ERP for nonprofit. Every grant tracked from award to funder report.
Every grant is a restricted fund: its award, its spend and the liability for what is unspent sit on the ledger. This page describes the United States edition, which starts in early 2027.
Industry pack ready From early 2027How does Kinnow help a nonprofit? Every grant is a restricted fund: its award, its spend, its reporting calendar and the liability for what is unspent sit on the ledger, an over-spend is blocked, and a donor report is drafted from the same figures. Programs and beneficiary cohorts are tied to the funds that pay for them.
Your business in one paragraph
A nonprofit 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 cadence and a closing position; it leaves through program staff, partners and field spend that must be charged to the right grant. Donor money for a purpose not yet delivered is a liability, and reading it as surplus is the most costly mistake in fund accounting. The owner or director is awake over the donor report that is overdue, the grant at forty percent with a month to run, and the utilization certificate assembled 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. Nothing is posted, paid or sent to a donor without a person.
- 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-center 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 program is opened. The program head opens the program in Build; a program above the limit set with you needs approval, as it is a commitment to a funder.
- Beneficiaries are enrolled. Applicants are registered, eligibility verified, placed against a program and enrolled into a cohort that graduates or goes dormant.
- Spend is posted against the fund. Expense claims, bills and journals carry the cost-center tag. 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 budget above the limit set with you 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 at submission are stamped; a donor can accept it or send it back to draft.
- The month closes. The finance head runs the twelve close checks, with fund movements above the limit set with you 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 nonprofit setup gives you on day one
The ready-made setup for your industry (we call it an industry pack) comes with starting figures, set with you in the first week, in US dollars.
| 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 program above a value, a journal above a value and a campaign budget above a value need approval. A credit limit above a ceiling and a beneficiary request with no service promise (SLA) attached raise a warning. |
| Who signs off, in order (3) | Program approval, fund movement approval and campaign budget approval. |
| Ready-made routines (18) | Grant to utilization, 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, program register, milestones, committed value by status, campaign register, contact register, trial balance, receivables aging and documents by user. |
| Ask starters (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, utilization certificate, donor report, cohort. |
Processes, built in
The 18 best-practice processes for your industry come switched on: who owns each step, which steps Kinnow enforces, and a clock on every hand-off between departments. Print any of them as an SOP.
Agents for nonprofits
Each agent is validated with each client before it works on your records, and every output 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
Narrates variance cards on dashboards.
Ask us to run Grant Watch on your open grants.
Tax and compliance calendar for a nonprofit (United States)
Kinnow prepares; a person confirms and files. Dates are not printed here because each funder and state sets its own. Tax-exempt status filings are not built, so this table covers what is.
| Obligation | What Kinnow prepares | What stays with you |
|---|---|---|
| Donor reports and utilization certificates | A reporting schedule per grant, an overdue list each Monday, figures stamped at submission. | Review, sign and send. |
| Restricted-fund position | Unspent restricted money shown as a liability, closed grants with residual shown separately. | The auditor's view of the restriction. |
| State sales tax, where you sell taxable goods | Tax priced by destination state on invoices raised in Sell. An untaxed taxable line needs an exemption certificate or a reason. The groundwork for a per-state summary to transcribe is completed before launch; it does not decide nexus and does not file. | A person, with your tax adviser, decides taxability and files. |
| Payroll withholding | Federal income tax withholding and FICA can be computed; state income tax is not included and the payslip says so. W-2 and 1099 forms are not produced. | Payroll stays with your current provider in the first release. |
| Tax-exempt status filings | Not built. | Keep these on your current process. |
| Month-end close | Twelve 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 liability. |
| Which grants are close to being fully spent? | Grants by spend against award. |
| Which programs 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
- Utilization by grant and the pace against the term; a zero award shows no percentage rather than zero.
- Restricted liability and closed grants with residual.
- Donor reports due, submitted and overdue.
- Program 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 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 restate a number a donor has read.
- Consent before appeals. No named audience, no campaign.
- Kept by company. A grant belongs to one legal company, so one company's restricted liability never lands on another's balance sheet.
Applications switched on
Your words, on day one
| Generic term | In your Kinnow |
|---|---|
| Account area | Funds & Grants |
| Know area | Impact |
| customer | donor / funder |
| report | utilization certificate, 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-center tag. Spend against the fund is the ledger lines carrying that tag, so there is one answer to what was spent on a program. Unspent restricted money is shown as a liability, 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 center yet, so a grant cannot see them.
Does Kinnow prepare utilization certificates and donor reports?
The grant routine has a utilization-certificate step and a donor-report step, and the figures come from the grant's own spend. A reporting schedule creates one obligation per period, and the figures are stamped 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 owed to you at once and overstates the fund.
Does it support tax-exempt filings or donor receipts?
No. Tax-exempt status filings and donor tax receipts are not built. Grant tracking covers award against spend by cost center 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 program and enrolled; programs run in cohorts in Build. The funder report is composed for the outcome. A beneficiary enrolled and never served is the number Kinnow watches.
When is the United States edition available?
From early 2027. Until then this page describes what the edition is built to do, not something running today.
How long does it take to start?
About two weeks to first results for one organization. Masters and opening balances are imported in the first week; open grants are entered with their awards and reporting cadence.
Show me Kinnow for nonprofit.
Answer three questions. Get the applications, the agents and a two-week plan for your business.