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ARRA

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) program has now ended, and there are no longer any active budgets at UW with ARRA funds.

However, if one of your past awards was funded by ARRA, its budget prefix was 20 (i.e. budget number 20-XXXX). You should also see ARRA in the short title of the budget name.

NOTE: ARRA fund expired September 30, 2015 and the budgets for these awards have all been closed.

Budget Setup

If additional time is needed to complete a sponsored research project without additional funding, a budget extension can be requested from OSP (Office of Sponsored Programs). OSP asks that requests for budget extensions be received by their office at least 45 days prior to the expiration date of the grant. Budget Extension Instructions and Tool.

The status of an FA (funding action) or PAC (post-award change), whether it is a new award or a modification on an existing award, can be found by using OSP’s (Office of Sponsored Programs) Status Checker. Status Checker stores information on all transactions relating to grants and contracts approved by OSP AND that have been entered into OSP’s online system, or have been modified within the past 60 days. For funding actions only, you can also check the status at MyResearch if you have access to the award's eGC1.

GCA is processing FAs (Funding Action) within 1-2 business days of receipt of the FA. As long as GCA receives the FA at least 3 business days prior to a payroll cutoff, the budget should be established in time for payroll transactions to post. Payroll Schedules and Deadlines can be found at: https://isc.uw.edu/workday-payroll-calendar/

If a budget is awaiting a PAC (Post Award Change) for a project date extension, the PAC also needs to be in GCA 3 business days before a payroll cutoff. 

A Workday Unit Code is a four digit code that identifies what department a particular budget belongs to. This four digit code is also used for generating reports and sorting payroll checks. The Integrated Service Center can provide more information and can be reached at: ischelp@uw.edu , or 206-543-8000.

Workday Unit Code changes are handled by the Integrated Service Center.  The Integrated Service Center can provide more information and can be reached at: ischelp@uw.edu, or 206.543.8000.

Once GCA has processed an FA (Funding Action) or PAC (Post Award Change), an email announcement is automatically sent to:  

  • PI  
  • Current reviewers in ASTRA for the org code receiving funding
  • eGC1 Admin Contact
  • eGC1 Budget Contact
  • eGC1 Creator

PI and current reviewers for the org code receiving funding (unit level only) are accurate every time since this data can be modified after the FA or PAC is created. However, if staff turnover occurs, the Admin & Budget Contacts and the eGC1 Creator may become out of date.

If you have moved to a new position, please notify the PI or Administrator of your former department if you receive an FA/PAC notification. The PI or anyone who has read/write access to the eGC1 can update the contacts as long as the eGC1 is not in "Routing" or "In OSP" status. (At those points the eGC1 is locked to editing.)

If you are not receiving emails you can monitor the progress of an FA or PAC using the OSP Status Checker.

Food expenditures are allowable on sponsored project budgets if the cost is included in the proposal and funded by the sponsor, or with written approval from the sponsors' authorized representative. No food approval flag is required.

Only gift budgets currently require the food approval flag. For more information on food purchases on various budget types, please see the Finance Office's Food Approval page.

MyFD is a tool that allows users to access financial information from their desktops. It is a web-based system that has both detail and summary reports along with some download capabilities. MyFD displays data which has been downloaded from FIN (Online Financial Accounting System). Information regarding MyFD access can be found at: http://finance.uw.edu/myfd/access

If an award still hasn't been fully processed as its Advance period draws to a close, the department may extend the Advance budget. The request to extend will be made through SAGE (System to Administer Grants Electronically). Print a copy of the request, obtain the appropriate signatures, and send the signed form to GCA. Once GCA receives the completed form, the extension will be made. 

Whether an award is eligible for rebudgeting (i.e. reallocating funds to different account codes without changing the total award amount) depends on the terms of its award agreement. Departments should be aware of any rebudgeting stipulations in the grant or contract agreement. Rebudgeting procedures are different for awards needing prior sponsor approval than those that do not require prior approval. Further information regarding rebudgeting funds on a grant or contract can be found at this link and on the Post Award Fiscal Compliance Website.

The status of an FA, whether it is a new award or a modification on an existing award, can be found by using OSP’s (Office of Sponsored Programs) "Status Checker". Status Checker stores information on all transactions relating to grants and contracts approved by OSP and have been entered into OSP’s online system, or have been modified within the past 60 days. 

MyFD displays data which has been downloaded from FIN (Online Financial Accounting System). The upload happens each weeknight. A new budget will display on MyFD the day after it has been entered into FIN. 

