Advancement · Grants & Funding

Three budgets.
One honest comparison.

Build the budget once by the standard categories, copy it into a smaller or matched version, and see every line, the indirect base, the cost share and the funder request side by side.

Open the budget What you get

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Included with Caveat Classroom and Whole-school licenses. Or get it in the Grant writer’s desk, $49 for 32 items.

The budget

The worked example is a made-up tutoring expansion in three versions: the full request, one site, and the full request with a 1:2 match. Every figure recomputes as you type.

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What you get

Advancement · Grants & Funding$12

What you finish with: A budget in up to three scenarios, a side-by-side comparison you can print or save as a spreadsheet file, and a plain-text budget justification with every calculation written out, ready to paste into the funder's form.
Who it is for: Grant writers, development staff, program directors and school or district staff who prepare grant budgets, and finance staff who review them.
Format: Browser tool. Works on a phone, but a laptop is easier for entering a full budget. Exports: budget justification (.txt), comparison (.csv), print or PDF, and a file to move the budget between devices.
Access: $12 one-time, yours on every device you sign in on; the tool opens once you are signed in with it. Included with Caveat Classroom and Whole-school licenses. Also in the Grant writer’s desk ($49) and the Advancement Suite pass ($99), and 1 more bundle. Budgets stay in this browser; nothing is sent to Caveat.
Where it lives: The Grants & Funding space in Caveat Advancement.
Support: Questions, a correction or a request: team@caveatacademic.com.

How to use it

Load the worked example, or start blank and add positions and lines under each category.
Set the indirect rate and what it applies to, and any required cost share. The dark panel shows the totals as you type.
Duplicate the scenario to try a smaller version or a matched one, and change only what differs.
Open Compare to see the scenarios side by side with the difference from Scenario A.
Export the budget justification and paste it into the application, then check it against the funder's instructions.

Open the budget

How the budget is computed

General terms from the federal Uniform Guidance. Every funder's rules differ, and theirs come first.

Lines and categories

Personnel: annual salary × FTE × months ÷ 12 × people, or hourly rate × hours × people. Fringe is each line's cost × its fringe rate; use your organization's actual rates.
Equipment is tangible property with a useful life of more than one year and a per-unit cost of at least $10,000, or less if your organization's own threshold is lower (2 CFR 200.1, as revised in 2024; the threshold was $5,000 before). Cheaper items, including most computers, are supplies, and the page flags misplaced ones.
Contractual separates contracts with vendors from subawards to partners, because the indirect base treats them differently.
Every line rounds to whole dollars, as most funders' forms ask, so totals match the lines.

Indirect costs and cost share

Indirect costs = rate × base. The base is total direct costs, salaries and wages, or modified total direct costs (MTDC): all direct costs except equipment, capital expenditures, participant support costs, rental costs, tuition remission, scholarships and fellowships, patient care, and the part of each subaward above its first $50,000 (2 CFR 200.1, revised 2024; it was $25,000). The $50,000 applies to each subaward over the whole award, so in a multi-year budget only the first $50,000 across all years counts.
Under federal rules an organization uses its negotiated indirect cost rate; one without a negotiated rate may use a de minimis rate of up to 15% of MTDC (2 CFR 200.414(f), revised 2024; it was 10%). Foundations and state programs often cap indirect costs or call them overhead; use the funder's cap.
Cost share is the part of the project the applicant pays. As a percent of the total project, cost share = rate × total. As a percent of the funder's share (a 1:1 match is 100%), funder share = total ÷ (1 + rate) and cost share is the rest. Cost share in an awarded budget is usually a commitment you must document (2 CFR 200.306).

The worked example's Scenario A, checked when the page is built: direct costs $218,423; the MTDC base leaves out $15,200 (the $12,000 of the $62,000 subaward above $50,000, and $3,200 of participant support), so the base is $203,223; 15% of that is $30,483; total $248,906. Scenario C keeps the same budget with a 1:2 match (cost share of 50% of the funder's share): the funder pays $165,937 and the organization $82,969. All figures are examples.

Sources

Code of Federal Regulations, Title 2, Part 200 (Uniform Administrative Requirements, Cost Principles, and Audit Requirements for Federal Awards), as revised effective October 1, 2024: §200.1 definitions of equipment, modified total direct cost and participant support costs; §200.306 cost sharing or matching; §200.414 indirect costs and the de minimis rate. ecfr.gov.
Office of Management and Budget (2024). Guidance for Federal Financial Assistance, 89 Fed. Reg. 30046 (April 22, 2024). The revisions that raised the equipment threshold, the subaward amount in MTDC and the de minimis rate.
SF-424A, Budget Information for Non-Construction Programs (Grants.gov). The object-class categories this page uses: personnel, fringe benefits, travel, equipment, supplies, contractual, other and indirect charges.

This page is a budgeting aid, not financial or legal advice. Rules differ by funder, program and award year, and a funder's notice or your negotiated rate agreement overrides the general federal terms described here. The worked example's organization, prices and rates are made up. Support: team@caveatacademic.com.

Three budgets.One honest comparison.