Set up budget categories and periods

Budget categories give every grant a consistent vocabulary for costs, while budget periods divide one grant's approved budget over time. Set up the categories once for the organization, then create the periods each grant needs.

Availability: This feature requires Grant Pro. Creating or changing categories and periods requires Manage Grant Finances or Administer Grant Center.

Open the budget setup

Open a grant.
Select Schedule & work → Budget & spending.
Select Accounts to manage shared categories, or Add period to create a period for this grant.

Understand shared budget categories

A category describes what a budget amount is for: Personnel, Travel, Supplies, Indirect Costs, or another label used by your organization. The same category is available across every grant, which makes program and portfolio reporting consistent.

These categories are not a second chart of accounts. They hold names, optional codes, and reporting classifications. They do not hold balances or receive accounting entries.

Start with the standard set

If the organization has no categories yet, select Use the standard set. BetterUnite creates an editable starter list based on common federal budget object classes:

Grant Revenue
Personnel
Fringe Benefits
Travel
Equipment
Supplies
Contractual
Occupancy
Participant Support
Other Direct Costs
Indirect Costs
Match and Cost Share

The standard set is seeded only when the category list is empty. You can rename, recode, regroup, deactivate, or add categories afterward.

Add or edit a category

From the Budget & spending panel, select Accounts.
Under Add a category, enter a required Name.
Optionally enter a Code. Codes are free text, so values such as 7001-A are accepted.
Select the Type: Revenue or Expense.
Select the Cost type: Direct, Indirect, or Match.
Optionally choose a parent under Sits under.
Optionally add a description.
Select Save category.

Revenue and Expense

Revenue categories describe income in the grant budget.
Expense categories describe costs. Only direct and indirect expense lines contribute to the headline grant-funded budget and spend figures.

Direct, Indirect, and Match

Direct costs are attributable to the funded work.
Indirect costs represent overhead recovered under the award's rate or terms.
Match is the organization's contribution from another source. It is totaled separately from grant-funded spending.

Parent categories

Use one optional parent level to create readable headings and subtotals. For example, Personnel can be the parent of Program Staff Salaries and Benefits.

Categories nest only one level. A child cannot contain another child, and a Revenue category cannot sit under an Expense parent.

Use codes carefully

Codes help the spending importer match an accounting-export row to the correct category. Each active or inactive category must have a unique code within the organization. When both a category code and name are supplied in a file, the importer checks the code first.

Deactivate instead of deleting history

A category that has never been used can be deleted. Once a category appears on a budget line, BetterUnite prevents deletion because the category may be part of several grants' history.

Turn off Active instead. An inactive category stays on existing budgets and reports but stops appearing as an option for new budget lines.

Create a budget period

Open the grant's Budget & spending panel.
Select Add period.
Enter a required Name. Use the language the funder uses, such as Year 1, FY27, or January–June 2027.
Optionally enter start and end dates.
Optionally add notes.
Select Save period.

Each period becomes a column in the budget grid. A single-year award normally needs one period. A multi-year award normally needs one period per budget year, although phases or other funder-defined intervals can be used instead.

Edit or delete a period

Open the menu beside the period name to edit or delete it. Deleting a period also removes its budget lines, but it never deletes recorded expenses. Any expense assigned to those lines moves to Unallocated so it remains in the grant's total and can be reassigned.

Recommended setup practice

Agree on category names and codes with finance before building many grant budgets.
Keep the category list broad enough to reuse across awards.
Use parent categories for presentation, not to reproduce the full general ledger.
Use the same period labels that appear in the approved award budget.
Deactivate obsolete categories instead of rewriting historical budgets.