Archive of Updates

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Extramural Funds Update, July 31, 2008

Target Audience

This communication will be distributed monthly via the Peoplesoft list serve and is intended for all Department Managers, Financial Managers, RSAs, and Post-Award Administrators who work with sponsored project funds.

In this Edition:

What’s New

Cost Accounting Standards (CAS) Updated
After a campus-wide effort led by the Budget Office, updated CAS documents are now available on our website at: http://acctg.ucsf.edu/extramural_funds/policies/index.htm.

Cost Sharing Audit Review
Audit Services recently completed a review of cost sharing policies, procedures and practices at UCSF. As a result, EMF will collaborate with the Office of Sponsored Research (OSR) to create new job aids and update training materials regarding cost sharing requirements and procedures. As new information is available, we will announce it through RSA town halls and via email.

Cost Transfers Job Aids

Converted RAS Funds Project

Beginning in August, EMF will initiate a project to address Research Administration System (RAS) converted funds that still have unresolved issues. The goals of this project are to:

New Fund Ranges starting July 2008

We recently created new fund ranges for private contract and grants:

Please see updated list of funds that require Att E for cost transfers:  http://acctg.ucsf.edu/extramural_funds/rac/Cost_Trf_Fund_Range.pdf

Post-Award Best Practices

Customer Service

Revised date for RSA Quarterly town hall:  Thursday, August 21, 2008 from 9:30-11:00 a.m. in HSW-300, Parnassus campus.  Please modify your calendars.  Hope to see you then! 

EMF Customer Service Survey Monkey:  To improve our customer service, we have launched an EMF customer service survey where you can provide us direct feedback in real time.  The survey link is included on each EMF team member’s email and can be accessed on the following links
 
http://www.surveymonkey.com/EMFCompliance
http://www.surveymonkey.com/EMFServiceTeams
http://www.surveymonkey.com/EMFCashManagement
http://www.surveymonkey.com/EMFAwardSetups

EMF interesting statistics

Whom to Call in Extramural Funds:

http://acctg.ucsf.edu/extramural_funds/contacts/index.htm

 

Extramural Funds Update, June 27, 2008

Target Audience

This communication will be distributed monthly via the Peoplesoft list serve and is intended for all Department Managers, Financial Managers, RSAs, and Post-Award Administrators who work with sponsored project funds.

In this Edition:

Organizational Updates:

Assistant Controller of Extramural Funds
We are pleased to announce that Susan Lin is our new Assistant Controller for EMF.  After one year being the interim AVC and Controller, she joins the EMF team and will oversee the Services Teams, Award Setup, Cash Management, and Compliance units.  Susan will continue to be the Assistant Controller for Accounting and Reporting. She can be reached at Susan.Lin@ucsf.edu or 476-7007.

Extramural Funds Management Team
Service Team Manager: Arsenio Roldan continues to oversee billing across the seven Service Teams and collections. Arsenio can be reached at Arsenio.Roldan@ucsf.edu or 476-1340.

Special Projects Manager:  As part of the EMF collaboration effort with the Campus, Michael Grafton will be working with departments on special projects approximately half time between now and December. If you have any questions about special services, please follow this link http://acctg.ucsf.edu/extramural_funds/contacts/index.htm.  Michael can be reached at Michael.Grafton@ucsf.edu or 476-1462.

Award Setup and Cash Management Manager:  Florence Lu, the current Cash Management Manager, will also oversee EMF Award Setup. Florence can be reached at Florence.Lu@ucsf.edu or 476-2075.

Compliance Manager: Wendy Hom continues to lead the efforts for post-award compliance, which includes FSRs, Effort Certification, Overdraft, Cost Transfers, and NIH Salary Cap, etc.  Wendy can be reached at Wendy.Hom@ucsf.edu or 476-8688.

Extramural Funds Staffing
Please click the following link for an updated organization chart:
http://acctg.ucsf.edu/org_charts/Asst_Controller_EMF.pdf

What’s New

Universal Access to DPA/Fund/FY Information in WebLinks
All employees who use WebLinks can now see all DPA/Fund/FY information when using the INQUIRY menu in Weblinks.  Access to this information is extremely important for managing awards that have multiple projects and multiple fund years.

