Finance and Administration
The purpose of this document is to establish guidelines and define roles for the tracking of anticipated funding processed as a direct agreement in order to minimize the financial risk to the organization.
Award Change Request Form: An internal mechanism to be used to request continuation and supplemental funding on existing awards, including those provided directly to UCAR and those provided through the National Science Foundation.
Award/Decline Form: Mechanism to be used to notify the appropriate entity Budget & Planning (B&P) Office of award or decline on individual proposals.
Continuation Request (Progress Report): A request to sponsor for previously proposed continued funding on a multi-year agreement. The request may include a progress report for the past year, a budget, a statement of work for the next year, and various certifications.
Direct Agreement: Any award in the form of a grant, contract, cooperative agreement, subcontract, purchase order, memorandum of understanding (MOU), or other form of agreement that is received to support a proposed statement of work. Direct awards may be between UCAR and another party that includes government agencies, both federal and local, universities, other educational institutions, private corporations, and foreign governments and corporations.
Interagency Agreement (IA): Funding from various federal agencies issued to the National Science Foundation (NSF) and passed through a cooperative agreement to support scientific and programmatic activities within UCAR.
Overspending: The condition that exists when expenditures and encumbrances (legal and binding obligations) exceed awarded funding for an existing/on-going agreement. For purposes of these guidelines, salary and benefit encumbrances (and related overhead) are not considered legal and binding obligations. Thus, overspending will be determined as follows: The total funds received, less expenditures, less non-salary and benefit encumbrances, equals negative funds available to spend. Approval to overspend must be obtained from the Vice President (VP) for Finance & Administration (F&A), Treasury Office, entity B&P Office, lab/division/program directors and administrators. In addition to the approvals stated, the UCAR President approves requests over $100,000.
Prespending: The condition that exists when a program needs to begin to incur costs in order to timely accomplish its mission and it obtains approval to make expenditures in advance of receiving a final contract, grant, purchase order or cooperative agreement for the proposed work. Such approval must be obtained from the Vice President (VP) for Finance & Administration (F&A), Treasury Office, entity B&P Office, lab/division/program directors and administrators in order to have a new account opened for the purpose of charging costs. In addition to the approvals stated, the UCAR President approves requests over $100,000.
Trigger Point: Institutional prompts that result in specific actions by appropriate staff within the organization.
UCAR Contracts Management Module (CMM) - CMM provides up-to-date award information on all awards including compliance requirements, contract and funding details.
A. Trigger Points
The following have been identified as key institutional prompts that should result in action being taken to work with the sponsoring agency in order to expedite the receipt of funding. These trigger points should be used as guidance in concurrence with the Procedures in Section IV.
- Submission of Continuation Request, Extension Request and/or Progress Report
Continuation requests, extension requests and progress reports should be submitted to the sponsoring agency by their due date (see award document or sponsor website for due dates) to help ensure that funding for the next year will be received and on time.
- Review and Completion of the Overspend Report
The overspend report should be used as a tool/reminder that further action may be required with the sponsoring agencies to track the funding. The report should also be used as a tool for determining which contracts require approval to overspend. Please refer to the overspending guidelines for additional information.
https://www.fin.ucar.edu/treasury/internal/overspending.htm
- Sponsor Notification of Intention to Fund Proposal
When the sponsor has notified the PI or the administrator that they intend to award a proposal, the administrator should update their records/database and keep this item in a tickler file. The administrator should ensure that either they or the PI contacts the program manager to discuss the anticipated start date of the project and whether the funds will be awarded as a Direct Agreement or an Interagency Agreement, if these details are not specified in the notification. The administrator will use this information to determine when and which steps should take place to track the funding. It is the lab/division/program’s responsibility to make sure the sponsor sends the award document to Sponsored Agreements (SA).
A. Budgeting
Please refer to the entity B&P Office website to view the full guidelines for budgeting instructions at:
NCAR: http://www.ncar.ucar.edu/bnp/nonspc/internal/propguidelines.html
B. Tracking Proposals (Lab/Division/Program Database)
Each lab/division/program should have a process in place to track their proposals, in addition to awards, progress reports, continuation funding, etc. The administrator should communicate with the PIs regarding the status of proposals that are still pending outcome of award or decline and awards that are anticipating continuation funds.
C. Checking on Status of Award
The PI should contact the agency’s program manager within a reasonable time frame from proposal submission. The administrator may contact the program manager at the PI’s request. The administrator is responsible for ensuring that a status check is done, regardless of who takes action. If a request for continuation funding was sent to the sponsoring agency, the agency’s program manager should be contacted prior to the end date of the current year funding.
If the proposal has been declined, an Award/Decline Form should be submitted to the entity B&P Office and the lab/division/program records/database updated.
If the proposal is to be awarded, SA and B&P should be notified and the lab/division/program records/database updated.
