Frequently Asked Questions

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

Above all, do NOT deposit the payment as revenue to a grant, contract, or gift budget. This will throw the award and revenue amounts out of balance and lead to complications at closeout. Instead, refunds to these budgets should be processed as reverse expenditures to the same object/sub-object code as the initial charge. See instructions for reverse expenditure processing here.

For all questions about allowability, please consult the Post Award Fiscal Compliance page. They have web pages dedicated to specific cost items, including food, travel, mobile devices, and many others. You can contact them at gcafco@uw.edu with specific questions.

Multiple reasons could exist for why portions of an award budget would be restricted. Common ones include a restriction on spending later years of a multi-year project until the sponsor issues payment, carryforward that cannot be released for spending without sponsor approval, or a delay in human subjects protocol approval. If you are uncertain what restrictions apply to your particular budget, please contact GCA via Grant Tracker under the Budget Setup topic.

Please work with Procurement Services to issue payments from your grant or contract budget.

Generally, the subcontract amount subject to UW F&A costs is based on the business rules of the Funding Action. If, for example, the cost base type for your funding action is Modified Total Direct Costs (MTDC), then your subcontract is subject to F&A on the first $25,000 at the same rate as the primary award. If the cost base type for your funding action is Total Direct Cost (TDC), then all of the subcontract is subject to UW F&A at the same rate as the primary award. You can always use Grant Tracker or review the Funding Action associated with your award for more information about the F&A charges to your subcontract(s). If you still have questions after you review the Funding Action, contact the Office of Sponsored Programs (OSP) at osp@uw.edu for assistance.

Please contact the OSP Subawards team.

Applying indirect costs related to subcontracts is a manual process. At the end of each calendar quarter, GCA performs a Budget Subcontract (BSC) F&A reconciliation to determine if an adjustment is needed to the indirect cost for each subcontract.

Subcontract F&A encumbrances are set up by GCA when we first reconcile F&A. The subcontract F&A encumbrance amount is equal to the projected F&A costs to be charged on the subcontract(s). As subcontract F&A is charged to the budget, we manually reduce the subcontract F&A encumbrance until the subcontract F&A threshold is reached.

If you have an urgent need for an immediate adjustment (e.g. an adjustment was missed, the budget is about to close, or you need current expenditure totals for a no-cost extension or carryover request), or if you believe the subcontract F&A encumbrance is incorrect, please contact GCA via Grant Tracker using the Indirect Costs topic.

When submitting a request for a subaward award line, the SAGE Budget subaward worksheet does not include UW F&A (UW F&A is accounted for on the primary worksheet). However, when GCA adds funds to the subaward award in Workday, the UW F&A is added to the Line Amount and Award Plan to help with budgeting and award management.

Visit the How to Set Up Subaward Worksheets on the SAGE Award Budget and an FAQ on what should be included in a SAGE Budget for a subaward.

Changing a Trainee’s salary could require a Change Job action in Workday.  

Information on how to change a job and step by step instructions are available on the ISC website User Guides section.   https://isc.uw.edu/user-guides/ 

• Terminate the current position and compensation in Workday.

• Enter the new position and compensation package. (see User Guides)

• Workday should update the pay rate type automatically based on the job profile.

• Assign Organizations.

• If the budget has expired, please send a Grant Tracker request to keep the budget in status 1 to allow the correction to post.

Things to Keep in Mind

• If the trainee was paid under Earn Type REG but should be paid under Earn Type TRN, this means that the trainee may have overpaid Social Security, Medicare and Retirement and may be receiving a refund.

• If the employee was paid under Earn Type TRN and should be paid under Earn Type REG, this means that the employee may owe Social Security and Medicare taxes and if eligible for retirement, may opt to have this deducted as well.

• If the correction impacts a previous tax year, Payroll may need to issue a W2C (W2 correction).  Contact pr-tax@uw.edu for W-2C questions.

The ISC HCM Partner can provide assistance with the job change.  Contact ischelp@uw.edu or call 206-543-8000.

No. GCA receives a notification from xTrain every time a Termination Notice is routed to the Business Office.

If the final payroll and/or salary transactions have been processed, posted to the budget and it's been over two weeks, please contact GCA via gcahelp@uw.edu or via Grant Tracker.

Questions about Termination Notices should be directed to GCA via gcahelp@uw.edu or Grant Tracker.

