Foundry Academy · Funding Readiness · Lesson 6 of 6

Manage decisions and funding obligations

Maintain a decision and obligations register that separates a lead, application, award, acceptance, and cash receipt.

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01 · Explanation

Manage decisions and funding obligations

Objective: Maintain a decision and obligations register that separates a lead, application, award, acceptance, and cash receipt.

These are different events: finding a lead; screening it; submitting an authorized application; receiving a decision; accepting binding terms; receiving cash; and complying with continuing obligations. Do not collapse them into funded. An approval may still have conditions, reimbursement timing, milestones, reporting duties, collateral, personal exposure, or restrictions on use. Compare the final terms with the original case for the decision; pause when they change. Rejection or delay should update the cash plan and next action, not trigger uncontrolled repeat submissions.

The case contains no actual application or award, so its register should show training drafts and pending reviews only. For the hypothetical reporting conditions in F14, design a proposed calendar, evidence owner, eligible-cost ledger, and change-approval gate. Mark them learner-designed, not an implemented award system. Revisit the route screen when a notice expires, applicant facts change, costs change, or a provider requests different terms. A useful handoff to Capital Navigator records an evidence-based question and unresolved conditions; it does not claim the tool selected an investor, guaranteed a grant, or approved a loan.

Before you begin

  • Read the source facts and preserve their fictional status.
  • Keep estimates and absent evidence visible.
  • Use no private records or live application systems.

Original overview module anchor →

02 · Compare the artifacts

Supported work. Visible uncertainty.

Fictional training case. No real company, funder, offer, application, deadline or outcome is represented. Do not submit, contact, sign, upload private records, or treat calculations as financial/legal advice.

Canyon Sensor Works — from funding wish to reviewable packet

A Utah industrial-sensor startup wants a pilot milestone funded within six weeks. Its budget contains both estimates and an engineering estimate; ordinary operations consume more cash than they generate. Two simulated grants and two simulated financing structures create tempting but flawed shortcuts. Your job is to produce six traceable artifacts, preserve missing evidence, and prepare a human-review handoff—not to obtain funding.

Supported example — reference only

State or obligation
Current application state
Evidence and source
F12/F13: no current notice or permission to submit
Next bounded action
Resolve readiness gaps, then request deliberate review
Owner and review trigger
Founder; trigger: current verified notice and reviewed packet
Recorded status
Draft only — not submitted

A well-handled evidence gap

State or obligation
Hypothetical reporting calendar
Evidence and source
F14: reporting period and agreement not supplied
Next bounded action
Propose evidence owner; leave real dates and obligations unconfirmed
Owner and review trigger
Award administrator and qualified reviewer
Recorded status
Simulation — not an award

Flawed approach — do not copy

Mark the company funded after drafting an application, then spend against a hypothetical award. Neither drafting nor an unaccepted decision is cash or authority to incur costs.

Repair: Set the current state to draft only—not submitted—and retain separate future evidence gates for submission, award decision, acceptance and cash receipt. Mark the F14 reporting calendar as a learner proposal with real agreement dates and obligations still unknown. Assign review owners and change triggers, and write a no-submission memo naming the evidence needed before the founder can authorize any real action or spending.

Full case record, ambiguities and all assignments →

03 · Bounded practice

Build the decision and obligations register.

Build a six-state decision register and a proposed reporting calendar. Write one go/no-go memo explaining why the case is not ready to submit and what evidence would change that decision.

Deliverable: A decision log, conditional-obligations calendar, named human-review gate, and next-action memo linked to the relevant lesson outputs.

Use only the cited fictional inputs. Label estimates, proposals and missing evidence. No real outreach, submission, signature, offer acceptance, data transfer, or credential claim is authorized by this exercise.

Exact supplied inputs for this assignment
  • M06-I01 · F05 — Training Grant A is fictional: for-profit Utah prototype projects may apply; a 1:1 cash match is required against a $30,000 requested award, with reimbursement after approved costs. Its illustrative application period has closed as of the case review date.
  • M06-I02 · F07 — Training Loan C is fictional: $51,000 principal, 36 equal monthly installments, 12% nominal annual interest compounded monthly, and a 2% origination fee withheld from proceeds. No actual offer, lender underwriting, default terms, collateral, or guarantee terms are supplied.
  • M06-I03 · F08 — Training Equity D is fictional: $200,000 new cash at an $800,000 pre-money valuation. The simplified example excludes options, convertibles, fees, preferences, taxes, and other investor rights. No investor commitment is supplied.
  • M06-I04 · F12 — The team wants to submit in six weeks. The packet has no current program notice, verified deadline/timezone, entity registration proof, authorized signature, tax return, bank statement, or consent to share personal documents.
  • M06-I05 · F13 — Three decisions remain unapproved: reducing the tooling stage, accepting debt, and giving up ownership. The learner has permission to prepare a training draft only, not contact funders, submit, sign, or accept terms.
  • M06-I06 · F14 — A hypothetical award would require eligible-cost evidence, periodic reports, a named reporting owner, and approval before changing scope. These training conditions are not a real award agreement.