Once notification has been received from the sponsor that they plan to award the proposal as a direct agreement, the steps below should be followed to help ensure funds are received.
D. Prespending / Overspending
Please refer to the Treasury Office’s Web site to view the full guidelines for Prespending and Overspending.
https://www.fin.ucar.edu/treasury/internal/prespend.htm
https://www.fin.ucar.edu/treasury/internal/overspending.htmThe monitoring of Prespending and Overspending provides the institution with an additional trigger point in monitoring funding and determining the appropriate level of spending prior to receipt of funds.
E. Submission of Continuation Request, Extension Request and/or Progress Report
The lab/division/program administrators should send reminders about required progress reports to their principal investigators (PI) at least thirty (30) days prior to the report due date. Refer to the sponsoring agency guidelines and the award terms and conditions regarding due dates of progress reports. Reports could be due up to 90-120 days prior to the end of the award period.
The PI is responsible for writing the progress report for the period just completed, and drafting the budget and statement of work for the continued work being proposed. The PI should also work with their administrator on any changes to the budget.
The administrator will finalize the budget for the requested funding period and any other specific agency forms that are required by the sponsoring agency. All agency specific forms, budget, and progress report, along with an Award Change Request Form, should be submitted to SA and the appropriate B&P Office for review and approval.
The B&P Office will review and approve the budget and statement of work.
SA will submit the progress report and other required documents along with a request for continuation of funding to the sponsoring agency or return to the lab/division/program for distribution.
F. Tracking Award from Sponsoring Agency to UCAR
Once the program manager notifies the PI of an award, the lab/division/program administrator is responsible for tracking the anticipated funds up to the point that the award document is received by UCAR. Collaboratively, the PI and the administrator should actively work with the program or contract/grant officer from the agency in question to either directly acquire a copy of the award document or request that the award document be submitted to UCAR as soon as possible.
If the PI or administrator is having difficulty obtaining an award document from the sponsor, an effort should be made to acquire information, such as which grants office will be handling the award, and acquire confirmation, in writing, that the award has been submitted from the program officer to the contracts/grants office.
Once the award is in the sponsor’s contract/grant office, the lab/division/program can request SA’s help in expediting the award. If requested, SA will work directly with the sponsor’s contract office to try to expedite the award.
G. Contract Negotiation
Once SA receives the award agreement, the document will be reviewed as follows:
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- Document will be matched to a pending proposal.
- Document is checked for changes in the title, funding amount and period of performance.
- Terms and conditions of the award are reviewed for consistency with UCAR policy.
- Any terms and conditions not consistent with UCAR policy may need to be renegotiated with the sponsor.
Lab/Division/Program and entity B&P are informed by SA via email that the funding has been received.
SA will initiate meetings with the lab/division/program, if necessary, to discuss terms of the agreement.
SA will also contact the administrator if a revised budget is needed.
H. Updating CMM
Once UCAR has received a fully executed contract, SA will distribute the award document to the lab/division/program and update CMM to reflect the funding received.
If you are encountering problems with solving any of the processes within this document, please seek assistance.
- Engage your PI as much as possible in the process. PIs usually have a personal relationship with the program officers and can be an excellent resource.
- Be proactive when requesting assistance. Obtain help as soon as you come across a problem. Don’t wait until it may be too late to acquire funds.
- Notify SA at any stage in the process, if having difficulty with tracking funding.
- Contact other departments within UCAR, including your B&P office, that you feel can assist with your situation.
- Share collective wisdom with other administrators
Lab, division, and program directors are responsible for making staff aware of these guidelines and ensuring lab, division and program staff compliance.
PIs are responsible for being aware of UCAR prespending and overspending guidelines and to make every reasonable effort to ensure that the level of activity and spending on the project is at a minimum prior to funding receipt. The PI should know the status of their funds and work with the administrator to make certain funding is submitted to UCAR from the sponsoring agency.
Lab, division, and program administrators are responsible for coordinating the tracking of direct funding from award to receipt of funding at UCAR.
The SA is responsible for reviewing the award document and ensuring that the terms and conditions of the award are consistent with UCAR’s policies, and updating CMM and notifying the lab/division/program and budget offices when funding is received. SA also sends automated closeout/continuation notifications to the administrators at 120, 90, 60 and 30 days prior to the close of an award period. However, this process should not replace any lab/division/program tracking of these due dates.
Entity B&P Offices are responsible for coordinating the overspending reports for the UCAR Treasurer and for reviewing/approving the prespend/overspend questionnaire consistent with the related prespending and overspending guidelines. Entity B&P Offices will also review/approve any budgets.
The Treasury Office is responsible for reviewing/authorizing Prespending and Overspending requests and reviewing and consolidating Prespending and Overspending reporting from the entity B&P Offices.
Issued: December 2005