Proposal Budget Realism Checklist

There is not yet enough evidence behind this budget to defend it to a donor or an auditor. Before anything else: gather quotations and your salary scale, state the exchange rate and inflation assumptions, read the donor's eligible-cost and indirect-cost rules line by line, and strip out anything they will not fund. A weak budget attached to a strong idea still loses.

Cost basis & unit costs

• Every significant unit cost is backed by evidence we could show an auditor — a recent quotation, a signed rate card, a cluster-agreed rate, or last year's actual expenditure.critical
• Unit costs reflect this township's market, not Yangon prices — transport to hard-to-reach areas, river or boat legs, and seasonal price swings are priced in.
• The MMK/USD (or MMK/EUR) exchange rate used is stated explicitly in the budget narrative, with its source and date.critical
• Multi-year budgets apply a stated inflation or price-escalation assumption to years 2 and 3, rather than repeating year 1 figures.
• Quantities match the logframe: the number of trainings, kits, trips and participants in the budget is the same as in the activity plan and the indicator targets.

Staff & HR costs

• Salaries follow our approved salary scale for the grade, not a figure invented for this proposal.critical
• The full employment cost is budgeted — social security contributions, income tax, severance provision, medical or accident cover, and any end-of-contract payment.
• Shared staff are charged at a documented allocation percentage that reflects real time spent, and the same person is not charged above 100% across all our grants.critical
• Per diem, field allowances, accommodation and casual-labour rates follow our written policy and are consistent with local inter-agency practice.
• The staffing structure can actually deliver the workplan — including M&E, finance and logistics time — without assuming unpaid overtime or one person covering three roles.

Programme vs support costs & indirect costs

• We know our programme-to-support cost ratio for this budget and can explain it — reviewers notice when support costs quietly exceed a quarter of the total.
• Indirect cost recovery (NICRA-style rate or the donor's flat percentage) is applied at or below the donor's stated cap, on the correct cost base.critical
• No cost appears both as a direct line and inside the indirect rate, and shared office or vehicle costs are allocated on a documented, consistent key.
• Head-office support that the project genuinely uses — HR, finance, IT, safeguarding, audit — is recovered somewhere, rather than silently subsidised from unrestricted funds.
• Local partners and sub-grantees receive a fair share of indirect and support costs, not only activity money.

Compliance & eligibility

• We have removed every cost this donor treats as ineligible — for example fines, bad debts, entertainment, taxes they will not reimburse, or costs incurred before the start date.critical
• The budget uses the donor's own template, budget lines, currency and cost categories — not our internal chart of accounts pasted into their form.
• Items above our procurement thresholds are budgeted with the right process in mind (three quotations, tender, or waiver) and enough lead time for it.
• Commercial tax / VAT, withholding tax on contractors, and customs or import duties are treated correctly — either budgeted as a real cost or documented as exempt.
• Equipment, vehicles and depreciation follow the donor's asset rules, and we have agreed what happens to those assets at the end of the grant.

Cash flow & risk

• We have mapped the tranche schedule against our spending curve and can survive the gap between the start date and the first disbursement.critical
• If the donor reimburses in arrears, we have identified the bridging funds and the board or director has approved using them.
• We know who carries the currency risk if the kyat moves, and the budget narrative says what we will do if it moves more than 15%.
• A contingency or price-variation line is included where the donor allows it, with a stated basis — and access disruption, fuel prices and security costs are reflected somewhere in the budget.
• Any co-funding, matching or in-kind contribution shown in the budget is already secured or realistically committed, and we can evidence its value.