Restricted-Fund Release and Reporting Guide.

Make sure restrictions are honored when money is actually spent, released cleanly when their purpose is met, and reported accurately to the funders who set them. Sorting and tracking mean little if the spending does not follow.

In Master Restricted and Unrestricted Funds, after your true available cash is calculated, and each time you spend against or report on restricted money.

Spend against the right source

When you spend on a restricted purpose, charge it to that source in your register, so remaining balances stay true. Never let restricted spending default to the general account; that is how the tangle rebuilds and how restrictions get broken by accident

Release a restriction when it is satisfied

When a restricted purpose is fully met and its money fully and properly spent, mark it satisfied and released in your register, and move any leftover only if the funder allows

Restrictions currently satisfied and released

Report each restriction to its funder

For each active restriction, produce the honest account the funder is owed: received, spent on the purpose, remaining, and progress toward the goal. Match the report to what the funder actually requires

When to get an accountant

The technical accounting treatment of restricted funds, especially endowments and permanently held gifts, and anything where you are unsure whether a release is allowed, deserves a nonprofit accountant's judgment. The management discipline is yours; the treatment sign-off is theirs. The detailed program reporting a grant requires lives in the grants work, and a specific award's terms in public and institutional awards; this is the financial truth those reports rest on.

Built from the Restriction Tracking Register and the True Available Cash Calculator.

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