Operating procedure

  1. Record the highest state for which an actual event is supported.
  2. Distinguish decision, acceptance and cash receipt instead of labeling all funded.
  3. Carry unresolved terms and affordability issues into the next review.
  4. Translate only the simulated reporting terms into a clearly proposed control.
  5. Leave absent agreement dates, signatures and reporting intervals unknown.
  6. Assign a change trigger for stale notices, cost changes and revised provider terms.
  7. Write a no-submission memo and identify the evidence that would allow a later owner decision.
Field-by-field guidance
State or obligation
Record state or obligation with a source or explicit assumption. Example: Current application state Keep an absent value marked not supplied.
Evidence and source
Record evidence and source with a source or explicit assumption. Example: F12/F13: no current notice or permission to submit Keep an absent value marked not supplied.
Next bounded action
Record next bounded action with a source or explicit assumption. Example: Resolve readiness gaps, then request deliberate review Keep an absent value marked not supplied.
Owner and review trigger
Record owner and review trigger with a source or explicit assumption. Example: Founder; trigger: current verified notice and reviewed packet Keep an absent value marked not supplied.
Recorded status
Record recorded status with a source or explicit assumption. Example: Draft only — not submitted Keep an absent value marked not supplied.
Decision and obligations register · learning draft
State or obligationEvidence and sourceNext bounded actionOwner and review triggerRecorded status

Start with 6 rows; the complete workbook specifies 6 stable rows for this artifact. Add rows here or use the full download. No action is saved until you explicitly choose saving above.

Download complete six-module workbook (.md) · Structured case packet (.json)

Keep private client data, unpublished inventions, personal identifiers and credentials out of these public learning tools.

Module 6 · 2-item formative check

Manage decisions and funding obligations

Choose an answer and request feedback. Read why each option does or does not fit the evidence. Answers stay in this tab unless you choose device-only saving; they are never submitted.

Question 1 of 2 · MODULE 6 · scenarioWhich current status is supported by this case?
Question 2 of 2 · MODULE 6 · scenarioHow should the hypothetical award reporting calendar be labeled?

Answer either question to review its reasoning.

Inspect the artifact, not just your quiz answers

  • No application, award, accepted terms, funding receipt or certificate is falsely recorded
  • F14 conditions are treated as a simulation with owner and evidence needs
  • The next-action memo names decision-changing evidence and preserves the founder’s authority

Stop: Stop if a material source, authority, or applicable eligibility condition is absent or contradicted.

Go: Go only to the next bounded learning artifact after the supplied facts and limits are represented accurately.

Escalate: Route actual financing, tax, legal, technical, safety and program-specific decisions to qualified reviewers; do not infer approval.

04 · Evidence to keep

Leave with usable work.

A decision log, conditional-obligations calendar, named human-review gate, and next-action memo linked to the relevant lesson outputs.

Download your artifact CSV and, if wanted, export the learning-work JSON above. Neither export is a reviewed submission or certificate. Device-only saving is optional; you must press Save my work now after edits.

When all six artifacts are ready, compare the full packet against the track rubric. Qualified human review is still required before real-world decisions.

Funding readiness specialist reviewing a document with business statistics.
Learn the standard. Practice the work.
Founder reviewing and signing a prepared business funding document.
Leave with evidence you can inspect.

Sources, scope and review boundaries

Curriculum 2026.10.08-learning-paths-1. External source dates below are record checks, not continuing guarantees. Verify current requirements before consequential use.

grants-101 · Official guidance

Grants 101 — Grants.gov

Primary overview of pre-award, award and post-award lifecycle. Individual notices control eligibility, match, deadlines and reporting; the case programs are invented.

Open reviewed external source ↗

sec-capital · Official guidance

Capital-Raising Building Blocks — SEC

SEC staff educational resources on readiness, securities and offering pathways. Staff resources are not legal rules; securities counsel must review an actual offering.

Open reviewed external source ↗

ws-funding-evidence-standard · Academy internal operating standard

Wealth Synergy funding evidence and readiness teaching standard

Academy-authored screening, arithmetic, evidence-index, privacy and no-submission exercises. All case rates, company facts and programs are fictional. This is not externally validated instruction or individualized financial/legal advice.

Version 2026.10.08-1 · reviewed 2026-10-08 · owner: Foundry Academy curriculum owner

A future Wealth Synergy private professional-development certificate would be issued only after its assessment, capstone, identity, reviewer, retention, access, deletion, appeal, and issuance controls pass quality review. No credential is currently issued. Any future certificate would not be an accredited academic qualification, professional license, or government certification.