Frequently Asked Questions

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Cost Share

It depends on the cost share requirements from the sponsor and/or what the PI proposed to the sponsor.

At the bottom of the Cost Share Summary application there is a column showing the total pledged dollar amount and another showing the actual total cost share dollars. Cost Share is considered met when the documented Cost Share actuals in the Cost Share Summary satisfy the sponsor’s requirements or meet the cost share commitments in the proposal budget.

Review the award documentation in conjunction with the Cost Share Summary application to determine if the pledged cost share requirement has been met.

Unrecovered Indirect Costs (UIDC) can be used for cost share when prior written sponsor approval has been received.

For more information on UIDC, see the Cost Share Commitment Components section on the GCA Cost Share webpage.

Grant and Contract Accounting (GCA) reviews budgets with UIDC Cost Share on a quarterly basis, makes the necessary computations, and enters the Unrecovered Indirect Cost (UIDC) share into the Cost Share Summary application. Departments should review these entries and let GCA know via Grant Tracker if there are questions.

In-kind cost sharing is non-monetary--e.g. volunteer time--and is treated as third-party cost share. In-kind contributions are assigned a dollar value by the entity providing the service (whether UW-affiliated or a third party) and reported to GCA as third-party non-FEC Cost Share, with no F&A assigned.

For more information on Third-party Cost Share, see the Cost Share Commitment Components section on the GCA Cost Share webpage.

Information on Third-party Cost Share may be found in the Cost Share Components section of the GCA Cost Share webpage.

Very unlikely.  NIH only allows Cost Share on Awards where it is stated in the Program Announcement that Cost Share is required (very rare), or will be a factor in selecting the Award recipients.

So unless the Program Announcement states that Cost Share is a factor, Cost Share should not be included in any NIH Award.

For Training Grants, funds are limited and are to cover the costs of supporting the Trainee.  The salary of the PI is an allowable cost on a T32 Training Grant but, typically, there are insufficient funds to cover PI or other staff effort on the Award.  The PI may choose to have their effort paid from non-sponsored funds.  While PI and other staff will expend effort on the Award, and that effort paid from non-sponsored funds, that effort does not need to be recorded as a Cost Share commitment unless the Program Announcement specifically states that Cost Share will be a factor in Award selection.  To the best of GCA’s  knowledge, an NIH Training Grant Program Announcement has not included Cost Share as a factor.  

The PI will need to prepare an Interim Cost Share report.

For more information on Interim Cost Share reports, see the Close Out section on the GCA Cost Share webpage.

For information on the F&A Rates which apply to Cost Share Commitments and Contributions, see the Cost Share F&A Rates section on the GCA Cost Share webpage.

If your proposal contains no Faculty Effort Cost Share, use either the Calendar Dollar-based (for Org codes 302, 304, 308, 310) addendum or the Calendar Dollar-based (for all other Org codes) addendum.

Yes, the time and effort volunteers contribute to an Award would be considered Third Party Cost Share. In order to document the Cost Share, the volunteer (or the entity providing the volunteers) are required to submit a letter that identifies:

  • The number of volunteers,
  • The hourly rate for the volunteer(s) time (this would not be based on the volunteers prime profession but, instead, the same rate as other workers would make for the same work), and
  • How many hours the volunteer(s) expects to work at that rate.

Once the volunteer time is completed, the volunteer (or the entity providing the volunteers) are required to provide a letter that states:

  • The number of volunteers,
  • The total hours the volunteers contributed to the Award, and
  • The total value of the contribution based on the hourly rate of pay.

Please see the webpage on Third Party Cost Share for additional information.

Yes, this would be considered Third Party Cost Share and should be documented by a commitment letter and a contribution letter from the faculty members themselves (not the institution). Fringe benefits and F&A would not be allowed for the volunteer time.

The difference between the internal and external rate may be used to meet an Award’s Cost Share Commitment as long as application of the lower rate is unique to the specific Award.  The loss in revenue, by charging the internal instead of external rate, is the UW’s Cost Share Contribution.  If the Department were to routinely offer this discount then it would not be representative of an actual cost to the department and could not be used for Cost Share.

The Cost Share F&A Rate will be applied to any of the expenditures used with the cash contribution.  So the amount of cash needed is the total amount of the Cost Share Commitment less the F&A Rate.  For example, if the Cost Share Commitment is $10,000 and the Cost Share F&A Rate on the Award is 55% then the amount of cash needed is $4,500 ($10,000 – ($10,000 x .55)).  So in this example, the outside entity only needs to provide $4,500 to meet a Cost Share Contribution of $10,000.

