Milestones and batches

A milestone is a piece of funded work the applicant reports on by completing its deliverables. You can create one milestone for one application, or a batch that gives the same milestone to many applicants at once. Award and pay > Milestones lists every milestone, each amount with its grant's currency code, such as NZD 1,250.00; Milestone Batches lists the batches.

Labels that name Milestone, Application, Applicant, Contract and Grant use your organisation's own term if you've renamed it.

The summary line

Above the list, a summary line shows how many milestones are in each status, across every grant you can see, and the Pending payments: the funding amount still to be paid on milestones that are Approved or Finance Approved and not yet paid in full, shown separately for each currency. Select a status to list just those milestones.

The figures are read when the page loads. To see a milestone that was submitted since, reload the page. Like the list, the summary covers only the milestones your Data Access Rules let you read. For due dates, overdue milestones and a twelve-month view, see Milestone portfolio.

Filters also narrows the list by Portfolio set (Due in 30 days, Overdue, Awaiting review or Approved this month), Funding Category and Contract Manager. A figure on the portfolio opens the list with these already set.

Create a milestone

Go to Award and pay > Milestones and select Create Milestone.
On Milestones, choose Create Milestone to start from scratch or Import Template to start from a milestone template. Enter the Title, Due Date, Funding amount and Description, and create or edit the Deliverables form. It needs at least one deliverable. For goods or services rather than money, choose In-kind under Amount type and enter what is given, the quantity, the unit and the declared value instead of a Funding amount (see In-kind grants).
On Application, choose one application.
On Reviewers, choose who reviews the milestone once it is submitted. With none, it starts as Not submitted. For an application that is not yet approved, you can also tick Prepare — issue on approval (see Prepare milestones before approval).
Select Create Milestones. The milestone is created and published, or, when you ticked Prepare — issue on approval, created and prepared.

Backed warns you about a due date in the past or more than five years away.

Prepare milestones before approval

You can set up an application's milestones while you are still deciding on it, and have them reach the applicant only once it is approved.

On Reviewers, tick Prepare — issue on approval. It's offered only while the application is not yet approved, declined or withdrawn. For an application that is, the step says the milestone is issued as soon as it is created.
A prepared milestone shows Prepared beside its status on the Milestones list and on its page. The applicant can't see it and isn't told about it.
When the application is approved, each prepared milestone is issued: the applicant can see it and is emailed, as for any new milestone. With an Offer & Decision, that's when the applicant accepts the offer; with an Offer Notification, it's when the decision is sent.
If the application is declined or withdrawn instead, its prepared milestones stay hidden.

This works the same whether you start from scratch or from Import Template. Milestones in a batch or a generated schedule aren't prepared this way: each is issued when you send its batch or schedule.

Create a batch

Go to Award and pay > Milestone batches and select New Milestone Batch.
Work through Create or import, Milestone Details, Build the Form, Select Application, Specify Reviewers and Create Milestones. You can select applications across any grant rounds, and change the amount for each one.
The batch is created Not Sent. Its applicants see nothing until you send it.
On the Milestone Batches list, select Send Batch and confirm. The milestones become visible and the applicants are emailed. Sending cannot be undone.

Select Edit/View to change a batch. Until it is sent, a change to its milestone applies to every milestone in it, and you can change the selection. A batch can't be deleted once an applicant has progressed one of its milestones.

A milestone's page

The page shows the milestone's Applicant, Application, Contract, Grant, Due date, Funding amount, Payment status, Paid to date and Outstanding, with tabs for Details, Deliverables and History. At the foot of Details, the Automations panel lists the last ten times an automation fired for the milestone and what each action did; Show all opens the full log filtered to it. See Automations. Its actions include:

Review: see Reviewing a milestone.
Edit Milestone. An amount worked out from the deliverables form cannot be changed here. Change the Amount type between Cash and In-kind until the milestone has a payment.
Complete on Behalf: complete the deliverables for the applicant and approve them at once.
Undo Approval: the milestone goes back to Submitted and is reviewed again. A milestone paid in full, or with a payment in a payment batch, cannot be undone.
Share Milestone: see who has access, and, when your organisation allows sharing milestones outside the organisation, open the link so anyone with it can complete the deliverables without signing in.
Export to PDF, History and Internal Comments.
Refresh commitments: read the milestone's commitments again from its application and contract, until it is first submitted. History records each value that changed. See Commitments beside actuals.

When a budget variation holds a payment

While a grantee's budget variation request names a contract milestone and is waiting for a decision, or for more information from the grantee, the milestone can't be paid. It isn't offered under Add Milestones in a payment batch, a batch that already holds a payment of it can't be approved, and its page says why with a View the request link to the request on the contract's Requests tab. Approving or declining the request releases the milestone. A request still in draft, and any other kind of request, such as an extension, holds nothing.

When finance holds a tranche

Finance can hold a milestone from payment with Hold in its Payments section, giving a reason. While it is held it isn't offered under Add Milestones, a batch holding a pending payment of it can't be approved, and its tranche shows Held. Release lifts the hold. See Hold a tranche.

Linked conditions

The Linked Conditions field on a milestone's page links it to conditions of its application, such as an ethics approval that must be in place before money moves. Choose any of the application's conditions; editing the field needs permission to create milestones.

While any linked condition is not approved, the milestone is held from payment: it isn't offered under Add Milestones in a payment batch, and its payments area says Payment is held until the linked Conditions are approved. Approving every linked condition, or unlinking them, releases the hold. A milestone with no linked conditions is never held this way. See Funding decisions for approving a condition.

See what was submitted each time

Every time a milestone is submitted, resubmitted or completed on behalf, the version submitted is kept exactly as it was. Changes made later, including a resubmission, never alter an earlier version.

Open the milestone and select the History tab.
On a Milestone submitted or Milestone completed on behalf entry, select View version and its number.
The version shows who submitted it and when, the funding amount at that time, and each answer with the file it held. A file that has since been removed is still named, marked no longer available.
Use Version to move between versions without closing the window.

The version that was approved is marked Approved version and its number, in the history and in the window. If the approval is undone, no version is marked until the milestone is approved again.

Only administrators who can view the milestone see its versions. Applicants do not.

Export on the History tab saves the milestone's history as a CSV or Excel file, using the filters the tab shows, and the file downloads at once. You need Can generate reports. See Export one record's history.

AI assisted changes

A change made with an accepted or edited AI output, such as an accepted acquittal comparison, shows AI assisted on the History tab. Select View the decision log entry to open that output's entry on the Decision log tab of AI assistance, which names the capability that made it. You need Can access Organisation settings to read the log. It keeps references, versions and hashes, never the prompt or the output.

Email the people behind these records

To email everyone on this list, or the ones you tick, select Broadcast. See Broadcasts.