Grant tracking that ties every dollar to the funder that gave it
Tag each expense to its grant fund at the source. Track drawdown against the award in real time. Prove restricted funds hit the purpose the funder specified.
No "which fund paid for that?" No overspending against an award you did not know was running low. No spreadsheet reconstruction when the grant report is due.
Built from a fund I actually hold.
I hold a scholarship fund with the Community Foundation of Orange, Sullivan & Rockland. Managing it — checking the balance, tracking which awards had gone out, matching each grant to the students it was supposed to serve — kept running into the same problem: the pieces of the fund lived in different places.
The balance sat in the CF's portal. The awards lived in email confirmations. What each award actually funded lived in memory or a spreadsheet I updated when I got around to it. There was no single view of the fund that answered the questions that mattered: how much is left, what has been spent, and did it hit the purpose the fund was set up for.
The friction I felt as a fund holder is the same friction nonprofits face at the other end of the transaction. A grantee tracks awards from a dozen funders. A fund holder tracks a fund at one CF. Both need the same thing — a mobile-first way to see the balance, the drawdown, and the proof-of-purpose in one place.
So grant tracking in Giving Toolbox was built to solve both sides of that equation. Grantees tag every expense to the funder that gave it. Fund holders see their fund balance in real time. Multi-fund splits handle receipts that hit more than one award. Restricted funds get isolated so the reporting stays clean.
The fund is still open. Giving Toolbox is what gets used to track it.
Wrong fund. Silent overspend. Lost documentation.
Every grant report comes down to three things: was the money spent on what the funder specified, did the drawdown stay under the award, and can you prove it with receipts? Most nonprofits solve none of the three until the funder asks.
Wrong fund at reconciliation time
The bookkeeper reconciles the credit card statement and picks a grant fund based on what seems reasonable. Sometimes it is right. Sometimes it is not. The audit finds the transactions charged to the wrong award.
Silent overspend
The grant has twelve thousand left. Everyone thinks. Actually it has two thousand three hundred because three expenses got charged to it last month that nobody remembered. The grant report is due Friday. Someone is going to have a bad week.
Receipts disconnected from the award
The grant report needs receipts tied to specific line items. The receipts are in a shoebox, a Drive folder, or on someones phone. The link between award, budget line, and receipt exists only in memory.
Built for how nonprofits actually manage restricted funds.
Every feature exists because a Children's Orchestra Society bookkeeper, a PTA treasurer, or a small-nonprofit ED asked for it after a grant report went sideways.
Fund-level drawdown tracking
See each grant balance in real time. Every tagged expense reduces the fund automatically. Alerts fire before drawdown breaks the award budget.
Tag at the moment of purchase
The person who bought the coffee tags what it was for right when they snap the photo. Program, grant fund, purpose. Context captured while memory is fresh.
Unlimited users, flat rate
Every staff member, board member, and volunteer captures on their own phone. No per-seat cost. $34.99 flat monthly, unlimited people.
Restricted vs unrestricted
Mark each grant as restricted or unrestricted. Restricted funds get isolated in reports and cannot be spent against the wrong purpose without an override that gets logged.
Multi-fund splits
One receipt can cover expenses charged to multiple grants. Split by percentage or dollar amount. Each split lands in the right fund with the right documentation for the funder report.
Funder-ready reports
Export a funder-ready report for any grant period with one tap. Every line item has receipts, dates, and program tags attached. Handoff to the program officer takes minutes instead of days.
From expense to funder report in four steps.
No training deck. If your team can send a text message, they can tag a grant expense.
Capture the expense
Snap a receipt, import a PDF, or type a manual entry. Bank feeds and card imports work too, whatever your team already uses to spend money.
Tag the fund
The AI fills vendor, date, and amount. The submitter picks the grant fund, program, and 990 category. If the receipt splits across multiple grants, the app captures the split right there.
Bookkeeper approves
The bookkeeper or treasurer reviews the queue on their iPad. Approve, reject, or reassign grant fund and category in seconds. Splits get applied automatically.
Export the grant report
Export a funder-ready report for any grant period. Or push to QuickBooks, Aplos, or Xero. Every line item has its receipt and program tag attached.
How Giving Toolbox compares to manual tracking.
Most small nonprofits track grants manually: a spreadsheet per funder, a Drive folder per report, and someone's memory holding it together. Here is what changes when tracking moves into an app built for the job.
Monthly cost
$0 (the cost is staff time)
$0
Built for
Whoever has the most patience
Community Foundation grantees
Fund-level drawdown tracking
Single grant, live balance
Restricted vs unrestricted
Yes, on single grant
Volunteer submissions
Group text messages
Admin only
Multi-fund splits
Not included
Funder-ready reports
Copy-paste into whatever
Community Foundation standard PDF
Straight answers about restricted fund tracking.
What nonprofit finance leaders ask before choosing a grant tracking system.
What counts as a restricted grant fund?
A restricted grant is money a funder gives with strings attached: it must be spent on a specific program, population, or purpose. Restricted funds show up on the balance sheet as "net assets with donor restrictions." They cannot be spent against another use without violating the grant agreement.
How does drawdown tracking work?
Every expense tagged to a grant fund reduces its available balance in real time. Set a budget for each grant. Watch drawdown against that budget across the award period. Alerts fire when a fund hits configurable thresholds.
Can volunteers submit receipts without their own paid account?
Yes. The $34.99 monthly subscription is per organization, not per person. Every volunteer, board member, and staff member uses the app on their own phone at no additional cost. The person who holds the receipt should be the one who tags it.
How does the app alert me before I overspend a grant?
Set a target budget on each grant fund. Configurable thresholds (default 75% and 90%) trigger push notifications to the bookkeeper and ED when drawdown approaches the limit. Approving an expense that would push a grant over budget requires an explicit override that gets logged.
Can one receipt be split across multiple grant funds?
Yes. A single receipt can be split across multiple grants, programs, or funds. The app tracks the amount and the purpose for each split so restricted-fund reporting stays accurate.
Can I export to QuickBooks Online, Aplos, or Xero?
Yes to all three, plus a PDF audit pack that includes every receipt image and its categorization. From the Admin dashboard, choose a date range and destination, and the app produces a clean import file.
Is Giving Toolbox available on Android?
The app is currently iOS-native, iPhone and iPad, iOS 17 and above. Android is on the roadmap but not yet available.
The next grant report starts tracking today.
Download Giving Toolbox free. Tag your next grant expense on the spot. Watch the next funder report get easier one transaction at a time.
Free: unlimited submissions, 100 AI receipt scans/month, single grant reporting. Pro ($34.99/mo) adds unlimited users, multi-grant tracking, fundraisers, and full 990 prep.
How this fits together
One app for the whole organization
This is one part of a mobile-first nonprofit operations app that also handles expenses, grants, events, volunteers and donors, and keeps working offline.
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