Grants Management
Information and management procedures of grants for effort and travel on sponsored programs, grant vs. donation, salary corrections, program income, pre-award Cost, and cost overruns.
Costs & Reallocation
A cost overrun occurs when directs costs charged to a grant, cooperative agreement or contract are in excess of the awarded amount. Deficit spending on these funds is inappropriate and should rarely occur. When such an occurrence exists, the deficit must be moved from the grant, cooperative agreement or contract to a departmental account.
The departmental account to which the charges are being transferred should have the same function as the grant, cooperative agreement or contract. Specifically if the deficit fund has a function of research, the departmental fund should have a function of research. The same would follow if the function was instruction or other sponsored.
If the deficit is incurred in anticipation of additional funding, a memo should be prepared by the department accepting the responsibility for the cost overrun should the funding not be forthcoming. See pre-award costs for criteria.
A cost transfer is a reassignment (transfer) of charges to or from a sponsored project after the expense was initially charged to another sponsored or non-sponsored project.
With the implementation of Cost Accounting Standards, the University needs to track all expenses associated with Grants and Contracts.
Sometimes it is necessary to have a fund and project established prior to the execution of the final award document. These guidelines outline the requirements for establishing an account that will be used for pre-award costs. It is inappropriate to charge pre-award costs to a non-sponsored account and transfer them later. The following criteria apply:
- The request should contain a description of the sponsor assurance.
- The anticipated award amount.
- The projected start date of the award.
- The department must accept the financial risk in the event an award is not forthcoming, the start date is changed by the sponsor or an acceptable agreement can not be negotiated.
GCA reviews and approves the request and sets up the fund and project.
P-Card purchases for sponsored projects may be charged directly to the grant fund.
When charging directly to the sponsored project in PaymentNet, the following additional chartfields must be completed:
- Project No.: UND00xxxxx
- PC Bus Unit: UND01
- Activity: 1-Activity
Reallocation
P-card purchases reallocated to sponsored funding require the P-Card Justification Form. The completed form must be attached to the Journal Voucher Form.
Statements
P-card Statements will continue to flow through Perceptive Content and will need to be reconciled in PaymentNet. In the event an unallowable expense is charged to a sponsored project, the expense will need to be moved to a departmental fund.
Grant vs Donation
Grant vs Donation
This checklist is intended to assist staff with the appropriate classification of external support. Some judgment will be required to classify an award if items are checked in both areas. Each award must be considered in the whole rather than any single element. This checklist is not intended for direct federal grants and cooperative agreements.
- Budget restrictions or formal financial accounting during the life of the project
- Objectives to be achieved by the use of funds
- Subcontracts (where we are receiving funds as the Subcontractor)
- Prior approvals from sponsor required
- Key personnel are listed
- Period of performance
- Invention/data rights (intellectual property)
- Binding legal relationship (obligates recipient to perform and sponsor to pay)
- Deliverables are part of the agreement
- Reporting requirements (financial or technical)
- The sponsor retains authority to withhold funds pending satisfactory completion of project objectives
- Cost sharing
Gift vs Donation
- No contractual requirements. However, objectives may be stated and use of the funds may be restricted to a particular purpose (professorship, scholarship, travel or research in a defined area - e.g. diabetes).
- Award is irrevocable.
- No period of performance is specified.
- Formal financial accounting is not required and there is no requirement to return unexpended funds. However, a report to the donor on the utilization or impact of the gift may be requested.
- The cash is received prior to incurring any expenditures.
Program Income & Salary
Program income is gross income/revenue generated from activities associated with or generated by a federally supported activity or earned as a result of the Federal award during the life of the award.
The function of the GCA is to properly administer sponsor funding.
Tuition Remission
A When a department funds a graduate assistantship from a grant or contract and pays tuition remission for the student, both the assistantship and tuition remission must be paid from the same grant or contract project number. Graduate Assistant salaries are paid semi-monthly through Payroll and tuition remission is processed through Student Financial Aid at the beginning of the academic term. When the funding source changes for the graduate assistantship for one or more pay periods the department MUST PROCESS a journal voucher to correct the funding source of the tuition remission so it agrees with the salary funding source.
Tuition remission for graduate assistantships on grant or contract funding covers the amount of tuition only. Fees, including continuing enrollment, are normally not an allowable cost on a grant or contract.
Sponsored Program Closeout
Sponsored Program Closeout Procedure
Uniform Guidance & Federal Requirements from OMB
The Federal Government has issued new Uniform Guidance (UG) for Federal or Federal Flow Through awards.