NA NICRA Advisors
Sec. C — Self-inspection

Grant readiness assessment: score yourself the way a reviewer would.

Twelve questions, four areas — the same ground a federal desk review covers. Answer honestly; "partially" is a real answer. You'll get a score, a tier, and the three fixes we'd start with. Takes about two minutes.

Runs in your browser · answers leave this page only if you request the written report

Part A — Accounting foundation
Your accounting system tracks costs by award and by typeEach grant has its own dimension in the books, and direct vs. indirect is a field in the ledger — not a spreadsheet built after the fact.
Time & effort is documented as work happensPeople funded by more than one source track actual hours across programs, certified on a regular cycle — not reconstructed at year-end.
Books close monthly, on a scheduleReconciled accounts and a repeatable close, so any month's numbers are final — not revisited every time someone asks.
Part B — Cost policy & allocation
A written cost policy statement existsIt names what's direct, what's indirect, and the allocation basis for every shared cost — and it matches what the books actually do.
Unallowable costs are excluded in the booksLobbying, fundraising, entertainment, alcohol, bad debts — coded out of the indirect pool as they're recorded, not scrubbed at proposal time.
Every shared cost has one documented basisRent, IT, admin salaries — each allocated on a consistent, supportable basis (effort, headcount, square footage), applied the same way all year.
Part C — Rate strategy
You know last year's actual indirect rateComputed from the closed books — pool over base — not estimated from a budget.
De minimis vs. negotiated was a decision, not a defaultWithin the last two years, someone ran the 15% de minimis against your actual rate and chose deliberately.
Budgets charge the full rate you're entitled toNo quiet waivers: proposals and drawdowns apply your full de minimis or negotiated rate unless a program genuinely caps it.
Part D — Audit readiness
Support for the indirect pool is a week away, not a monthIf a reviewer asked today, payroll, invoices, and allocation worksheets behind every pool cost could be produced within days.
You track spend against the Single Audit thresholdFederal expenditures are monitored against the $1,000,000 threshold (2024 revision), so an audit year never arrives as a surprise.
Subrecipient monitoring is documentedIf you pass federal funds to partners: risk assessments and monitoring notes exist in writing. Answer Yes if you have no subrecipients.
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Determination
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Where we'd start
    Book a free consultation Run your recovery-gap numbers →
    The written version

    Want this as a short written report? We'll turn your answers into a one-pager — what's solid, what a federal reviewer would flag first, and the fix order we'd recommend for your situation. Written by a person who used to do these reviews, not by a mail sequence.

    One report, one follow-up at most. No newsletter, no drip.
    What the four parts cover — and why this order

    The parts mirror how a federal desk review actually unfolds. Reviewers start with whether the accounting system can be trusted (Part A), then whether costs are classified and allocated by a written, consistent policy (Part B). Rate strategy (Part C) is where recovery is won or lost, and audit readiness (Part D) is whether the whole story holds up when someone asks for support.

    • Fix order runs foundation-first: A, then B, then D, then C. A negotiated rate built on weak books doesn't survive review — sequence matters.
    • "Partially" scores half credit. Most real organizations live in the middle; the score is honest only if the answers are.
    • Thresholds referenced — the 15% de minimis rate, the $50,000 subaward MTDC inclusion, and the $1,000,000 Single Audit threshold — reflect 2 CFR 200 as revised in 2024.
    What this is — and isn't

    This is a structured self-inspection, not an audit, a certification, or accounting advice. A real review examines documents, not answers about documents. What the score gives you is the same thing it gives us on a first call: a map of where to look first. The written report and the free consultation are where the map gets specific.