Overview of VA Awards
Here at the UW, we receive two different types of awards from the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA):
- IPAs: Temporary assignments of skilled UW personnel placed at the VA. The primary goal is for the UW personnel to learn valuable life experiences and skills that will hopefully enhance their performance in their positions at the UW. IPAs do not include Facilities & Administrative costs.
- Service Contracts: Annual contracts that enlist specialized UW doctors to provide medical services to the veteran community here in the Puget Sound area. These contracts can be renewed on an annual basis.
Invoicing Information
- IPAs: These awards are invoiced on a monthly cost reimbursable basis for actual expenses incurred. Each IPA requires a unique PO# to be invoiced against.
- Service Contracts: These awards are invoiced based on actual hours worked, as reported on physician timecards submitted to GCA as an invoice backup requirement. The invoice process flow for service contracts is noted below:
- GCA will send an email or Grant Tracker to the department requesting invoice documentation.
- GCA will review the documentation provided by the department to determine if it is sufficient to generate an invoice. If GCA determines that we are missing necessary information, we will follow up with the department.
- Once the invoice is generated, GCA will create an EDI batch and upload to Tungsten for submission.
- Should the VA reject the invoice and GCA is not able to correct the issue immediately, GCA will follow up with the department to correct the issue. Once corrected, GCA will regenerate and resubmit the invoice.
Closeout
- IPAs: When closing out IPAs, any balance will be refunded back to the VA since these awards are reimbursed only for actual costs incurred.
- Service Contracts: Upon closeout of service contracts with the VA, balances will be retained since these awards are invoiced on a fixed price basis.
2020 Invoicing Process Change (Service Contracts)
The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) notified GCA in late June 2020 that they would no longer provide appropriate documentation (timecards, timesheets, etc.) to allow GCA to generate invoices against contracts with a timecard based invoicing requirement. This responsibility now falls to the departments to provide the necessary invoicing documentation to GCA so that we may fulfill our contractual invoicing obligations to the VA. This practice will align with other non-VA grants/contracts with similar invoicing requirements.
The most efficient way to administer this change is to have service providers include department contacts when sending timecards to the VA. You may use GCA’s template or another template that works for your department and submit them via Grant Tracker on the appropriate budget or email to loa2@uw.edu and saamirc@uw.edu. Please note that any unreimbursed expenses will be considered a deficit and will be charged against a department budget, as per GCA’s deficit policy.
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