The target audience for this enhancement are research services administrators (RSAs) who are responsible for setting up new awards in PeopleSoft grants modules, and making sure that the corresponding DPA/Fund/FY set-up is consistent with PeopleSoft.  To access this information in WebLinks, go to the Inquiries drop-down menu, hover over the Chartfields link, and select DPA/Fund/FY.  For best practices on using this report, please click the following link:  http://acctg.ucsf.edu/extramural_funds/communications/Steps_review_DPA_Fund_FYInquiry.pdf

Speedcharts
The speedchart task force group has worked hard over the past few months.  They have posted many documents on speedchart set-up process, procedures, and a list of inactivated speedcharts on the AP website:  http://acctg.ucsf.edu/accounts_payable/speedchart/index.htm

Small Balance Write-Offs (SBWO)
This project resumed after in-depth analysis by EMF and with the Control Points’ support in April 2008.  As of June 26, 2008, we have identified and zeroed out 1,993 funds that were over or under $200 with the expiration date 6/30/06 or prior.  This was a large endeavor - of the 1,993 funds, 1,210 funds were without fund years, and 783 funds had fund years (which translated into 1100 fund years).  Stop codes were placed on 1,210 funds without fund years in the AFP system.  The 783 funds with fund years are currently being worked on and estimated to be completed by 7/11/08.  A list of these funds can be found on the EMF website:
http://acctg.ucsf.edu/extramural_funds/communications/SBWO_Fund_Stop_Code_Funds%20No%20FundYear.xls

Please note that the speedcharts corresponding to these funds will be automatically deactivated.  If you have outstanding invoices or recharges, please contact your vendors or service centers to use another funding source.

Stop Codes
As part of award closeout effort, over the next several months, the Controller’s Office will finalize the steps to re-implement the STOP code process.

Approved Cost Transfer Reviewer/Approver:  Reminder that the reviewer/approver for sponsored projects should be “an employee, classified PSS II or higher, who has been assigned by the department manager the responsibility for financial management and control for the department and who has received formal training in cost transfer policies and procedures from the Controller’s Office, Extramural Funds (EMF)…”  Reference:  http://policies.ucsf.edu/300/30022.htm.  

EMF Training Opportunities

Whom to Call in Extramural Funds:

http://acctg.ucsf.edu/extramural_funds/contacts/index.htm

What's New - April 2008

California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM):  The SMIF-STIP interest transfers for the quarter ending December 31, 2007 will post to the April 2008 general ledger.   The transactions will flow through a clearing account 557500 that is coupled to each departmental 6xxxx discretionary fund that would normally receive sponsored project STIP expense.   Please call Michael Grafton at (415) 476-1462 with any questions about this process.

RSA Quarterly Townhall: The powerpoint presentation has been posted on the EMF website:  http://acctg.ucsf.edu/extramural_funds/rac/index.htm as well as the General Accounting website:  http://acctg.ucsf.edu/extramural_funds/A133/index.htm. If there are topics or speakers you’d like to see at future RSA townhalls, please send an email to Wendy.Hom@ucsf.edu and Michael.Grafton@ucsf.edu with the subject title, “RSA Townhall Topic/Speaker”.  Thanks!

Compliance: 
Salary Cap on Sponsored Funds - please see the joint communication from EMF and Payroll re: OLPPS edit effective Saturday, April 19, 2008:  http://acctg.ucsf.edu/extramural_funds/communications/Compliance/OLPPS_edit.pdf.

Cost Transfers - please see the email from the Chancellor’s Office on April 17, 2008 regarding our updated cost transfer policy 300-22. The updated policy can be found here:  http://policies.ucsf.edu/300/30022.htm.

A-133 survival guide will be sent out to the campus late May.

February/March 2008

Service Clarification: The correct procedure for private awards' FSR is that the campus departments prepare the FSR and then forward that FSR to EMF for review, sign-off, and submission to sponsors. The procedure has been in place with the agreement of Campus' Control Points and Managers for over a year now and this practice will continue.

