Grants Management
Grants Management at the University of Delaware
Getting started:
When you first receive the Award, please verify that the award has been reviewed by the Research Office. It is important to remember that only the authorized representatives for the University (Research Office staff) can sign agreements, contracts, and grants.
Responsible Participation
The University of Delaware has been awarded funding for a project. It is the PI’s responsibility, as well as the research administrator’s, to manage the funds appropriately.
Read the Award
The first thing you want to do after receiving an award is to read the Award documents. This is an important step in maintaining your award. Any nuances should be reported to the Principal Investigator. Some items you should check include:
Are there special terms or conditions?
Is the award incrementally funded? (ex. NIH award subject to SNAP)
Note any deliverables (Reports, physical) and make PI aware
GMQ_MILESTONES will return all milestones for an award.
Additional milestones not returned in this query can be added by contacting the Research Office.
Budget
Compare the awarded budget to the final proposed budget. Contact the Research Office if there are discrepancies. Note cost share requirements (see cost share section below).
Hint: to check proposal budget run these queries:
GMQ_PROP_PROJS_BUD (shows what was in the proposal)
GMQ_BUDS_BY_CONTRACT (shows every project budget which
has been funded in an award)
Set up your files
Setting up your files at the beginning of an award will help to keep you organized throughout the life of the award. While there are many ways to achieve this, many find it useful to set up a PROJECT ID folder to track your transactions. Subfolders for each budget category or type of transaction allow you to further organize your transaction backup documentation. However you decide to organize your files, it will make closeouts and audits a much simpler task.
When a new purpose is set up by the Research Office for a new project, a copy of the Research Office Chart of Accounts Notification is sent to the PI and department account administrator or department representative (VARIES BY DEPT). This document is a valuable resource for you to retain to help you in administering your award. The Purpose, Project, Contract, and Proposal IDs are all listed. You will need these IDs to run queries and track your transactions. Validate the accuracy of this report and discuss any discrepancies with the Research Office.
Cost Share
Cost share is defined as funds committed for the project that are not budgeted from grant funds. Some examples include: equipment, personnel effort and tuition. If there are cost share commitments, contact the departments or Colleges that have committed funds. Some cost share will require companion Purposes, others may be tracked using cost share Speedtypes or UD Userfields. We will go into more detail on different ways to track cost share transactions in the section on maintaining your award. If the cost share is from a third party, contact the source and outline requirements for documentation such that you can report these transactions along with the internal cost share expenses. Refer to OMB Circular A-110 Subpart C.23.
[ http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/circulars/a110/a110.html]
Subcontracts Issued by UD
Subcontracts will be coordinated with the Research Office in the following way. The Research Office notifies the department to:
1) initiate a purchase requisition for the funds
2) identify any special reporting requirements requested by the PI
3) revise the statement of work, budget, and budget justification as applicable
4) complete the Provider Category Determination Worksheet
Establishing a separate file within your main award file will aid in tracking the activity associated with the subcontract. More detail about subcontracts is included in the Maintaining your award section.
Consulting Agreements
A consultant is defined as an individual (not a company) contributing his or her expertise to a research project for a determined fee. For consulting agreements >$25,000, the Research Office will include a copy of the Debarment Statement with the notification of award, as per OMB Circular A-133 guidelines. This will allow the Consultant to sign the statement when the Consulting Agreement is signed. A copy of the Debarment Statement can be found online at: http://www.ovpr.udel.edu/ovpr/downloads/linkedDownloads/DebarmentStatement.pdf
Program Income
Program income means gross income earned by the recipient that is directly generated by a supported activity or earned as a result of the award (see exclusions in Subpart C.24 (e) and (h) of OMB Circular A-110). Program income includes, but is not limited to, income from fees for services performed, the use or rental of real or personal property acquired under federally-funded projects, the sale of commodities or items fabricated under an award, license fees and royalties on patents and copyrights, and interest on loans made with award funds. Interest earned on advances of Federal funds is not program income. Except as otherwise provided in Federal awarding agency regulations or the terms and conditions of the award, program income does not include the receipt of principal on loans, rebates, credits, discounts, etc., or interest earned on any of them.
If there is program income, determine which type of program income is applicable. Refer to OMB Circular A-110 Subpart C.24 for additional information. [http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/circulars/a110/a110.html]
Fabrications
Equipment fabrication is the building of a new stand alone piece of equipment. If the expectation is that the equipment being fabricated will exceed $5,000 in total cost, this will be budgeted as equipment. If there are fabrications needed as part of the project, transactions should be tracked from the beginning of the award. See Capitalizing Fabrications section for details on how to track and capitalize fabrications.
