Legal Aid US: Grant Spend Down and Financials

Tracking and managing grant financials and spend downs is a key workflow for Legal Aid organizations. In Clio Manage, you can deposit funds onto grants, view individual grant balances, and spend down manually from grant balances using time and expense entries.

Tip: You can also export your organization's grants to get an understanding of how much of a spend down there has been from the grants. Learn more here.

 

Deposit funds onto grants

When your organization receives a grant, you can deposit funds onto that grant in Clio Manage to track and manage your organization's spending. If you do not receive all the money up front, you can still track your spending. The grant balance can run at a negative.

  1. Go to Grants and select a grant.
  2. Once within the individual grant's view, click Deposit funds.
  3. Enter the amount and date for the transaction and add an optional description explaining the deposit.
  4. Click Deposit funds to deposit the money onto the grant.
    • The dollar value of the deposit will appear under the Funds in column of this grant's transactions table.
    • The saved deposit will adjust the grant's running balance.

 

Edit and delete deposited funds

You can manage the activities and transactions associated with a fund by editing or deleting them if necessary.

Edit Delete
  1. Go to Grants and select a grant.
  2. Click the Edit icon (the pencil) next to a transaction.
  3. Make any changes and then click Deposit funds (if you edited a grant deposit) or Save entry (if you edited a Time Entry or Expense Entry) to save your changes.

 

Spend down via time and expense activities

You can expense time and expense entries to a grant. This allows you to track where and how money is spent across your organization's individual grants. Time and expense entries can be used for non-recurring expenses and/or work associated with a grant. For recurring expenses associated with a grant, like paying a salary, set up an automatic monthly grant spend down.

Spend down via time entries

You can create a spend down record via a time entry from anywhere in Clio Manage using the Create new menu.

  1. In the Clio Manage header, click Create new and then select Time entry.
  2. Complete the details of the time entry. In particular, enter a value under Duration and Rate, and then select the relevant grant from the Grant dropdown.
  3. Click Save entry to save the time entry to the grant.
    • You can view the entry in Activities or in Grants by selecting the relevant grant to open its table of transactions.
Spend down via expense entries
Via Create new menu Via grant

You can create a spend down record via an expense entry from anywhere in Clio Manage using the Create new menu or by going into an individual grant. For the latter, the grant will automatically be selected in the expense entry modal.

  1. In the Clio Manage header, click Create new and then select Expense.
  2. Complete the details of the expense entry and then select the relevant grant from the Grant dropdown.
  3. Click Save entry to save the expense entry to the grant.
    • You can view the entry in Activities or in Grants by selecting the relevant grant to open its table of transactions.

 

Spend down via salaries

Primary subscribers and administrators can create a set up for salaries that are paid by grants to be automatically deducted from those grants on a monthly basis. To set up this automation, the staff member receiving the salary must be a user in your Clio Manage account.

Step 1: Enter the salary information

  1. Go to Settings > Grants > Grant salary allocations.
  2. Click Add salary for the relevant user.

    Note: If the salary has already been entered you can move on to Step 2. You can also edit a salary and return here to continue setting up spend down via salaries.

  3. Enter or update the user’s Personal Performance information, including the default billing rate, the yearly salary, yearly target billings, yearly number of working days, and the date the fiscal year ends.
  4. Click Save Performance Information.

Step 2: Allocate a grant

  1. Return to Settings > Grants > Grant salary allocations.
  2. Click Add allocation for the relevant user.

    Note: You can also edit grant allocation information by clicking Edit allocation for the relevant user.

  3. Select the grant name and the salary percentage the grant should cover.

    Note: If the salary is covered by multiple grants, click Add grant and repeat this step until all relevant grants have been applied.

  4. When the correct portion of salary that is covered by a grant or grants is reached, click Save.

 

Edit staff salaries

To edit the salary information for a staff member:

  1. Go to Settings > Manage Users.
  2. Click Edit for the relevant user.
  3. Select the Personal Performance subtab.
  4. Update the yearly salary, and if necessary, any other information.
  5. Click Save Performance Information.

Note: Changes to a staff member’s salary and grant allocations are logged in the Organization Feed.

 

Need more help?

Was this article helpful?
0 out of 0 found this helpful