ERP for non-profit. Every grant tracked from award to funder report.
Every grant tracked from award to closing position on the same books, so a donor sees what was spent against their money. The UAE and Saudi Arabia edition covers non-profits from December 2026, with narrow claims.
From December 2026How does Kinnow help an NGO or non-profit? Every grant is a restricted fund: its award, its spend, its reporting calendar and the money you still owe the donor for what is unspent all sit on the ledger. An over-spend is blocked, and a donor report is drafted from the same figures. Programmes and beneficiary cohorts are tied to the funds that pay for them. Nothing is filed, paid or posted without a person.
Your business in one paragraph
An NGO is paid for a stated purpose and audited on whether it did that. Money arrives as grants from donors and funders, each with a restriction, a reporting schedule and a closing position. It goes out on programme staff, partners and field spend that must be charged to the right grant. Donor money for a purpose not yet delivered is money you owe, and reading it as surplus is the most costly mistake in fund accounting. Kinnow holds no built-in charity-licensing or donation-reporting rules for the UAE or Saudi Arabia, so this page covers grant and fund accounting only. The owner or director is awake over the donor report that is overdue, the grant at forty per cent with a month to run, and the funder report put together by hand at the deadline.
See one of your grants as Kinnow would hold it. Send us an award letter and last quarter's spend.
How your month runs on Kinnow
Ten steps from award to closing position. A person is in the loop before anything is posted, paid or sent to a donor.
- A grant is awarded. The finance lead records the donor, the award, restricted or unrestricted, the purpose, the term, the reporting cadence and a cost-centre tag in Account (Funds and Grants). A grant moves from draft to awarded to active.
- The reporting schedule is generated. One reporting obligation is created for each period, up to the grant's end date. A mis-keyed end date is refused rather than creating hundreds of periods.
- A programme is opened. The programme head opens the programme in Build; a programme above the limit in your industry setup needs approval, as it is a commitment to a funder.
- Beneficiaries are enrolled. Applicants are registered, their eligibility is checked, they are placed against a programme and enrolled into a cohort that graduates or goes dormant.
- Spend is posted against the fund. Expense claims, bills and journals carry the cost-centre tag (the label that ties a cost to a grant). A claim or expense bill that would take a restricted grant over its award is refused at approval.
- Appeals raise money. Reach plans an appeal to a named audience. An appeal with no named audience is blocked, and a budget above the limit in your industry setup needs approval.
- Grant Watch runs each Monday. It lists overdue donor reports, over-spent grants and under-spent grants near their end.
- The donor report is drafted. The finance lead drafts the narrative from the grant's figures and submits. The figures are frozen at submission; a donor can accept the report or send it back to draft.
- The month closes. The finance head runs the twelve month-end checks, and fund movements above the limit in your industry setup are sent for approval.
- The grant closes. A closing note is required, whether unspent money is returned or released, or an over-spend is funded from elsewhere, and the closing position is recorded.
What the NGO setup includes
These are starting points from the ready-made setup for your industry (we call it an industry pack). We agree the figures with you in the first week.
| Part | What the setup covers |
|---|---|
| Limits and rules (7) | An over-spend on a grant and a campaign with no named audience are blocked. A programme, a journal and a campaign budget above a limit need approval. A credit limit above a limit and a beneficiary request with no service-time plan (SLA) raise a warning. It comes with starting limits, and we replace them with figures in your currency in the first week. |
| Who signs off (3) | Programme approval, fund movement approval and campaign budget approval. |
| Ready-made routines (18) | Grant to utilisation, applicant to served, appeal to donor, partner MoU to renewal, pledge to receipt, month-end close and others. |
| Reports (10) | Grant register, grant award by restriction, programme register, milestones, committed value by status, campaign register, contact register, trial balance, receivables ageing and documents by user. |
| Starter questions for Ask Kinnow (12) | How much of each grant is spent, how much of our money is restricted, which grants are close to being fully spent, which beneficiary records are incomplete. |
| Your words | Funds and Grants, Impact, donor or funder, funder report, donor report, cohort. |
Processes, built in
The 18 good-practice processes for your industry come switched on: who owns each step, which steps Kinnow makes sure happen, and a time limit on every hand-off between departments. Print any of them as a written procedure (SOP).
Agents for NGOs
Each agent is checked with each client before it works on your records, and everything it produces waits for a person.
Grant Watch
Each Monday lists overdue donor reports, over-spent grants and grants under-spent near their end.
Close Checklist
Runs the twelve period-close checks, helps clear the ones holding up the close and drafts the commentary on variances. A person confirms the close.
AccountBank Reconciler
Matches bank lines to receipts ahead of time and shows why it matched each one. Lines it is unsure about come up as suggestions only and are never committed on their own.
ReachNurture Orchestrator
Moves each lead through the step-by-step follow-up routines you build, one step at a time, on the waits you set. It only runs routines that a person has switched on.
ReachAudience Segment Reasoner
Turns a brief written in plain words into a target segment, using only what the person asking is allowed to see.
ReachCampaign Strategist
Designed to draft a campaign brief from your goal and your own data, such as gaps in your sales pipeline, customers who have gone quiet and the time of year.
