Grant guide
Grant agreements: terms, spend and reporting
A grant agreement is the award-stage document that sets out what the money is for, how it can be spent and what the recipient must report.
Teams deciding where to spend application time
Award-stage applicants, grant managers and teams preparing to manage funded projects responsibly.
Make the first review more concrete
Understand what a grant agreement is and what terms to check.
Review workflow
What FundingLens helps you do
Keep source facts, caveats and next actions together so your team can decide what deserves attention before application work starts.
Check the funded purpose, eligible expenditure, payment terms, records, reporting, audit, branding, variation and repayment clauses.
Compare agreement terms with the original application budget and source rules before the project starts spending.
Assign owners for monitoring reports, financial evidence, change requests and final reconciliation.
Readiness checks
- Purpose and objectives match the application.
- Eligible and ineligible expenditure terms are understood.
- Payment, reporting and audit deadlines are recorded.
- Variation and repayment clauses are reviewed.
- Agreement obligations have named owners.
Eligibility caveats
- Grant agreements vary by funder and programme.
- FundingLens does not provide legal advice; teams should review actual terms before signing.
- Misused, surplus or unsupported spend can create repayment risk.
Source references
Use the grant agreement standard to explain purpose, eligible expenditure, payment, reporting, audit and recovery clauses.
Official sourceModel Grant Funding AgreementUse the model agreement as a source for common grant terms, conditions, reporting, records, audit and repayment language.
Official sourceDfE grant terms and conditionsUse department terms as an example that award-stage conditions can vary by funder and programme.
Related FundingLens pages
Eligible costs explained for grant applications, covering staff time, capital, VAT, match funding, retrospective spend and opportunity-specific rules.
Grant guideMonitoring and evaluation in grantsMonitoring and evaluation explained for grants, covering delivery tracking, spend, indicators, evidence, reporting and learning.
Grant guideDue diligence for grant fundingDue diligence explained for grant funding, covering identity, governance, financial viability, fraud risk, track record and ongoing assurance.