Grants Management Issues
| IFR ( Salary Offset) Transactions
Income Fund Reimbursable transactions sometimes referred to as salary offsets are the transactions used to recover the value of the salary and fringe benefits paid to state funded faculty and staff devoting effort to research grants. These funds are transferred as payments from the appropriate grant account to the departments state IFR account as reimbursement for the effort provided to the research project that was initially paid for by the state. These are time sensitive transactions treated as actual personnel appointments to the research grants and directly tied to the Research Foundation effort certification process mandated by the federal government. IFR transactions should be initiated within the first month that effort is being devoted to a research project and in no case should they be processed beyond the current semester. The effort certification process is run on a semester basis three times a year and is fed by the IFR transactions. Retroactivity that extends prior to the current semester causes conflicts with effort certification and cannot be accepted. Cost sharing or matching commitments can originate as a result of a sponsor requirement or from an offer of cost sharing made in a grant proposal even when there is no specific sponsor requirement. In either case appropriate documentation must be maintained so Grants Management is able to certify to the sponsor that the cost sharing obligation has been met. Documentation can take on many forms depending on the nature of the cost sharing. A properly certified Effort Reporting form is the only acceptable means of documenting cost sharing for personnel effort. For Other Than Personnel Services (OTPS) costs, support documentation must indicate payment date, cost of items and source of funds. To be acceptable, cost shared expenses must be incurred during the project award period. Cash advances are available to project directors under certain conditions to aid in the conduct of their grant activities. Advances can be used for field trip expenses, human subject payments and the purchase of materials and supplies. Funds can be advanced to cover anticipated needs for up to a 90 day period and must be reconciled (accounted for) with original receipts within that time frame. To be eligible for these funds PD's must take personal responsibility for their use in accordance with sponsor guidelines. Contact your Grant Specialist or the RF Purchasing Office for detailed procedures on obtaining and using cash advances. Publication reprint orders placed on sponsored accounts must be timed carefully. It is customary to place orders for journal reprints close to the termination date of a sponsored project. Although this makes perfect sense given the timing of the completion of the project work, it causes significant difficulty from a procurement/payment perspective. Due to the extended lead times required by many publications, it is common for delivery of reprints to take from 6 months to 1 year from the order date. Since most sponsors require a final financial close-out and reporting within 30 - 90 days of the project term date, reprint purchase orders cannot be kept active long enough to receive the order. The money is then lost from the project account and the reprints must be funded from another source or the order canceled. If you are planning to place such an order on an account scheduled to terminate within six months and there is no future support awarded, you should contact your Grant Specialist to discuss possible alternatives for protecting your project funds. Travel advances are available to project directors and project staff, with PD approval, for allowable trips associated with research grant activity. Travel advances are limited to 80% of the maximum per diem allowance for meals and lodging and 100% of transportation costs payable to common carriers. Only one travel advance will be issued at a time with the exception of continuous travel status or unusual circumstances. Travel dates must be within the approved period of the award. Upon return, advances must be accounted for promptly (no longer than 2 weeks) with original receipts. Non US Air Carriers - Fly America Act Except under specific circumstances, U.S. flag air carriers must be used to transport personnel and property when the costs of transportation are charged to federal grants, contracts, or cooperative agreements. This requirement applies to transportation to, from, between, or within a country other than the U.S., when U.S. carriers are available without regard to cost or convenience. For specific exceptions and definition of available, see the Research Foundation Travel Policy, copies of which may be obtained from your Grants Specialist at ext. 2-9038. NSF describes the Fly America Act. Non-Resident Alien Consultants/Lecturers Recent changes in IRS regulations governing payments and related income tax withholding to non-resident aliens has caused an additional administrative burden to be placed on campus departments. Care must be taken to ensure that non-resident aliens are eligible to receive payments for work performed in this country (based on Immigration and Naturalization Service regulations) and that if eligible for payment, can legally be exempt from the 30% federal withholding tax. If you are planning such an engagement and are not familiar with these requirements it is important that you contact your Grants Specialist prior to engaging the consultant. Certain essential documents can only be obtained when the consultant/lecturer first enters the United States. |