BuildProject Risk Predictor
Warns you when a project is running late, spending ahead of the work done, or billing ahead of it, measured against the baselined bill of quantities (BoQ).
Report narrator
Writes short comments on the variance cards on dashboards.
Ask us to run Grant Watch on your open grants.
Tax and compliance calendar
Kinnow prepares; your people confirm and file. We do not print dates here because the authority or the donor sets them.
| Obligation | What Kinnow prepares | What stays with you |
|---|---|---|
| Donor reports and funder reports | A reporting schedule for each grant, an overdue list each Monday, figures frozen at submission. | Review, sign and send. |
| Restricted-fund position | Unspent restricted money shown as money you owe, and closed grants with money left over shown separately. | The auditor's view of the restriction. |
| VAT returns, where you are registered | UAE: the groundwork to build the VAT-201 return from the books as a file for the Federal Tax Authority (FTA) portal is completed before launch. Saudi Arabia: the same for the return, and we check which figure goes in which box with each client first. | A person uploads or files. Kinnow does not file. |
| Staff wages | UAE: a WPS salary file (the wage-protection file your bank takes), a running provision for end-of-service gratuity and pension contributions for UAE and GCC nationals. Saudi payroll is not in the first release. | A person approves the run and submits the file through the bank. |
| Charity licensing, donation permits, regulator reporting | Not built. | Keep these on your current process. |
| Month-end close | Twelve month-end checks; seven must pass. | The finance head signs. |
What the director sees
Every answer shows its source and cost before it runs. Veil, our privacy layer, holds back bank, tax and ID numbers and swaps names for placeholders before an AI call. It covers Ask Kinnow and most agents today; the rest are being added.
| Question a director would type | What comes back |
|---|---|
| How much of each grant is spent? | Award, spend, remaining and the share used, per grant. An over-spend is shown as over, never as zero remaining. |
| How much of our money is restricted? | Awards by restriction, and the unspent restricted money you owe donors. |
| Which grants are close to being fully spent? | Grants by spend against award. |
| Which programmes are behind plan? | Milestones, planned against actual. |
| Which appeals are running right now? | The campaign register. |
| Which beneficiary records are incomplete? | Records missing required details. |
Numbers that matter
- Share of each grant spent and the pace against the term; a zero award shows no percentage rather than zero.
- Restricted money still owed to donors and closed grants with money left over.
- Donor reports due, submitted and overdue.
- Programme milestones and committed value by status.
- Appeals running and contributions this year.
Controls an owner cares about
- Restriction is a condition, not a label. An over-spend is blocked, and going beyond an award needs a reason on record.
- A closed grant explains itself. Unspent money returned or released, or an over-spend funded from elsewhere, needs a note.
- Submitted figures do not move. A later cost does not change a number a donor has already read.
- Consent before appeals. No named audience, no campaign.
- Kept to one company. A grant belongs to one legal company, so one company's restricted money never lands on another's balance sheet.
Applications switched on
Your words, on day one
| Generic term | In your Kinnow |
|---|---|
| Account section | Funds & Grants |
| Know section | Impact |
| customer | donor / funder |
| report | funder report, donor report |
| beneficiaries | cohort |
| fund type | restricted / unrestricted |
Questions
Can we separate restricted from unrestricted funds?
Yes. Each grant carries its award, whether it is restricted or unrestricted, its purpose and a cost-centre tag. Spend against the fund is the ledger lines carrying that tag, so there is one answer to what was spent on a programme. Unspent restricted money is shown as money you owe, not as surplus.
What stops us spending beyond a donor's award?
Kinnow blocks an over-spend on a grant, and an expense claim or expense bill that would take a restricted grant over its award is refused at approval. Spending beyond an award and recovering it from reserves is allowed only with a recorded reason. Supplier bills matched to a purchase order carry no cost centre yet, so a grant cannot see them.
Does Kinnow prepare funder reports and donor reports?
The grant routine has a step for the utilisation certificate (proof of how the money was used) and a step for the donor report, and the figures come from the grant's own spend. A reporting schedule creates one obligation for each period, and the figures are frozen when a report is submitted, so a later cost does not change what the donor has read. Your finance lead reviews and signs.
How do we handle a pledge?
There is no pledge record yet. A pledge is not money, so raise an invoice to the donor only when the money is due. Raising it on promise books it as income, and as money owed to you, at once, and that overstates the fund.
Does it support charity-regulator or donation-permit reporting?
No. Kinnow holds no built-in rules for them in the UAE or Saudi Arabia, so those filings stay with you. Grant tracking covers award against spend by cost centre and the reporting schedule.
Can we link beneficiaries to the funds that pay for them?
Yes. Applicants are registered, checked for eligibility, placed against a programme and enrolled; programmes run in cohorts in Build. The funder report is put together around the outcome. A beneficiary enrolled but never served is the number Kinnow watches.
How long does it take to start?
About two weeks to first results for one organisation. Masters and opening balances are imported in the first week; open grants are entered with their awards and reporting schedule.
Show me Kinnow for NGO / Non-profit.
Answer three questions. Get the applications, the agents and a two-week plan for your business.