Sponsored Research Award Lifecycle

Contents

With a sponsored award, there are some essential things to know and do to ensure that you are timely with reporting and in compliance with the terms and conditions established by the sponsoring agency.

Campus Specific Deliverables

Award setup

  • When a proposal or contract is finalized, the award amount and the sponsor's terms and conditions for how funds should be spent and reported are fixed. Contracts & Grants Accounting uses the award information to create a basic award structure in the Berkeley Financial System (BFS). See the Project Costing Chartfields section on the Chart of Accounts page for details regarding designated chartfields to use to track project spending.
  • The initial setup process may take a total of two business days to complete following the Phoebe Award Summary issuance. RAs will receive a notification when the primary chartstring is activated and the award is available for spending as well as additional mapping and/or budget reallocation.

Final reporting and award closeout within the specified time frame

  • Failure to submit financial or technical reports within the specified time frame puts the university at risk of having punitive actions imposed. Such actions can include an awarding sponsor withholding an award(s) to an investigator or to the entire university, withholding of payments on invoices, or revocation of the Expanded Authorities Agreement, which affords the university latitude in the budgeting and management of federally awarded grant funds. Situations giving rise to such actions would undermine the university’s research and training functions, both core functions. Therefore, adherence to closeout procedures is non-negotiable. Award Closeout covers the responsibilities and procedures to follow.
  • As part of the University’s internal control environment, one key control includes a requirement that Divisional Finance Leader or delegated staff review the general ledger detail activity on a quarterly basis to ensure proper recording of expense transactions. This process helps to ensure that recorded expenses are authorized, allowable, allocable, and within the budgeted amount. If costs reflected in the general ledger have been identified as inappropriate, a cost transfer is required. This would include C&G related expenditures. See the DFL onboarding section for internal controls for more information.
  • DFLs should also be aware that sponsored project compliance is a shared responsibility involving SPO/IAO, Contracts and Grants Accounting, and Principle Investigators in the academic schools. That shared responsibility includes PIs reviewing their faculty portfolio reports, which includes general ledger activity. We highly recommend that DFLs regularly coordinate with PIs and check in with Berkeley Regional Services, where the RAs reside, to ensure PIs are fulfilling their financial review responsibilities. This gives the DFL assurance when they review the quarterly financial reports that the information included is complete, accurate, and only represents authorized transactions of the University.
  • See also 2 CFR § 200.343.

Deficit clearing

  • Research Administrators, Fund Managers, and CAOs should monitor and review their awards and promptly transfer any deficits to the appropriate fund to ensure compliance and adhere to award closeout deadlines. The C&G Deficit Clearing Process (monthly and year-end) supports proactive award management and complies with the campus’ deficit clearing policy, sponsor and federal guidelines, and internal and external deadlines.
  • See also 2 CFR § 200.308.

Effort reporting

  • Effort reporting is a process mandated by the federal government to verify that direct labor charges to, or cost shared on, sponsored projects are accurate, timely, and reflect the actual level of work performed.
  • The Principal Investigator / designated Effort Reporting Coordinator is responsible for ensuring that data entered into the Effort Reporting System is complete, accurate, and timely.
  • See also 2 CFR § 200.430(i)(1).

Facilities and Administration Costs

  • Berkeley Sponsored Projects Office describes the process we use at Berkeley to calculate and include the indirect costs for departmental and central office support of a sponsored project, including the administrative staff in all the service units on campus, along with current rate agreements.
  • Indirect costs are automatically assessed in BFS on appropriate direct cost activity per award setup configuration in BFS.
  • See also 2 CFR § 200.414.

Policies that Govern the Work

Roles and Responsibilities

Various individuals and/or groups need to work together throughout the life of an award to effectively manage sponsored research awards on the UC Berkeley campus. We list the key groups that finance staff work with here. For a complete list, see CGA Award Closeout Roles and Responsibilities, which details the roles and responsibilities by function in post-award management to ensure the successful fiscal management of the award.

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Principal Investigator (PI)

The Principal Investigator (PI) is the primary individual responsible for scientific integrity and fiscal and administrative management throughout the award period.

While administrative or other staff may be responsible for certain day-to-day management of the project finances, the PI ultimately remains accountable for compliance with the sponsor requirements and university policy.

Chronic failure to carry out the responsibilities incumbent upon a principal investigator or chronic noncompliance with sponsor regulations can result in nonpayment of university invoices. Ultimately, this might jeopardize future funding for the PI and the university as a whole.

  • At 90/60/30/0 days before an award expires, CGA sends a Notice of Expiration to the PI, the RA, and the DM, who should review award transactions – including cost-shared expenses -- in all categories of direct costs (salaries, equipment, supplies, tuition, etc.) to ensure they are complete, accurate and allowable. CGA recommends using the following reports to review award spending at closeout and at monthly intervals throughout the life of an award: Cal Answers PI Portfolio and General Ledger reports.
  • The Principal Investigator (PI) and Department Manager (DM) must ensure all costs are correctly recorded on a timely basis in the General Ledger. If additional time is required for award activities, it is the PI's responsibility to request a no-cost extension through the Sponsored Projects Office (SPO) no later than 60 days prior to award expiration. If there are additional costs not yet recorded in the General Ledger when an award expires, it is the responsibility of the PI or the Department Manager to see that accruals for expected expenses are posted to the GL by the GL close of the 2nd month after the Award's expiration date. The PI is ultimately responsible for managing the award and, as such, must ensure that all expenses charged are accurate and allowable under the terms of the award and that expenses are correctly recorded in the General Ledger in a timely manner. The DM should coordinate pre-close out and adjustment period tasks and procedures to facilitate award closeout.

Sponsored Project Office (SPO)

The Sponsored Projects Office (SPO) at the UC Berkeley campus is responsible for preparing, interpreting, negotiating, and accepting agreements for projects funded by federal, state, and local government agencies, foundations, corporations, and other public and private sources. SPO also prepares and negotiates all sub awards for collaborative research.

Contracts and Grants Accounting (CGA) is responsible for:

  • Award set up
  • Invoicing
  • Reporting
  • Award closeout

See CGA >> Award Closeout >> Roles and Responsibilities for detailed information.

Systems Used

UC Berkeley uses the Berkeley Financial System (BFS), CalPlanning and CalAnswers systems to manage financial data. Expand the links below for more detail on each.

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Berkeley Financial System (BFS)

  • In the BFS modules for General Ledger, Accounts Payable, Accounts Receivable, etc., you must use the full chartstring, including three Project Costing (PC) chartfields that are required for sponsored projects: PC BU, Project, and Activity.
  • For Cost Share, be sure to use the appropriate Chartfield 1 value.
  • To track spending by PI, enter the PI name in Chartfield 2.

CalPlanning

The Fund dimension in CalPlanning allows you to set a filter to view only your contracts and grants, or your portfolio with contracts and grants excluded. See Fund Dimension in the CalPlanning: Intro and Reporting course for details.

Cal Answers

Use the Cal Answers PI Portfolio dashboard to review budgets, projections, spending and balances for all the funds available to a particular faculty member. The dashboard provides access to both summary and details for faculty-managed funds. PI Portfolio is your hub for access, learning, logging in, and getting support. PI Portfolio wiki has details about the reports and fields and values in the reports.

The Cal Answers Finance dashboards have a column called Exclude C&G Revenue, which defaults to Y. This prevents double-counting C&G Revenue, which is also represented in the Authorized Budget column. See the General Ledger Reporting Data Dictionary Wiki page for more details.