Personnel
If personnel are supported on an award, the charges must be coded to appear on the correct Speedtype. (See LAM training document for explanation Speedtype vs. Purpose) In addition to direct charges for personnel, there may be related effort commitments which are tracked as cost share. The Labor Allocation Module (LAM) is a system used (http://www.udel.edu/UDFS/info/training.shtml#LAM) at the University of Delaware to track both types of personnel effort. Payroll charges are processed by HR and are distributed either directly (based on the JED) or on the distributions in the LAM. Distribution of pay impacts Effort Certification as well as the direct charges to the grant. If you are unsure which method to utilize, contact your college financial officer.
A detailed training document for the LAM is available at http://www.udel.edu/UDFS/info/training.shtml#LAM. It is important to understand how personnel charges affect the Effort Reporting that will be required. More information on Effort Reporting can be found at: http://www.ovpr.udel.edu/OVPR/do/index?pageId=30
It is important to note that the Budget Office requires that all 100% grant funded Professionals and Salaried Staff (includes Limited Term Researchers) be funded in HR on the departmental supplemental funds Purpose. The actual funding source would appear in the LAM. When checking Webviews, if an employee shows their funding source as the department supplemental funds it should be a trigger to you to check the LAM for the actual funding.
Maintaining the Award
During the life of an award there is no substitute for good practices in tracking and reconciling your transactions. If you keep good records, are proactive in reconciling your transactions, and prompt in making corrections, your close-out audit should be trouble-free. Knowing the financials data and how to get it is the key to success. There are several tools that will prove invaluable to this process.
University of Delaware Web sites:
UD Research Office
http://www.udel.edu/research/
University of Delaware Financials Systems Information
(Includes most Training documentation)
http://www.udel.edu/UDFS/info/
General Accounting
http://www.udel.edu/genacct/
Procurement Services
http://www.udel.edu/procurement/
UD Financials reporting (FIRPT)
http://www.udel.edu/financials
UD Grants System (FIPRD)
http://www.udel.edu/grants
LAM/Obligations (FIPRD)
http://www.udel.edu/LAM
Human Resources
(Includes links to Webforms & Webviews)
http://www.udel.edu/HRSystemsAdmin/
Webforms
https://chico.nss.udel.edu/webforms/
Webviews
http://www.udel.edu/webviews
BUDDY (Bringing UD Data Directly to You)
http://www.udel.edu/buddy
Federal Regulation A-21
http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/circulars/a021/a021.html
Federal Regulation A-110
http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/circulars/a110/a110.html
Queries
The PeopleSoft Query tool allows you to extract financial data. The Query tool can be used to do the following:
· preview query data within Query Manager and Query Viewer, displaying the results set in a table format
· write new or modify existing queries (be sure to *SAVE AS* rather than overwrite the original query) to extract new data sets
· download query results to an Excel spreadsheet
Query training (http://www.udel.edu/UDFS/info/training.shtml#query) introduces you to some of the basic functions of the PeopleSoft (PS) Query tool as they are used at the University of Delaware. Many prewritten queries are also available for use. A PowerPoint presentation explaining Grants Reporting is available at http://www.udel.edu/UDFS/info/training/GrantsReporting.ppt. Also included is a list of public pre-written queries. Public queries may be added or deleted so check in Query Viewer or Query Manager to see an updated list. Several acronyms have been designated for pre-written queries. Here are a few:
GMQ – Maintained by the Research Office; provides Proposal, Project, and CASH information
Samples include:
GMQ_PI_GRANT _BALS
GMQ_PI_GRANT_BALS_BY_ACCT
GMQ_PI_GRANT_BALS_CATEGORY
GMQ_TRANSACTIONS
GMQ_SUB_INVOICE_ACTIONS
EZQ_BAL_PROJ queries – Maintained by General Accounting; provides Balances and Transaction information for a specific project to date purpose, not by specific project ID
PIQ – Maintained by the Research Office; provides curriculum vitae information from the Employee Demographic Data (EDD) as well as F&A by PI.
UDQ – Maintained by Treasurer’s Office; various useful types of information dealing with Purpose details such as Authorized signers, Titles, Speedtypes, etc.
OBQ- Maintained by the Budget Office; provides information related to Obligations.
