When funders are just starting out, it's common to patch together a grants management process using general-purpose tools — a form builder for applications, a proposal tool or Word template for agreements, DocuSign for execution, and a spreadsheet for tracking. As the programme grows, the limitations of this approach become significant.
This guide examines what purpose-built grants management software handles that proposal tools and document software can't.
Tools like Proposify, PandaDoc, DocuSign, and form builders (Typeform, JotForm, Google Forms) handle specific aspects of the document workflow:
For a very small grant programme making 5-10 grants a year, this patchwork can work. Each tool does its specific job.
No end-to-end lifecycle management. Proposal tools handle document creation. They don't manage the full grant lifecycle — from application through assessment, agreement, milestone tracking, reporting, and acquittal. Managing the rest of the lifecycle means more systems, more manual coordination, more data entry.
No applicant portal. Form builders collect one-time submissions. They don't provide an applicant portal where organisations can view their application history, save progress on in-progress applications, access their active grants, and submit reports. Each round starts from scratch.
No structured assessment. Collecting applications through a form builder and then assessing them is a separate process — usually involving exporting to spreadsheets, distributing to reviewers, collecting scores by email, and manually consolidating results. Purpose-built software handles this in one place.
No COI management. Managing conflicts of interest in assessment — panel member declarations, application-level conflicts, recusal recording — requires workflow capability that document tools don't have.
No milestone and payment workflow. Tracking that funded milestones have been completed, generating payment instructions, managing acquittal workflows — these require grants management capability, not document management capability.
No audit trail. Purpose-built grants management software maintains a complete, immutable audit trail of decisions, changes, and approvals. Document tools have version history but not the kind of audit trail that supports OIA responses, regulatory review, or board governance.
No portfolio analysis. Understanding the funded portfolio — geographic distribution, funded sectors, outcome achievement, financial summary — requires data that's consolidated and structured. Across multiple disconnected tools, this analysis requires significant manual effort.
Data fragmentation. Application data in the form builder, agreements in the proposal tool, signatures in DocuSign, tracking in a spreadsheet — this fragmentation creates data quality problems, manual effort, and risk of information loss.
The real cost of using general tools for grants management:
Tahua handles the full grant lifecycle in one integrated system — application, assessment, agreement, milestone tracking, reporting, and acquittal — so grant programme staff spend time on relationships and decisions, not manual coordination.