Update Small Balance Write-Off (SBWO): This program is currently under review to determine if it is feasible to continue. Until then, there is no action on this SBWO until the balance achieved is neutral.

Compliance Team: The RSA Quarterly town hall on April 8th, 9:30-11am, HSW-300, will focus on 1) cost sharing internal audit and 2) how departments can prepare for the full A-133 audit.

Training: Based on the overwhelming demand for the PAM of EMF series, we significantly increased our class offerings. EMF instructors are now teaching 6 modules/month in the 4th quarter of this year. Please refer your staff to the HR development and training website for more information on these post-award research administration classes: http://training.ucsf.edu/.

January 2008

PeopleSoft Release 9.0:   In February 2008, we will be upgrading PeopleSoft from release 8.4 to 9.0 in conjunction with the P2P Pilot go live.   This upgrade requires that the system be down for one week from Friday February 15 th at 7:00pm through Monday February 25 th at 7 am. Please refer to Jane Wong’s email communication sent to the PeopleSoft listserv on Friday, January 4, 2008 and review with your staff who may be impacted during this shutdown period.  If you have any questions, please call Customer Support at 514-4100 Option 3, Mon-Fri, 7am-5pm.

AFP/DEP/ORG updates, Cash management, journals, EMF new award notification and setup, RAS Billing and Weblinks processes are impacted by this system shutdown.  To allow staff to complete work by the above deadlines, here are some EMF cut-off dates to keep in mind:

* Last day means EMF will process requests before Peoplesoft shutdown. All requests received during the shutdown will be processed starting February 25 th.

PAM of EMF:   Based on overwhelming demand, we are opening up new sections of PAM of EMF modules this year:

All classes are at Laurel Heights Rm 308, 8:30-12noon. 
Please check on the training website http://training.ucsf.edu/ for upcoming new sections being offered in the next few months.

RSA Quarterly Townhall :   The next meeting is on Tuesday, February 12 th from 10:30-12noon, HSW-300, Parnassus campus.  Hope to see you there!

Cost Sharing Template Reminder:   Please use the NEW cost sharing budget template that is currently located on the following website:

http://www.acctg.ucsf.edu/extramural_funds/policies/COST_SHARING_TEMPLATE_REVISION.xls

This template has additional fields for PeopleSoft award number, fund year, and expenditure DPA.

If an OLD cost sharing budget template is submitted, it will be returned to the sender, with a reminder to use the new template.

DPA Request Reminder:   For any request to add a new expenditure DPA or couple an existing expenditure DPA to a fund in the PeopleSoft research administration system (RAS), you MUST complete section II.B. of the expenditure DPA request form.   It is extremely important to provide the correct principal investigator (PI) and research services analyst (RSA) information, especially for program project grants and other awards that are shared with multiple departments, so that (1) appropriate access is provided to the RSA who manages the specific expenditure DPA, and (2) effort reports for the specific DPA are routed to the correct certifier. 

If information about the PI or RSA is NOT provided, the new DPA will be set up to default the PI and RSA to the award PI and RSA.

http://www.acctg.ucsf.edu/general_accounting/forms/DPA%20REQUEST_Revised_05_07.xls

December 2007

Staffing Announcement:  Lei Zheng was promoted to Team Lead Accountant IV on November 5th.  He is now Team Lead for Team 4 assisting the School of Pharmacy, Library, Proctor Foundation, Facilities Mgmt, and Police Department, as well as several departments in the School of Medicine. Until we find a permanent replacement for him, he continues to supervise Team 2.   Lei can be reached at Lei.Zheng@ucsf.edu or 6-1341.

A-133 audit:  Thank you for coming to the townhall presentations last week.  The presentation is now posted on the Controller’s Office website:  http://acctg.ucsf.edu/extramural_funds/A133/index.htm

Please mark your calendars for the upcoming RSA Quarterly Meetings for 2008: 
- Feb. 12th 10:30-12noon, HSW-300
- April 8th 9:30-11am, HSW-300 (room reserved and will be confirmed after Jan 08)

November 2007

Reminder:  RSA Quarterly Townhall is this Thursday, November 8th, 9:30-11am, HSW-300, Parnassus Campus. Please follow this link for more information: PostAwardRSA listserv.

