Plan ahead, not just report back
Institutional systems record what already happened. AllocBoard helps you plan and adjust allocations and expenses as they happen, so you catch problems early rather than at the next reporting deadline.
Features
Everything you need for research project management
Purpose built for EU, EPSRC and UKRI grants. Allocations, budgets, expenses, facilities and reporting, all in one place.
Project management at the research group level
Tools like Worktribe are built for university-wide reporting. AllocBoard is built for the people who actually manage research projects day to day.
The detail that matters
See exactly who is allocated where, for how many person-months, in which period. Track travel, equipment and salary costs alongside allocations. The granular view spreadsheets cannot give you, without the complexity.
Start without waiting
No institution-wide rollout needed. AllocBoard works at the research group level: the PI, the project manager, the researchers. Set up in minutes, not months.
Visualisation
See your entire portfolio at a glance
Project view
A complete overview of each project: expenses, allocations, and a month-by-month timeline all in one place.
Interactive timeline
Assign staff allocations and log expenses directly on the timeline. Drag, click, done.
Staff view
See any staff member's commitments across all their projects: who is working where, for how many person-months, and when.
Alloc Intelligence
Get answers in seconds, and know what needs attention
Ask Alloc
Ask about your portfolio in plain English, such as who has room between October and December, and get the answer in seconds, drawn from your own records and showing where it came from so you can check it. Part of the Alloc Intelligence add-on.
Alloc Agent
A weekly review of every project that happens without anyone having to run it. It points out overloaded staff, facilities booked beyond capacity, projects heading over or under budget and costs that cannot be trusted, while there is still time to put them right, and shows you why each one matters. Part of the Alloc Intelligence add-on.
Allocation management
Track every person-month with precision
Person-month tracking
Built for person-month tracking. Supports partial allocations with monthly precision.
Overload detection
Automatic highlighting when staff exceed 100 percent allocation. Visual warnings prevent scheduling conflicts.
Cross-project allocation
Staff can work across multiple projects simultaneously. Total allocations are always tracked.
Research group management
Built for managing multiple research groups
Multi-group support
Create and manage multiple research groups with isolated data. Switch between them instantly.
Staff roles and pay scales
Define custom roles such as Research Associate, PI or Co-I with grade-based pay scales. AllocBoard uses these to calculate accurate salary costs across projects.
Custom expense types
Create your own expense categories to match how your research group tracks spending.
Planning and insights
Plan ahead with confidence in active projects
Staff availability forecast
See who has capacity for upcoming projects at a glance from the dashboard.
Allocation Optimizer
Automatically balance staff workloads across projects using a deterministic algorithm. Apply suggestions one by one or all at once.
Monthly summary email
Once a month, AllocBoard emails you a summary of what needs attention across your projects, so the things you would only have found by going looking come to you instead. It is opt-in: nobody is subscribed by default, and you can turn it off again from your account.
Reporting and risk analysis
Track progress, catch risks early
Reporting periods
Define named reporting periods such as RP1 and RP2 to track milestones, budgets and allocations across project phases. Budget left unspent in a period that has closed is carried into the periods still to run, and AllocBoard names which ones funded it.
Risk assessment
Budget risk is calculated automatically from your allocation and spending data, graded low, moderate, high or critical, and it reads in both directions: a projected overrun and a projected surplus are both findings. The calculation runs on your own figures, in your own account.
Portfolio risk analysis
Every project in your portfolio is re-scored every 24 hours, automatically. Each run is kept as a snapshot, so you see how budget risk has moved over the life of a grant rather than only where it stands today.
Pre-award planning
Plan projects before the grant is awarded
Hypothetical staffing
Create placeholder roles such as Senior Postdoc or Research Engineer with pay scales, to model costs before committing real staff.
Budget simulation
Build complete budgets with salary estimates, work packages and expense forecasts. Projected costs update in real time as you plan.
Staff feasibility analysis
Check whether your current team can deliver the project. See which roles are covered and where you need to hire.
Go live in one click
When the grant is awarded, convert your plan to a live project. Placeholders map to real staff, and all allocations, expenses and work packages carry over.
Financial management
Track every penny across your portfolio
Expense tracking
Log actual and planned expenses by category such as travel, equipment and consumables, with per-staff breakdowns and monthly summaries.
Estimated expenses
Every month AllocBoard emails your staff a secure link, no login needed, where they enter the expenses they expect to incur on each project they are assigned to. Submissions land in an admin review queue where you approve them, query them, or send them back. Next month's project spend is forecast by the people who actually know, rather than guessed from last month's numbers.
Work packages
Organise projects into work packages with person-month budgets. Distribute effort using equal split, proportional or custom monthly allocation.
Budget forecasting
Projects your final spend from the figures you have already entered, with a confidence band around it, so an overspend arrives as a forecast rather than as a shortfall at the end. Accuracy improves as more spending data comes in, using statistical methods matched to your project's stage.
Reporting period comparison
Compare spending, staffing and budgets side by side across reporting periods to spot trends.
Budget ceiling enforcement
Set hard budget ceilings against the approved award. AllocBoard refuses any actual allocation or expense that would take a project over its budget, while planned figures are left free to exceed it and simply warn, so you can model a bid before the money is there.
Facilities
Book shared equipment by the hour, costed to the month
Hourly booking on the timeline
Book hours on a cryo-EM microscope, an HPC cluster or a sequencing service against each project, month and funder, as planned or committed, and drag to extend. Bookings can name a subcategory of the Facilities budget line.
Dated price history
Record a price change and the previous price closes automatically. Each month is costed at the price in force that month, and every facility has its own page with its price history, hours booked and cost by project.
Budget protection
Committed hours are refused if they would take a project past its Facilities budget, and so is a price rise that would push committed bookings over it. A dashboard card shows each project's Facilities budget against what is committed.
Capacity limits
A facility cannot be committed for more hours than the month holds, counted across every project. Planned bookings beyond it are flagged on the Facilities page, on the project banner and in the monthly summary email.
Its own line in spend reporting
Facility spend is reported separately from salary and operating costs, on project overviews, budget flows, reporting period comparisons and month views.
Bulk import
Import facility hours from a CSV file, the same way staff time is imported.
Import and integration
Get started in minutes, not days
Worktribe import
Import projects straight from Worktribe CSV or Excel exports. Categories and budgets are mapped automatically.
CSV template import
Import projects using a simple CSV template with budget breakdowns.
CSV export
Download your allocations, audit logs and reports as CSV files.
UK GDPR compliant · AES-256 encryption · Audit logging · Automatic anonymisation
Your data is encrypted, audited, and handled in full compliance with UK GDPR. Read the security overview.
Ready to see your whole portfolio in one place?
Purpose built for research teams. Swap spreadsheet chaos for complete project visibility. Start a free 30-day trial with every feature switched on, and no credit card to get in the way.
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