Utilisation certificate in Form GFR 12-A: a guide for incubators

By the Incubate360 team, Incunation Global. Updated 21 October 2026.

A utilisation certificate (UC) tells the body that gave a grant how the money was used. For grants-in-aid from central government ministries and departments, the format is Form GFR 12-A of the General Financial Rules, 2017. Incubators that receive grants, such as seed fund money or scheme grants, file one for each grant, usually for each financial year.

What does Form GFR 12-A contain?

1. The grant: the name of the scheme, the financial year, and whether the grant is recurring or non-recurring.
2. The position at the start of the year: cash in hand or in the bank, and unadjusted advances.
3. Grants received, spent and left: unspent balance from earlier years, interest earned on it, interest deposited back to the Government, grants received during the year with their sanction numbers and dates, total funds available, expenditure incurred, and the closing balance.
4. The split of expenditure: by component, such as general, salary and capital assets.
5. The position at the end of the year: cash in hand or in the bank, and unadjusted advances.
6. The certificate: the institution’s authorised signatories confirm that the money was spent on the purpose it was given for, and that the conditions of the grant were met.

Where incubators usually go wrong

• Figures are typed from memory or from a spreadsheet, and no longer match the ledger.
• Interest earned on unspent grant money is left out, or not shown as returned.
• Last year’s closing balance does not carry into this year’s opening balance.
• The component split does not add up to the expenditure line.
• Several versions travel by email and nobody knows which one was signed.

How to prepare a UC from your books

1. Record every receipt and payment against the grant it belongs to.
2. Reconcile those entries with the bank statement.
3. Approve the entries, so only checked figures count.
4. Generate the UC from the approved, reconciled ledger.
5. Review it, approve it, and lock that version.
6. Export it as PDF and Excel, sign it, and submit it to the funding agency.

How Incubate360 does it

Incubate360 generates each UC in Form GFR 12-A from the reconciled, approved figures in the grant’s ledger, checks it against the ledger again before approval, locks the final version, and puts every UC, report and instalment claim on one due calendar with an owner. See utilisation certificates in Incubate360.