October 2007

Staffing Announcement:  Pearl Leong-Yow has joined EMF as our Accountant III and Team Lead for Team 5, supporting CVRI, Neurology, Psychiatry, and LPPI.  She transferred from UC Berkeley where she was working as a Senior Project Analyst in EMF.  She was responsible for the reconciliation of intercampus financial control accounts, fiscal year-end closing processes, audit issues, and monthly and quarterly financial reporting.   She has valuable experience in fund accounting, cash management, and contract and grant administration, as well as assisting with training and supervising various staff.  During her 22 years at UCB, she has received several special service awards for excellent performance.  Pearl can be reached at 476-6087 or Pearl.LeongYow@ucsf.edu.

When setting up DPAs for competitive renewals of RAS converted funds, it is important to verify project IDs at the DPA/Fund/FY level for the new competitive cycle.  In several instances, DPAs that were not included in the competitive renewals were automatically populated with the old award project ID.  If you have any questions, please contact Michael Grafton at 476-1462 or Michael.Grafton@ucsf.edu.

September 2007

CO Organizational Update:  Susan X. Lin, Acting AVC and Controller, sent an email to the campus about the resignation of Erica Webber as the Assistant Controller in EMF effective October 3rd.  Under Erica’s leadership, EMF has achieved many significant things and her departure will be a great loss for the CO and the campus.  While the search for a new Asst. Controller is launched, Arsenio Roldan has accepted the role of Interim Asst. Controller.  Florence Lu will be backfilling his position as Sr. Accounting Service Manager.  Arsenio can be reached at 476-1340 or Arsenio.Roldan@ucsf.edu and Florence can be reached at 476-2075 or Florence.Lu@ucsf.edu. 

August 2007

In order to facilitate award setup updates and changes in the PeopleSoft research administration system (RAS), the account-fund profile (AFP), and the effort reporting system (ERS), please note the following processes:

1)  Department Code Change

If a department wants to change the department code of either a FUND or an expenditure DPA, the request should be sent to Michael Grafton at the following address: michael.grafton@ucsf.edu

Please title the subject line of your e-mail Department Code Change Request.

2) Establish New DPA or Couple Existing DPA to RAS Fund

Please fill out the DPA Request Form – Revised 05/07, which can be found at the following website: http://www.acctg.ucsf.edu/general_accounting/forms/DPA%20REQUEST_Revised_05_07.xls Please remember the following:

a) If the fund is in RAS, AND it is a new DPA, then both parts I and II.B. must be completed, in order for the project to be correctly set up in RAS.

b) Please note that DPA requests that impact RAS funds must besent to the following address:EMFDPA@ucsf.edu

Those requests that do NOT impact RAS funds should be sent to general accounting:James.Reiter@ucsf.edu

3) Change the PI ID for ERS

Please send the change request to Michael Grafton at the following address:michael.grafton@ucsf.edu. Please title the subject line of your e-mail PI ID Change Request

Please remember to send a copy of the DPA/Fund/FY inquiry for the current competitive cycle, and highlight those DPA/Fund/FY combinations for which the PI ID must change.(August 2007)

June 2007

 

. New Weblinks Report:  An early version of a new Research Financial Summary Report by Fund/FY is now available.  Please follow this link to job aids:  http://acctg.ucsf.edu/OLFS/trainingarchives/jobaids.htm. 
Please note that the Customer Service Help Desk will be available and prepared to answer questions after August 1st. Later in July, the Controller’s Office will be announcing details of several town hall presentations in August to provide training on the new report. (June, 2007)

 

May 2007

   
 

Winter 2007 Cycle : On June 1st, the ERS Effort Report Coordinators and Viewers received an automatic, system-generated email notification that the reports for Winter 2007 (January - March quarter) are now available. These effort reports include data from April and May GL close.  To remain in compliance with University of California policy, certification of effort reports must be completed within 30 days of distribution, which is June 30th for the Winter 2007 cycle.

