Legal
Justifying a public grant
The hard part is not getting it: it is proving, two years later, that it was spent on what you said.
A public grant has two widely separated moments: when it is applied for, with everyone paying attention, and when it is justified or reviewed — sometimes years later, with the project finished, the staff changed and the documents split across three places.
What is asked for at justification, and when it must date from
| Element | What it proves | When it is produced |
|---|---|---|
| Invoices and payments | That the expense existed and was paid | During the project |
| That it matches the grant's purpose | That it was spent on what was awarded | Decided when spending, not when justifying |
| Quotes or comparisons, where required | That the choice followed criteria | Before contracting: it cannot be redone after |
| Publicity or acknowledgements, where required | That the condition was met | During, with photographic evidence |
Important
The third row sinks the most justifications and is the only one that **cannot be reconstructed**. If the call required several quotes before contracting and only one was sought, no document produced afterwards fixes it: the date gives it away. What must be captured is the moment before contracting, which is exactly when nobody is thinking about justification.
How to organise it from the start
- 1
One file per grant, not per project
The project may include more spend than is funded; mixing them complicates justification.
- 2
Each expense linked to its evidence from day one
Invoice, payment and the criterion by which it falls under the grant.
- 3
The call's conditions, inside and visible
It is what nobody rereads and where the forgotten obligations live.
- 4
And evidence of what is not an expense
Photos of required publicity, minutes, attendance lists: always lost.
Watch out
The nuance that surprises years later: **the review is not necessarily done by whoever awarded the grant, nor within the timeframe you expect**. It can come much later, from another body and with different criteria, and what is checked is what is recorded, not what you remember. That is why a grant file is kept well beyond the project's end, and kept complete.
If something cannot be justified
That last is not a moral point: a justification that collapses entirely casts doubt on the rest, and the consequences usually reach beyond that particular grant.
Worth knowing
What each call requires, which retention periods apply and how justification works vary by programme and authority, and change with every call. **Read the terms and confirm with your adviser**; this describes what to keep from day one so that justification is possible at all.
›What if the supplier no longer exists when the invoice is requested?
You hold the invoice: what matters is having kept it, not that they survive.
›Does an email count as a quote comparison?
It depends on the terms; keep it anyway, dated, and ask before contracting.
›How long must it be kept?
Longer than the project lasts, and considerably longer than people assume.
A real case
The situation
A company faces a review of a three-year-old grant and is asked for the compared quotes.
What you do
- On the next grant, files the quotes before contracting
What you get
Justification stops depending on reconstructing something only capturable at the time.
The situation
The claim is prepared at the end of the project.
What you do
- Stores supporting documents as they are generated
What you get
The claim is prepared without a campaign.
The situation
A supporting document from a year ago is missing.
What you do
- Records what was requested and what was obtained
What you get
The gap closes while it is easy.
The situation
Supporting documents are spread across departments.
What you do
- Gathers everything in the project's file
What you get
What is there and what is missing is visible at once.
The situation
A cost turns out not to fit when claiming.
What you do
- Checks eligibility when recording the cost
What you get
The problem is caught while it can be corrected.
The situation
A review asks years later.
What you do
- Keeps the complete file with its date
What you get
You answer from the archive.
This article answers
- grant justification documentation
- asked to justify a grant from two years ago
- what to keep for a funded project
- grant audit what they ask for