Cash Received

The revenue amount displayed in FIN and MyFD corresponds to the grant/contract award amount. The revenue displayed in FIN often does not correspond with cash received on the project. If a grant or contract is prepaid (paid in advance) then the revenue most likely will correspond to the cash received. However, if the grant or contract is invoiced, then the cash received will correspond to invoices the sponsor has paid to date and will not match the revenue amount displayed in FIN.

Information regarding cash related to a particular budget can be found on the GCA (Grant and Contract Accounting) Grant Tracker. All GCA budgets can be viewed online through Grant Tracker. You can search by various criteria, including budget number, grant number, and PI. One of the items displayed on Grant Tracker is a list of payments received from the budget’s sponsor. Grant Tracker can be found at: /gca/grant-tracker-welcome

This information is available on the Grant Tracker Budget Information page. Clicking the number in the Drawn column in the Financial Information section will pull up a current report:

Note that drawdown reports are available for the parent and any sub budgets separately or combined. If the award is a multi-year project that receives a new budget number each year, you may you view drawdown reports for the current period or for the award period as a whole.

Please send the check to GCA and let us know how much is for each budget.  GCA will apply the payment to the award budget and loop in Banking & Accounting to apply the payment to your non-award budget

Clinical Trials

Checks for industry-sponsored Clinical Trials should be sent directly to GCA. In order for GCA to be able to apply the payment appropriately, the following information must be included with the check:

  • Budget Number
  • Principal Investigator
  • Sponsor
  • Study Title
  • Administrative contact

The check, along with the required information above, should be sent to:
 

UW Grant and Contract Accounting
4300 Roosevelt Way NE, Suite 300
Box 354966
Seattle WA 98195-4966
 

Payments posted on a Clinical Trial budget can be viewed using Grant Tracker.

Please forward the email notification to gcacash@uw.edu. If the following information is not shown in the notification, please add it:

  • Budget Number
  • Principal Investigator
  • Sponsor
  • Study Title
  • Administrative contact

The Cash Team will claim the payment and apply it to the budget. Payments posted on a Clinical Trial budget can be viewed using Grant Tracker.

Closing

Closing a grant or contract is the final step in the life of a project. Once the grant or contract has expired, or all of the activity is complete, GCA can start the budget closing process.

GCA begins the closing process after the Final Action Date has passed, any final reporting and/or invoicing requirements have been met, and all sponsor payments have been received. The department may request an early closeout via Grant Tracker.

Our goal is to close a budget within 120 days of its end date. However, closeout may be delayed by a variety of unresolved issues--e.g. an unresolved deficit or surplus balance, open encumbrances, incomplete cost share reporting, or open invoicing.

 

Grant and contract budgets automatically close to status 3 after their Final Action Dates have passed. Departments may request status 3 prior to that point to block further expenditures on a budget (e.g. to keep a budget from falling into deficit) via a Grant Tracker request.
 

The Record Retention Trigger Date visible in Grant Tracker, is the date used to signify the beginning of the record retention period for grants and contracts. This “record retention countdown” begins when any one of the following events occur:

  • A final Financial Status Reports (FSR) is submitted to the sponsor.
  • A final Invoice is submitted to the sponsor when an additional FSR is not required.
  • Budget Closeout, when the final budget reconciliation is completed and the sponsor does not require an FSR or final invoice.

 

In most cases, the answer is "no." However, if your budget is a clinical trial or a firm fixed price contract, the department may keep any surplus remaining. Please give GCA your surplus budget number, and we will transfer the surplus as we close the budget. If the surplus is greater than 25% of the award amount, you must provide a justification. (In rare cases, surpluses in budgets other than clinical trials or fixed price contracts may be retained, but only with explicit written authorization from the sponsor.)

Grant and contract surpluses must be transferred to a fixed price surplus budget only. Gift budget surpluses may be transferred to another gift of like purpose.

It depends on the sponsor and the award. Please review your award agreement and/or sponsor policies for more information. If they are silent on carryforward, GCA will require written sponsor authorization to carry a balance or deficit forward.

If for any reason your sponsor is cutting off your project before the original, agreed-upon end date, or if your PI is leaving UW employment and transferring their grants to their new institution, you must work with OSP to create an early termination PAC. GCA cannot update the budget's end date or send the sponsor a final report or invoice until we receive such a PAC. In the absence of such a PAC, we are obliged to follow the original final reporting or invoicing schedule. However, we can immediately put the budget in status 3 to prevent additional transactions from posting. You may request status 3 and inform us an early termination PAC is in process via Grant Tracker.