Audit (grant)

A formal examination of an institution's or project's financial records, internal controls, and compliance with sponsor terms, conducted by external or internal auditors to provide independent assurance of proper stewardship of grant funds. For US federal grants specifically, "federal grant audit" most often refers to the annual, organisation-wide Single Audit required under 2 CFR 200 Subpart F once an entity's federal expenditures cross the statutory threshold (see Single Audit (US)); an entity whose federal expenditures come from only one federal program may instead elect an equivalent program-specific audit under 2 CFR 200.501(c). Either is distinct from an agency-initiated audit -- for example by a funding agency's Office of Inspector General -- of a single award outside the routine Single Audit cycle.

ByCASRAI Editorial Board

· Last updated 10 Jul 2026

Examples

Worked examples

Is an instance
A Horizon Europe consortium engages an external auditor to issue a CFS once cumulative claims exceed the threshold.
Is an instance
A US institution undergoes its annual Single Audit covering all federal awards above the threshold.
Is an instance
A US institution whose federal expenditures for the year come from a single NSF award below the profile that would trigger a full Single Audit instead elects a program-specific audit under 2 CFR 200.501(c).

Counter-examples

Looks similar, but isn't

Not an instance
An internal financial check by a PI is monitoring, not formal audit.
Not an instance
A sponsor's annual progress review is a programmatic, not financial, audit.

Also known as

Grant audit · Research audit · Financial audit (grant) · Federal grant audit

Machine-readable encodings

Use in your systems

JATS XML <role> element

xml

<role vocab="credit"
      vocab-identifier="https://casrai.org/dictionary/"
      vocab-term="Audit (grant)"
      vocab-term-identifier="https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/audit-grant" />

Schema.org DefinedTerm (JSON-LD)

json

{
  "@context": "https://schema.org",
  "@type": "DefinedTerm",
  "@id": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/audit-grant",
  "name": "Audit (grant)",
  "identifier": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/audit-grant",
  "description": "A formal examination of an institution's or project's financial records, internal controls, and compliance with sponsor terms, conducted by external or internal auditors to provide independent assurance of proper stewardship of grant funds. For US federal grants specifically, \"federal grant audit\" most often refers to the annual, organisation-wide Single Audit required under 2 CFR 200 Subpart F once an entity's federal expenditures cross the statutory threshold (see Single Audit (US)); an entity whose federal expenditures come from only one federal program may instead elect an equivalent program-specific audit under 2 CFR 200.501(c). Either is distinct from an agency-initiated audit -- for example by a funding agency's Office of Inspector General -- of a single award outside the routine Single Audit cycle.",
  "inDefinedTermSet": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/domain/funding-finance#set",
  "url": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/audit-grant",
  "sameAs": [
    "Grant audit",
    "Research audit",
    "Financial audit (grant)",
    "Federal grant audit"
  ],
  "license": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
  "publisher": {
    "@id": "https://casrai.org/#organization"
  },
  "dateModified": "2026-07-10T04:56:30",
  "inLanguage": "en"
}