The Financial Grid Field
In this article
In this article group
The financial grid collects figures across several years, which is what you want for income and expenditure history. Applicants get a row per line item and a column per year.
You do not type the years
The grid works its columns out from two other answers on the same form. When you add it, link it to the question asking for the organisation's fiscal year end (a day and month, with no year) and the one asking for its founding date (which needs a year). Link both: if either is missing, the builder warns you that the dropdown will have no options.
The applicant then picks their fiscal year from a dropdown on the form. It lists the current fiscal year and up to two earlier ones, and leaves out years before the organisation existed. If they have not chosen, Optible selects the current year for them, and if they later change their fiscal year end, the pick follows it and their figures stay under the same fiscal year.
The payoff is that every applicant sees years matching their own financial calendar instead of a fixed set that half of them have to mentally translate. The columns are labelled by year end, for example FYE Jun 2026, counting back from the year they picked.
Founded long ago | Five years of history, as you would expect. |
Founded two years ago | Two historical years, then the rest as future years labelled predicted. |
Put the fiscal year end and founding date questions before the grid on the form, so applicants have answered them by the time they reach it.
Five years is the default.
The Total column
Each row totals itself as the applicant types, which is useful for them and useful for you when reading it back.
It is worth knowing that the Total is not saved. It is recalculated for display every time. Nothing is wrong with that, but it has one consequence.
Scoring the figures
Write criteria against the individual figures rather than the Total, because the Total is not part of the stored answer and nothing can read it back.
If a criterion genuinely needs one summary number, an enriched field is the better tool. It computes and stores a value that scoring can then use.
The major donor grid
Same field, different purpose. It uses identical year logic and is meant for donor or funder figures across years.
Number format for the figures
Number columns in the grid can be given a Number format, such as whole numbers only or two decimal places. Each row is checked, and any error names the column. See Form Fields.