DIRECT ANSWER / 05
What arithmetic does the cross-checker recompute?
Row quantity times unit rate against the stated amount, category subtotals against the rows beneath them, the requested total against the sum of its rows, personnel quantity and rate against effort statements, and any declared indirect rate against its declared base. Every trace shows its operands and both values.
Why this review exists
Arithmetic differences are the easiest errors to make and the easiest to miss, because a budget spreadsheet usually computes them correctly and the narrative usually does not.
Row, subtotal and total traces
Each budget row that carries a quantity and a unit rate produces a trace with its operands visible. The sample produces four: twelve times 2000 equals 24,000, four times 2500 equals 10,000, ten times 750 equals 7,500, and one times 5000 equals 5,000. All four agree at the tolerance of 0.01 recorded in the review settings, and the trace records whether a value merely sits at the tolerance boundary rather than matching exactly.
Subtotals are checked against the rows beneath them and the requested total against the whole set. The sample rolls up to 46,500 requested, 6,000 in other funds, nothing in-kind and 52,500 total project cost, and the narrative's restated total of 46,500 is a claim a reviewer can map to that rollup.
A difference is reported with both values and the operands that produced them, so the reviewer can see immediately whether the table, the prose or their own tolerance is the thing to change.
Personnel, effort and indirect
Personnel rows are the usual source of quiet differences, because effort is stated three ways: as a quantity and rate in the table, as months in the prose, and as an FTE fraction in a note. The sample's B-0001 carries twelve units at 2000 with a note recording a 0.5 FTE equivalent, and the narrative states twelve months. Those are compatible; the tool shows them together so a person can see that they are.
Effort, months and FTE references are compared as stated values. The tool does not convert between them, because the conversion depends on an institutional definition of a full-time year that it has no access to.
Indirect rate arithmetic is observed only when the proposal declares a base and a rate. The sample declares neither, so the indirect observations are empty rather than assumed, and the tool makes no claim about whether an exclusion or a rate is permitted.
Practical sequence
- Set the tolerance the review will use
- Read each row trace and confirm the operands are the ones you meant
- Compare category subtotals against the rows beneath them
- Compare the request total against the rollup
- Declare the indirect base and rate only if the proposal states them
What remains outside the app
Grantweft performs arithmetic and textual cross-reference on user-supplied material. It does not write proposals or determine eligibility, allowability, accounting treatment, compliance, completeness, accuracy, submission readiness or funding outcome.
The private desk keeps exact source labels, stable budget row identities, paragraph-based claims, confirmed mappings, visible arithmetic, findings, human decisions, review freezes and passive handoff files connected without an account or remote application database.