Award Management Process
Award management occurs after the grants, contracts or cooperative agreements awarded to the University have been set up in our financial system (IRIS). Award Management includes policies and procedures of the University, school, and sponsor to ensure compliance with the award's terms and conditions, often referred to as the post-award phase of the award life cycle.
Proper management of sponsored programs is crucial to maintaining public trust in research outcomes. Our Sponsored Program Analyst(s) undertake the analysis and interpretation of agreements and associated documents for new sponsored projects. This ensures an accurately structured setup to meet billing and reporting requirements and coded correctly to facilitate accurate financial reporting. Furthermore, our analysts ensure that the sponsored projects comply thoroughly with the University and sponsor parameters.
The success of a sponsored project is contingent on both the ability of the PI(s) and Department Administrators to follow through the project and the Office of Sponsored Programs to ensure proper stewardship of the awarded funds. To successfully manage an award and be compliant, the PI and Department Administrator need to:
- Ensure that personnel on the project are cognizant of their responsibilities.
- Abide by the terms and conditions of the award, such as approved scope of work and budget, required prior approvals, reporting, and publication rights.
- Understand the sponsor’s and University’s policies and work with the Office of Sponsored Programs for guidance.
- Use Cayuse to route sub-award documents to other institutions.
- If the award funded under multi-campus, provide an approved internal budget to create an internal award notification for the child account.
- Ensure that charges to grants benefit the award. It is inappropriate to average the costs of research supplies across all the principal investigator’s grants, without considering supply usage. The costs charged to a sponsored project must be necessary, reasonable, and allowable. The University audits are to ensure consistent treatment of similar costs across the institution.
- Items included in our indirect cost base cannot charge directly to the award under direct cost. However, there may be exceptions with prior approval within the proposal application.
ACCOUNT SET-UP
Under Multi-Campus funding, each campus is responsible for setting up their child account under the primary campus’ account. Assignment of the child account is to the responsible PI affiliated with the internal award. The child account’s Sponsored Program office is responsible for managing and tracking the budget and expenditures to ensure compliance with the primary award. All financial reporting and invoicing for both accounts is the responsibility of the primary campus.
After account creation and release, the IRIS system will generate an automatic e-mail sent to the PI and the Department Administrator on the project alerting them of the WBS account number.
ADVANCE ACCOUNT
Advance accounts requested prior to the University’s receipt and acceptance of a sponsored award allows the department the ability to incur allowable costs to an appropriate account, reducing the need for cost transfers upon award acceptance. All expenses on an advance account are “at risk” with the department assuming all responsibility.
To request an advance account, please submit an Advance Account request form . The sponsor must provide adequate documentation to demonstrate a negotiating agreement is in process.
Note: The process may delay, if the funds contain PHS, DHHS, or NIH funding either direct or indirectly, until we receive official confirmation that the Financial Conflict of Interest (FCOI) compliance has been satisfied.
REBUDGETING
The University has a certain degree of latitude to rebudgeting within and between budget categories to meet unanticipated needs and to make other types of post-award changes. Changes occur at the University’s discretion if they are within the limits established by the sponsor. For certain budget modifications or activities, you will need to obtain written permission before proceeding.
Informal rebudgeting occurs when actual expenditures exceed or fall short of the allocated amount budgeted in a GL code or when actual expenditures occur in a GL code that has no budget allocation. If no prior approval is necessary, then formal rebudgeting is not necessary but requested to assist in budget management.
Note: Rebudgeting may affect Facilities and Administrative (F&A) Costs.
To request rebudgeting of funds on an award or contract agreement:
- Determine if the sponsor of the award allows rebudgeting and whether prior approval is necessary. Note: If the sponsor requires prior approval for rebudgeting that exceeds a certain percentage of the budget, you must monitor all budget reallocation to ensure not to exceed this limit when multiple rebudgeting occurs in a single budget period. According to NIH, significant rebudgeting takes place when expenditures in a single direct cost budget category deviate (increase or decrease) from the categorical commitment level established for the budget period by 25 percent or more of the total costs awarded.
- If sponsor approval is necessary:
- Forward an official request letter with detailed justification for the proposed change and a R&R budget form with justification to the Office of Sponsored Programs
- If the sponsor does not require prior approval for rebudgeting:
- Complete the Budget reallocation form and email it to the assigned Sponsored Program Analyst (SPA) in the Office of Sponsored Programs.
- The assigned SP Analyst will review the rebudgeting request to determine if it is allowable, based on sponsor regulations or contractual agreements in the award documents.
- If prior sponsor approval is necessary, OSP’s Associate Vice Chancellor for Research will submit the documentation to the sponsor.
- The assigned SP Analyst will notify the department about the status of the request.
COST TRANSFERS
COST SHARING