Obligations
The Obligations Module is a UD process that is “bolted on” to PeopleSoft Financials. The purpose of the Obligations module is to allow users to enter in an obligation for a future expense. In some cases, the system will automatically “de-obligate” transactions that meet a specified set of rules. Obligations may be entered for salaries, equipment purchases or any other type of expenditure that a PI may wish to encumber. The advantage of using obligations is that it allows a PI or administrator to accurately account for expenditures that have been obligated but have not yet had transactions hit the financials system. A detailed training document for UD Obligations is available at: http://www.udel.edu/UDFS/info/. This system does not automatically obligate fringes and F&A for any of the charges. It is suggested that F&A and fringes not be obligated separately as they are reflected as calculations in the PI snapshot. Obligations are visible by running queries but are also an integral part of several other resources such as BUDDY and PI Snapshot.
Cost Share
There are several types of Cost share that can be part of an award. The type of cost share determines how it is tracked. Effort cost share will be discussed later in this document under Effort Certification.
OVPR Equipment Cost Share – a separate Purpose is established to track this type of cost share. All transactions using these Purposes should automatically be populated with the ProjectID. However, it is possible that some transactions may appear in Financials without the Project ID. If this should happen it is important to contact the responsible department to correct the transaction (i.e. if a Purchase requisition, contact Procurement, JV-initiating department) or the expense will not be reflected as cost share related to the grant.
Other Equipment Cost Share – match funds from UD sources other than the Research Office may not have a separate Purpose. There are several different ways to track these transactions.
Populate the Project ID in the Project ID field when a transaction is initiated. For example, in a purchase requisition you would fill in this information at the time the Requisition is submitted. If you are using your departmental supplemental funds Purpose (such as CHEM17S000) the Project ID field is normally blank. By filling in the Project ID, you can run queries to pull all cost share transactions together, regardless of funding source.
Useful queries for tracking cost share are:
GMQ_CS_COMMITTED_EXPENDED_V - Shows cost share (match) committed and spent amounts by project
GMQ_PO_W_CS_BY_PROJECT - Returns PO data by Project ID and PO and cost share (details)
Cost share must be verifiable or it may be disallowed. If the department is not able to document that the committed cost share was provided, a percentage of the awarded funds may be returned to the sponsoring agency.
NIH Salary Cap
NIH restricts the amount of direct salary of an individual under an NIH grant or cooperative agreement or applicable contract to Executive Level I of the Federal Executive Pay scale. For the purposes of the salary limitation, the terms "direct salary," "salary," and "institutional base salary" have the same meaning and are exclusive of fringe benefits and facilities and administrative (F&A) expenses. Please see the salary cap summary and the time frames associated with existing salary caps at: http://grants.nih.gov/grants/policy/salcap_summary.htm. An individual’s base salary, per se, is NOT constrained by the legislative provision for a limitation of salary. The rate limitation simply limits the amount that may be awarded and charged to NIH grants and contracts. An institution may pay an individual’s salary amount in excess of the salary cap with non-federal funds. The amount of funding above the salary cap is cost share.
Checking balances
Query
Running a query in UD Financials (http://www.udel.edu/financials) is the most common method for checking a balance on an award. For a list of some pre-written grants queries and their uses, go to http://www.udel.edu/UDFS/info/training/GrantsRptQueries.doc. GMQ – Maintained by OVPR; provides Proposal, Project, and CASH information
Samples include:
GMQ_PI_GRANT_BALS
GMQ_PI_GRANT_BALS_BY_ACCT
GMQ_PI_GRANT_BALS_CATEGORY
GMQ_TRANSACTIONS
Here are some specific balance queries for project to date purposes:
EZQ_BAL_PROJ_QUERY - Project-to-date balance summarized by account
EZQ_BAL_PROJ_SUMMARY - Project-to-date balance summarized by acct category
EZQ_BAL_PROJ_TOTAL - Project-to-date balance: one line "bottom line" amount
BUDDY
Another tool available for checking balances is BUDDY (Bringing UD Data Directly to You). BUDDY is a web based dynamic report using UD financial data. Using this system, Users can access a list of Purposes based on their security level (in FIRPT) and drill down to the transaction or balance inquiries without selecting one or many queries. Results are quick and easy to understand. Users can tag transactions with comments to further define the category or reason for that transaction. Many units find this very helpful. Users can sort transactions by clicking the headers. UDChartfield (User field) can be updated from BUDDY, however this does NOT write back to PS, so if a user chooses to update that Chartfield in BUDDY, they need to realize it is only in BUDDY, NOT IN PS.