The F&A rate of the budget where the Cost Share expenditures were incurred does not determine the Cost Share F&A Rate for the benefiting Sponsored Award. The Cost Share F&A rate should be equal to the UW’s standard negotiated rate unless the Sponsor specifically states otherwise (which is rare).  Cost Share F&A does not represent a burden to the department as the calculation only exists in the eFECS Cost Share Summary module to calculate the true value to the UW of the Cost Share Contribution.

It depends on the nature of the resources that the 3rd Party was to provide.  If the 3rd Party resource is integral to completion of the scope of work, then you may need to renegotiate with the 3rd Party and/or the Sponsor.  If the 3rd Party resource is not integral to the completion of the scope of work, then this would be allowable.  As cash cannot be used as a Cost Share Contribution, the cash received from the 3rd Party must be deposited into the department’s gift or discretionary budget and then expended on items or services that provide benefit to the Award.  Those expenses must then be “tagged” as Cost Share Contributions for the Award.

At least quarterly, and more frequently if the sponsor requires the cost share match amount to be up-to-date in order to pay award invoices.

Deficits

A grant or contract is in deficit when the total expenditures exceed the amount awarded for the project. Budgets in deficit cannot be closed to status 4. 

To resolve a deficit, the department will need an allowable non-federal, non-grant budget to cover the overexpenditure amount. If possible, the department should complete the transfer via the Grant Tracker Deficit Transfer tool. If this option is not available for your budget, please provide the deficit coverage budget via a Grant Tracker request in the Closing topic.

GIM 15 outlines policies and procedures for the transfer of expenditures between budgets.

Deficit transfers and Expense Transfers both pose audit risks to the University of Washington.

  • Deficit transfers can indicate that an award may have been mis-managed when overspending occurs.
  • Expense transfers 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.

A deficit transfer is appropriate when all expenses are allowable, but the total exceeds the amount of the award. E.g. if a budget is $1000 in deficit because travel charges for a conference described in the scope of work turned out to be higher than anticipated, all individual expenditures should remain on the budget, with a lump sum deficit transfer covering the overage.

An expense transfer must be used if an expense posted to the budget is unallowable per the terms of the award agreement. E.g. if an award does not allow travel, all travel charges must be transferred off the budget.

 

 

Encumbrances

An encumbrance is a commitment to use funds for a specific purpose. By earmarking funds it helps departments in planning expenditures during the life of a budget. Salary encumbrances are set up automatically upon entry of costing allocations in Workday. Corrections for Salary Encumbrances are handled in the Financial Accounting department. 

An encumbrance is a commitment to use funds for a specific purpose. By earmarking funds, it helps departments plan expenditures during the life of a budget. The University uses various encumbrance codes for its financial activity. A list of encumbrance codes can be found at: http://finance.uw.edu/gca/encumbrances-0

Encumbrances and ARIBA Open Balances are charges that are anticipated to be charged to a budget or, in some cases, restricted funds. Note that encumbrances and open balances are for internal planning and monitoring only and will NOT be reflected on invoices or reports to the sponsor. List of encumbrance types and contacts for managing them.

Expenditures

Expenditures displayed on Transaction Summary reports in MyFD (MyFinancial.desktop) come from various sources. Often the source can be identified by the description or reference information in the Transaction Summary. If you need to locate a copy of the source document, here are some resources that may assist you:

  • For payroll charges, contact the Integrated Service Center at: ischelp@uw.edu or 206.543.8000.
  • For Purchase Orders, contact Procurement Customer Service at: pcshelp@uw.edu or 206.543.4500.
  • For questionable ISDs (Internal Sales Document), CTIs (Cost Transfer Invoice), or CTs (Cash Transmittal), review the information in the reference fields for contact information, or use the Originating Area Code found in the Transaction Detail of an expenditure or revenue entry to find out who processed it.
  • JVs (Journal Vouchers) can be processed by multiple areas. The characters after the identifier of "JV" denote which area processed the document. To determine which department to contact with JV questions, use the following chart: https://finance.uw.edu/fr/journal-voucher

Fixed Price Surplus

A Fixed Price budget is one that represents an agreement made with a sponsor to perform service at a firm price, without the ability to adjust that price for actual increased costs in performing said service. The firm price is usually based on a per test, or per deliverable, service. The University retains the unexpended balance of fully paid Fixed Price budgets.

The unexpended balance is transferred to a Fixed Price Surplus budget that has been established by a department in order to receive those unexpended balances from their respective Fixed Price budgets. The Fixed Price Surplus budget may be used to offset deficits in any grant or contract. For further information see Fixed Price Surplus budgets 

There is no set limit, but we recommend having three Fixed Price Surplus budgets (if needed) -- one surplus budget to correspond with on-campus fixed price activity, one for off-campus activity, and one for clinical trial surplus or another special rate.  For further information, go to Fixed Price Surplus.