Frequently Asked Questions

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 can request an early closeout via Award Portal.

Our goal is to close a grant worktag within 120 days of its end date. However, closeout may be delayed by a variety of unresolved issues. Visit our Closing Your Award webpage for more information on what GCA needs.

An accounting adjustment must be used if an expense posted to the grant worktag is unallowable per the terms of the award agreement. GIM 15 outlines the policy for accounting adjustments on sponsored program awards.

A deficit transfer is appropriate when all expenses are allowable and total expenses exceed the award amount or the amount of cash received from the sponsor.

Deficit transfers and accounting adjustments both pose audit risks to the University of Washington:

• Deficit transfers can indicate that an award may have been mis-managed when overspending occurs
• Accounting adjustments can represent an audit risk for the University
• Multiple transfers indicate continuous errors
• Transfers of expenses after 90 days from posting indicate reconciliation issues and potential internal control weaknesses

In most cases, the answer is "no." However, the answer is "yes" if your award falls into one of the following categories:

• a clinical trial award
• a firm fixed price contract
• has written sponsor approval to keep the unspent the balance

Unspent balances from sponsored program awards must be transferred to a residual balance worktag. Please give GCA your residual balance worktag, and we will transfer the balance when we close the award line. If the surplus is greater than 25% of the award amount, you must confirm that all the work has been completed and 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.)

If you need a new residual balance worktag, follow the process in the Worktag Template UW connect article. If you have a question about residual balance worktags, contact the UW Finance Operations (Fin Ops) team.

Visit our Closing Your Award webpage for more information.

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 SAGE Modification Request.

GCA cannot update the award line's end date or send the sponsor a final report or invoice until we receive the MOD. In the absence of such a MOD, we are obliged to follow the original final reporting or invoicing schedule. However, we can immediately put the award line in a status to prevent additional transactions from posting. You can request a status change and inform us of the early termination via Award Portal.

Know your Final Action Date (FAD), which is displayed on Grants tab in Award Portal. If any charges have not posted on or before that date, you MUST notify GCA of the charges by that date, or we will not be able to include them in the final report or invoice, and the charges will become a deficit to the department.

If you are expecting a no-cost extension or a supplement/extension (adding additional funds to the budget), you may notify GCA in Award Portal. We will then flag the budget to prevent it from being closed to status 4. However, we cannot extend the end date unless we receive an Extension SAGE Modification Request (MOD) or a Supplement/Extension MOD from OSP.

If you are confident you will receive the extension but expect sponsor approval to be delayed, you may ask OSP to provide an Temporary Internal Extension MOD to extend the end date with a department guarantee worktag as backup in case the extension is denied.

A grant worktag with a short window for final invoicing and/or reporting will generate an early Final Action Date (FAD). Most sponsors allow 60-90 days after the award line's end date to complete final invoicing or reporting, which generates a FAD over a month after the end date.

However, if the sponsor allows 30 days or fewer, the FAD window will also be short. GCA recognizes that this short turn-around time produces challenges for departments, especially for Procard charges, travel reimbursements, subaward invoices, and other charges where expenditures post after they are incurred. However, if you follow the procedure below for pending charges, credits, or transfers, we can incorporate these transactions.

If your grant's Final Action Date (FAD) is approaching or has already passed, please notify GCA of any pending charges ASAP via Award Portal. This will allow us to incorporate the charges into our final invoice and/or report.

If the final invoice or report has already been issued, you will also need to provide written sponsor confirmation that they will accept a revised final invoice or report.

A deficit can be transferred from a sponsored program award to any of the following worktags:

• Cost Center (prefix: "CC")
• Gift (prefix: "GF")
• Program (prefix: "PG")
• Activity (prefix: "AC")
• Stand-alone grants (prefix: "GR") including Startup, Retention, CoMotion-Royalty, Departmental Research Support, Residual Balance

Deficits cannot be transferred to self-sustaining or recharge worktags.

Visit GCA's deficit webpage for more information about the process.

Self-sustaining, gift, and recharge worktags cannot receive a residual balance. The residual balance worktag must have resource worktag RS100184 and fund worktag FD108.

GCA can reverse the residual balance transfer journal and issue a sponsor refund.