Updated content on Effort Reporting System (ERS) Website :  Please visit our EMF website for updated FAQs, Job Aids, and Communications.  This week, we will be distributing laminated cards entitled “ ERS Quick Start Guide” to ERS administrative users across campus to be helpful for this second certification cycle.  

PI ID Changes for Effort Reporting System (ERS) :  If departments have PI ID changes that must be made at the DPA-Fund-FY level so that the correct investigators certify effort reports, please send an e-mail to Michael.Grafton@ucsf.edu with the following subject line:  PI ID Change Request for ERS.  Along with the request, please attach an excel download of Weblinks report, “DPA/Fund/FY” under the inquiries/chartfields dropdown menu along w/ the correct PI name, ID, location, RSA name & RSA ID.  Updates to ERS will be reflected after month-end close.

EMF Small Balance Write-Off Program : As you might already know from the May 21st communication via PeopleSoft listserve, EMF will begin to write off small remaining balances in expired sponsored projects including both debits and credits up to $250 agreed-upon tolerance. For additional information about this process, please see the communication on our Communications page. Award Closeout communications  (May/June, 2007) 

Update on Postdoc Unallowable Charges: We have become aware that we cannot use cost transfer journal 545 and we are working to fix this issue. In the meantime, please utilize cost transfer journal 547, highlighting relevant line-item charges in your PDF and ledger attachments. (May/June, 2007)

New DPA Request Form and New Mailbox for Requests:   For any requests requiring that an existing DPA be coupled to a RAS fund, or where a new DPA is needed for a RAS fund, please send an e-mail to EMFDPA@ucsf.edu. If you have any question or concerns, please contact Michael Grafton at 6-1462. (May/June, 2007)

New Accountants: 
 We are very pleased to announce the promotion of Reynaldo del Rosario to an Accountant IV and assignment as Team Lead for Team 1, effective June 1st, servicing the Department of Medicine, Dermatology, Lab Medicine, Pathology, Physical Therapy & Rehab Services, SFGH Dean's Office, Academic Geriatric Resource Center, the Graduate Division, and Student Academic Affairs. Rey received a BS and BA in Accounting and has over 25 years experience in the banking/utility industries as well as UCSF. Rey can be reached at Reynaldo.DelRosario@ucsf.edu or 6-2720.

We are excited to have Lei Zheng join us from Stanford University Office of Sponsored Research as our Team Lead for Team 2 effective June 1, servicing all departments in the School of Nursing and School of Dentistry, as well as the Institute for Health Policy Studies. Lei brings with him over 5 years of experience in central post award administration managing a wide array of federal and private contracts, grants and clinical trials for several Stanford University School of Medicine departments. Lei's educational background is impressive, having graduated with a B.S. in Civil Engineering, and M.S. in Computer Science soon after. Lei can be reached at Lei.Zheng@ucsf.edu or 6-1341.

Last but not least, we are pleased to announce the appointment of Maudy Gonzalez as Cost Transfer Accountant in the Compliance Unit of Extramural Funds. Maudy comes to us with over 10 years of experience in Campus Life Services and other college/university bookstores, servicing as an accounting supervisor. She will be a liaison and policy resource for campus departments for cost transfer review and effort reporting compliance. Maudy started May 9th. She can be reached at 476-4571. Her email is Maudy.gonzalez@ucsf.edu.
(May/June, 2007)

April 2007

Effort Reporting System (ERS)

Overdrafts: As you may remember from our June 06 and October 06 communications regarding compliance mandates relating to fund overdrafts (ODs), our campus has implemented a central OD monitoring process for all sponsored project funds.   In 2005, Internal Audit found that the large dollar  volume of overdrafts in sponsored project funds creates undue risk for the institution.  After working actively with the Deans' Offices  of the schools for three months to refine and finalize the overdraft monitoring process, EMF began last October sending control points quarterly OD summary notifications of RAS  awards and NCIRE JPAs with ODs of $50,000 and more. You can find additional information about this process, as well as examples, on our Overdraft Monitoring webpage.  Please note that the first round of enforcement transfers, if any, would occur this month. (April, 2007)

