Funding: Sources, Allocations and Disbursements
Money moves through your centre in three steps: it arrives from somewhere, you earmark it for a program, and you release it to a startup. This is also the first thing to set up on a new portal - until a funding source exists, you cannot open an intake at all.
What you will learn
- Why funding must be set up before anything else works
- The three-step model: source, allocation, disbursement
- The seven types of funding source and when to use each
- How to release money in tranches against milestones
- How to keep an audit trail your funder will accept
Do this first#
It is tempting to leave funding until later - it feels like a finance job rather than a setup job. Do not. Every batch must have funding attached, and that funding has to be drawn from a source that already exists. Until you add one, the Create Batch button stays greyed out and nobody can apply to any of your programs.
This blocks your first intake
New centres routinely create a program, try to open an intake, and hit a dead end with no explanation. The only clue is a quiet 'No funding sources found' line inside the batch dialog. Add at least one funding source before you sit down to launch a program and you will not meet this at all.
Finding the screen#
Funding lives under Investments in the left-hand menu - the menu label and the page title do not match, so look for Investments and expect to land on Funding Management. Four figures run across the top and three tabs sit beneath them.
| Figure | What it tells you |
|---|---|
| Total Funding | Everything you have received, across all sources. |
| Total Allocated | How much is earmarked to programs. The line underneath shows what remains unallocated. |
| Total Disbursed | How much has actually left your account and reached startups. |
| Pending Disbursements | Payments approved or in progress but not yet completed. |
Good to know
The gap between Allocated and Disbursed is the number worth watching. A large gap means you have committed money you have not yet released - which may be perfectly normal, or may mean a startup is waiting on you.
Step one: record where the money came from#
A funding source is a pot of money that arrived at your centre - a government grant, a CSR cheque, your own corpus. Add Funding Source opens a form with a live preview and a small checklist showing what is still missing before you can save.
- Source Name should be recognisable a year later - 'NIDHI Grant 2026', not 'Grant 1'.
- Total Amount and Currency: rupees by default, dollars also available.
- Received Date and Expiry Date - the expiry matters if the money must be spent within a window.
- Reference / Grant ID is where the funder's own reference number goes. Fill this in; it is what an auditor will ask for.
- Notes and a receipt or proof document can be attached.
| Source type | Typical use |
|---|---|
| Government Grant | Central or state schemes - NIDHI, a state startup mission, a department grant. |
| CSR | Corporate social responsibility funding from a company partner. |
| Internal | Your own institution's corpus or budget allocation. |
| Investor | Money from an investor or fund routed through your centre. |
| Donation | Philanthropic or alumni giving. |
| Sponsored | A sponsor backing a specific cohort or theme. |
| Other | Anything that does not fit the six above. |
Tip
Record the grant reference number and attach the sanction letter when you create the source, not later. Reconstructing which cheque matched which grant eighteen months on is the single most painful thing about grant reporting.
Step two: earmark money to a program#
An allocation reserves part of a source for a particular program, so you can see what each cohort has to spend. Choose a program from the dropdown to see what has been allocated to it.
- One source can be split across several programs.
- One program can draw on several sources - which is what the Funding Sources section of the batch dialog is asking about.
- The 'unallocated' figure on the overview tells you what is still uncommitted.
Careful
Allocating is not spending. Money shows as allocated the moment you earmark it, whether or not anything has been paid. Do not report allocated figures to a funder as though they were disbursed.
Step three: release money to a startup#
A disbursement is money actually going out to a named startup. This is the record that has to stand up to scrutiny, so it captures rather more than the other two steps.
- 1
Pick who is being paid
Disbursements attach to an onboarded application, which is how the money stays tied to a specific startup in a specific program. The startup is resolved from that application automatically.
- 2
Choose lump sum or tranche
Lump Sum releases the whole amount at once. Tranche releases part of it, which is how most grant-backed programs work - a slice on joining, a slice on hitting a milestone, a slice on completion.
- For a tranche you can name the milestone it is tied to - 'MVP Launch', 'Revenue Target'.
- The Progress column on the list shows how much of the commitment has been released so far.
- 3
Record the payment reference and attach proof
Enter the bank reference - a UTR number, for example - and upload the receipt or proof document. Add notes explaining anything unusual.
Tip: Attach the proof at the moment you record the payment. It takes ten seconds now and saves a day of searching during an audit.
| Disbursement status | What it means |
|---|---|
| Created | Recorded but not yet approved. |
| Pending | Waiting on approval or processing. |
| Approved | Signed off, not yet paid. |
| Completed | Money has gone out and been recorded. |
| Failed | The payment did not go through. |
| Cancelled | Called off before payment. |
Keeping an audit trail that holds up#
Grant funders and institutional finance teams ask the same handful of questions. If you do these five things as you go, every one of them is answerable from this screen in under a minute.
Name sources properly
Include the scheme and the year. 'NIDHI Grant 2026' tells you everything; 'Grant 1' tells you nothing in eighteen months.
Always fill the reference field
The funder's own grant or sanction number is the key that ties your records to theirs. Leaving it blank guarantees a painful reconciliation.
Attach proof at the time
Sanction letter on the source, payment receipt on the disbursement. Never 'I will upload it later'.
Use tranches against milestones
Naming the milestone a payment is tied to turns a list of transactions into evidence that money was released against delivery.
Watch the expiry dates
Grants with a spend-by date are the ones that catch centres out. Record the expiry when you create the source.
Keep allocated and disbursed distinct
Report what actually went out, not what you earmarked. Confusing the two is the fastest way to lose a funder's confidence.
Common questions#
You have no funding sources. Every batch needs funding attached and that funding must come from a source. Add one here first, then go back to the program's Batches tab.
The menu label and the page title differ - the menu says Investments, the page says Funding Management. They are the same thing.
Allocated means earmarked for a program. Disbursed means the money has actually left your account and reached a startup. A funder asking 'how much have you deployed' means disbursed.
Yes. When you create a batch you say how much comes from each source, so a cohort can be part government grant and part CSR.
Choose Tranche rather than Lump Sum, and name the milestone the payment is tied to. The Progress column then shows how much of the total commitment has been released.
No. Set its status to Failed and record a new disbursement for the successful attempt. Deleting the failed record breaks the audit trail, and the failure itself is something you may need to evidence.
Funding is one of the nineteen permission areas. Most centres give full rights to a finance officer and the centre head, and view-only or nothing to program managers. See Adding Your Team and Setting Permissions.
