly from your programme records, tracks deadlines across all funders, and generates draft reports that you review and submit. AI Grant Management connects budget tracking to reporting, so financial reconciliation happens continuously rather than in a last-minute rush.

How Should Charities Track Grant Deadlines?

Use a centralised reporting calendar with automated reminders set at multiple intervals before each deadline. The most reliable approach combines a shared calendar with software-based alerts.

Missed deadlines damage funder relationships and can trigger clawback clauses. The most common causes of missed deadlines are staff turnover, unclear internal ownership, and reliance on a single person's memory — all avoidable with the right systems.

Effective deadline tracking includes:

• A single reporting calendar visible to all relevant staff, showing every funder deadline for the year ahead.
• Staged internal deadlines — data collection complete four weeks before submission, draft complete two weeks before, review complete one week before.
• Automated reminders at each stage, sent to the responsible person rather than a generic inbox.
• A contingency owner for every report, so that if the primary author is absent, someone else can step in.

Plinth provides a grant deadline dashboard that shows upcoming reporting dates across all your funders, with automated alerts at configurable intervals.

What Are the Most Common Grant Reporting Pitfalls?

The biggest pitfall is leaving data collection until the report is due. Other common mistakes include inconsistent terminology, failing to connect outputs to outcomes, and not involving finance early enough.

Leaving data collection too late. If you only start gathering attendance figures and case studies when the report is due, you will spend days chasing colleagues and reconstructing data from memory. Continuous data capture — recording outputs as they happen — eliminates this problem entirely.

Inconsistent terminology. Using different terms for the same thing across reports confuses funders and undermines credibility. If one report says "beneficiaries" and another says "participants" for the same group, establish a glossary and stick to it.

Outputs without outcomes. Funders increasingly want to know what changed, not just what happened. Reporting that you delivered 200 advice sessions is less compelling than reporting that 200 sessions helped 150 people resolve housing issues, with 82% maintaining stable tenancies six months later.

Finance disconnected from narrative. When the financial report shows underspend on staffing but the narrative does not mention the vacancy you carried for three months, funders notice the gap. Align your financial and narrative reporting so they tell the same story.

No review step. Submitting reports without internal review leads to errors, inconsistencies, and missed opportunities to present your work in the best light. Even a 30-minute review by a colleague catches mistakes that the author cannot see.

How Can Software Improve Grant Reporting Workflows?

Software improves reporting workflows by automating data collection, centralising information, tracking deadlines, and generating draft reports — reducing the time spent on each reporting cycle by 30-50%.

With grant applications surging across the sector — the ACF's 2023-2024 report, cited by Plinth, found increases of 100-400% — the administrative pressure on reporting is intensifying. Software addresses this by:

• Continuous data capture — staff record outputs and outcomes as part of their daily work, not as a separate reporting task.
• Centralised storage — all programme data, financial records, and previous reports live in one place.
• Automated reminders — deadline alerts trigger at the right time for the right people.
• Draft generation — AI tools can produce first drafts of narrative reports from your data, which staff then review and refine.
• Version control — every edit is tracked, so you always know who changed what and when.

Plinth's Impact Reporting feature uses AI agent Pippin to generate funder-ready reports from your programme data, while Monitoring & Reporting provides live dashboards that make the data collection stage largely automatic.

Frequently Asked Questions

How often should we report to funders?

This depends on the funder's requirements, which are typically set out in your grant agreement. Most UK funders require quarterly or six-monthly narrative and financial reports, with an annual summary. Some, particularly government funders, require monthly data submissions. Always clarify the reporting schedule before accepting a grant.

What should we do if we are going to miss a deadline?

Contact the funder before the deadline, not after. Explain the reason, propose a new date, and deliver on it. Funders are far more understanding of proactive communication than of silence followed by a late report. Most grant agreements allow reasonable extensions when requested in advance.

How do we report on outcomes we cannot yet measure?

For longer-term outcomes (such as sustained employment 12 months after a programme ends), explain your measurement plan and report on interim indicators. For example, report job starts now and commit to a follow-up survey for sustained employment data. Funders expect realistic timelines for outcome measurement.

Should we share reports between funders?

Generally, each funder receives a report tailored to their specific requirements and funded activities. However, if multiple funders support the same programme, you can share a consolidated report with each funder's permission. Always check your grant agreements for confidentiality clauses.

How do we handle funders who change their reporting requirements?

Document the change, update your reporting calendar and templates, and communicate internally. If the new requirements are significantly more burdensome, raise this with the funder — many are willing to negotiate, particularly if you can explain the impact on your delivery capacity.

Recommended Next Pages

• Grant Compliance Guide — ensuring your reporting meets regulatory and legal requirements.
• Grant Budget Management — financial planning and tracking to support accurate funder reporting.
• Measuring Grant Impact — strategies for collecting the outcome data that funders want to see.
• What Is a Monitoring Report? — a detailed look at the most common type of funder report.
• Grant Management Lifecycle Explained — where reporting fits in the broader grant management process.

Last updated: February 2026

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