The most common reasons Term Notices are returned by GCA are:

• Missing electronic validation ("signature")

  • MUST be validated by both the Principal Investigator (PI) and the Trainee for Training Grants

  • For Fellowships: Fellow and Sponsor (PI) validation required.

    • When such situations occur, and the institution has tried unsuccessfully to include the Sponsor in the termination process, the Business Official may assume responsibility for certification and submit the termination notice to the agency via xTrain.

    • From NIH Commons FAQs: In unusual cases, the Sponsor may not be available to certify the information on the termination notice.

• Incorrect stipend payment listed

  • Actual pay MUST correspond to trainee's stipend amounts listed on the training grant and the UW's proration calculation (see the Proration Calculator to calculate correct stipend amounts).

  • Supplemental/additional compensation on other budgets is not included in GCA's reconciliation.

  • GCA calculates salary transactions that posted in the financial system to the training grant. These can include salary transfers that are not reflected in the OPUS salary distributions.

GCA calculates salary transactions that posted in the financial system to the training grant. These can include salary transfers which are not reflected in the WORKDAY salary distributions.

Using any salary object codes other than the allowable ones will charge the training grant additional benefits which are NOT allowed to be charged (per NIH restrictions).

Stipends are to be coded either 01-50 for post-doctoral trainees or 01-90/08-02 for pre-doctoral trainees.

Completing the Termination Notice is a condition of accepting the appointment. If the trainee doesn't respond after repeated attempts, contact GCA via gcahelp@uw.edu or via Grant Tracker.

Yes.

No. Trainees prepare Termination Notices only when their final year on the award is completed.

NIH prorates by whole months, then days within the month. The UW payroll calculates differently: number of working days in a half-month payroll cycle. When entering the trainee's total stipends use the UW amount.  A Termination Notice Proration Calculator has been developed to assist. Once the prorated amount has been verified, the actual stipend payments in MyFD, and the stipend amount listed on the termination notice must match the calculated proration.

E.g.  trainee was appointed a yearly amount of $22,032 but only trainees from 7/01/13-2/13/14

• xTrain calculates (22032/12*7)+(22032/12/28*13) on the term notice

• UW payroll would reflect the final month of payment as 9 of 10 working days multiplied by the half month: (22032/12*7)+(22032/12/2*9/10)

NIH accepts these differences that are within a reasonable amount.

GCA will approve Termination Notices if the difference over the entire training period is less than $20.

01-50, 01-90, and 08-02 are the only allowable objects codes that denote stipends. Using another salary object code can denote an employee/employer relationship, which is counter to the NIH Grants Policy Statement "stipends for trainees are not “salary” and not provided as a condition of employment..."  Other salary object codes also cause unallowable benefits to be charged to the grant AND can cause tax implications for trainees.

A correction to an underpayment of a trainee’s salary will post fringe benefits at whatever the rate is at the time of posting.  Please inform GCA of when you expect the charges to post to help us ensure the financial report submitted to the sponsor is accurate.

Tuition charges are a result of a department processing tuition scholarships or fellowships, through the University’s SDB (Student Data Base).  These charges are coded as 08-05 (please note that this is not the same as 08-02, which is for stipend payments).  Questions regarding tuition charges should be directed to Student Fiscal Services. They can be reached at: sfshelp@uw.edu, or 206-543-4694.

An unexpended balance is a result of awarded funds not being spent. That is to say that the total expenditures for a project are less than the amount awarded. If a sponsor has paid for the entire award then there could be cash remaining. If a sponsor is one that we invoice then there could be awarded, but yet to be paid, funds remaining.

There are certain circumstances that allow the University to keep and/or carryforward the remaining, or unspent, funds. Usually OSP (Office of Sponsored Programs) will identify an award as one where the University having the authority to retain unexpended balances. OSP will pass the information onto GCA (Grant and Contract Accounting) through the eFA (electronic funding action) process.

If OSP has not designated whether the University can keep and/or carryforward unexpended balances, approval may need to be obtained from the sponsor. If the project with the unexpended balance has a continuation budget (the continuation of a project under a separate budget number) it is possible to have the unexpended balance moved to the new budget number. If the project with the unexpended balance is a fixed price, or clinical trial, grant or contract, it is possible to move the unexpended funds to a corresponding department surplus account. If the budget with the unexpended balance is neither a fixed price, nor a clinical trial, has no continuation budget, and the University does not have the authority to keep and/or carryforward the balance, GCA will return the funds to the sponsor.