Grant Manager is most commonly used as a shadow accounting system. Just like an individual keeps a checkbook registry to balance his/her checkbook periodically against bank statements, so do most university departments keep their own "checkbook registers" to make sure that their accounts are handled accurately by "the bank", i.e. their institution's main accounting department. However, because balancing university accounting is a much more complex task than balancing an individual checking account, many things can and do go wrong in the main accounting department. Overhead and fringe calculations may be off on individual transactions, wrong accounts may be accidentally debited for some salaries or purchases, credits and transfers may lose their way from point A to point B, etc. Grant Manager provides accountants and Principal Investigators instant, real-time and accurate view on expenditures, transfers, credits, and account balances within an individual account/grant.