How to Write a Financial Progress Report

Financial progress reports lay out a grant recipient's or company's expenditures since the last reporting date. These reports are used by state agencies and nonprofits to track the use of grant money, ensuring that valuable grants are used for the right purposes. Organizations like the World Health Organization issue financial progress reports annually to demonstrate how public money is used for their particular missions. Businesses and agencies required to complete financial progress reports should be clear and detailed in their reporting to meet expectations of their benefactors.

Things You'll Need

• Copy of financial progress report form

Instructions

Document Expenditures and Receipts in a Progress Report

1. Assemble bank statements, receipts and corroborating documents at least one month before producing a financial progress report. Assign an intern to copy every document to provide evidence for your expenditures and income over the past reporting period.

2. Save a copy of the financial progress report form issued by a grant institution or state agency as the starting point for your report. While you will need to fill in the official report form to meet your quarterly or annual requirements, you should build off this form with supplementary materials that may not fit in the allotted space.

3. Place your total grant or starting budget at the top of your financial progress report. Write a disclaimer underneath this figure to highlight whether this is the full balance of a grant or simply the balance after the last reporting period.

4. Produce a line-by-line account of your expenditures over the last reporting period in your financial progress report. Each line should contain the purchase date, the product or service acquired, the amount of the expenditure and the purpose for this expense. Since your expenditures and income must be fully accounted for in a financial progress report, track down receipts for the smallest purchases to ensure accuracy.

5. Follow your expenditures report with a report on all infusions of revenue into your organization's coffers over the reporting period. Cite sales, donations, subscriptions and profits from events in your revenue report to show how your ending balance is possible. Attach a sales report containing documentation for these cash infusions to help the reviewing agency determine its accuracy.

6. Finish your financial progress report with a bar graph and a pie chart that puts the numbers into perspective. Your bar graph should feature lines for expenditures and income broken down into weeks or months, depending on the length of the reporting period. Create a pie chart that breaks down expenditures and income sources into colorful sections that show where money starts and ends its journey.

Tips & Warnings

• Insert contact information for the report writer, the applicable departments and the head of your accounting department at the end of your financial progress report. These contacts may be used by the reviewing agency to confirm information, ask questions about methodology and request additional copies after the report is issued.

• Maintain transparency by publishing your financial progress report in multiple platforms for easy public access. Print additional copies of the full financial progress report for office and client use. Create an online version of the financial progress report that will show your donors, customers and prospective clients that you can use finances responsibly.

Resources

• World Health Organization sample progress report
• Alaska Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Management financial progress form