Today, GrantsConnect budgets only reflect spend when a grant award and/or payment is created.
However, many customers—particularly those running employee‑driven nomination programs—operate differently:

• Funding decisions are effectively made at nomination approval

• Payment may occur weeks or months later

• Program owners must still manage finite regional or departmental budgets in the interim

As a result:

• Budgets appear artificially “available”

• Program owners over‑approve unintentionally

• Customers rely on offline spreadsheets to forecast spend

• Dashboards and Impact Edge cannot represent true budget position

This creates operational risk, reporting friction, and erodes trust in platform insights.

Current limitations:
Budgets do not decrement or reserve based on:

• Nomination submission

• Nomination approval

• Reviewer‑recommended funding amount

Dashboards only calculate spend from:

• Awards

• Payments

Impact Edge cannot forecast budget utilization when data lives in:

• Nomination workflows

• Custom form fields

Proposed Functionality:

Introduce a Budget Forecast / Reservation layer that:

• Tracks projected spend based on nomination data

• Does not require payment creation

• Can coexist with actual spend tracking

Example:

• “Reserved Amount” on budget tied to:

  • Nomination approval

  • Reviewer‑recommended funding amount

• Budget views showing:

  • Total Budget

  • Reserved (forecasted)

  • Paid (actual)

  • Remaining Available

• Optional toggle:

  • Enable / disable nomination‑based forecasting per program