Cost Transfers:  At the March 2007 Post-Award RSA Quarterly Meeting, we presented a refresher training related to cost transfer compliance. The PowerPoint presentation is posted in our Research Administration Corner.  Look out for a campus communication this month on process reminders, tips and refreshers, do's and don'ts, and best practices for cost transfers. (April, 2007)

Cost Sharing:  At the March 2007 Post-Award RSA Quarterly Meeting, we also presented an overview of UCSF's treatment and reporting of different types of cost sharing. The PowerPoint presentation is posted in our Research Administration Corner.  We are currently working on a communication to provide departments a summary of how to work with cost sharing on our campus.   Stay tuned! (April, 2007)

Cash Application:  The EMF Cash Management unit is pleased to announce that the RAS cash application improvement implemented  in early March 2007  is working as planned.   This improvement was conceived to allow automatic cash application for payments that are within $10 of the relevant open AR lines.  This now prevents a lot of the manual intervention that had significantly increased the time needed to apply payments to an award.   More details to be provided in an upcoming campus communication. (April, 2007)

Senior Accounting Service Manager:  Arsenio Roldan, CPA, MBA  is on board and serves as the Senior Accounting Service Manager in EMF. He supervises the 7 service teams and provides operational leadership for RAS and non-RAS billing, collection of past due receivables, award activation and maintenance, fiscal reporting, overdraft monitoring and award closeout processes. Arsenio brings considerable experience in the management of these extramural funds processes for universities, including the last 8+ years at Stanford University in its Office of Sponsored Research and the prior 9 years in the UC Berkeley Controller's Office. Arsenio is located in Suite 425 in the Mission Center Building and can be reached at (415) 476-1340 or arsenio.roldan@ucsf.edu. (April, 2007)

 

March 2007

Award Set-Up: Michael Grafton has convened a cost sharing working group that has representation from OSR, the Controller’s Office and the Budget Office, and departmental subject matter experts.  The working group is working on updating the budget template that departments utilize to record their cost sharing commitments as we recognize certain fields can cause confusion. We will also update the policy documents and frequently asked questions this year. (March, 2007)

Service Team Update: EMF sent out a communication via the PeopleSoft listserve early February to let everyone know that we have reviewed the distribution of awards to service teams, the assignment of service teams to departments, and the scope of post-award accounting processes conducted within the service teams. The chief objective of the review is to support service team accountants in meeting customer service and productivity expectations.

As a result of a recent review, we have made a number of changes, as follows:

- Increase the number of service teams from six to seven

- Include the collections process for accounts receivable (AR) items aged less than 120 days in the scope of service team activities. This means the teams will send collection letters and follow up with sponsors for overdue accounts that are not seriously delinquent.

- Reassign some team personnel to ensure a good mixture of skills and experience levels on each team

- Reassign some departments to ensure balanced workload volume and complexity amongst the teams

Should you have questions, comments, or concerns about the service you receive from your service team, you may contact senior team lead Julio Rodriguez at 476-2375. (March, 2007)

RSA Quarterly Meeting Reminder : This meeting has been scheduled for Thursday, March 29th @ HSW-300.  The agenda items include a cost sharing presentation by Michael Grafton and updates on Policy 400-14, postdoc insurance and ERS by Erica Webber and Wendy Hom.  Please contact Wendy at wendy.hom@ucsf.edu if you would like to be included in the post-award RSA quarterly distribution list. (March, 2007)

Effort Reporting System (ERS): The earliest we would start using the new ERS system would be March 12th.  Currently, UCSF uses the paper PAR process to meet the OMB A21 effort certification requirement for all federal grants and contracts. The purpose of the Effort Reporting System (ERS) is to replace the paper PAR process with an online web-based certification system which will eliminate the 17,000 paper PARs we currently process every year. ERS functionality will enable us to:

February 2007

Billing/Reporting Service Teams: EMF sent out a communication via the PeopleSoft listserve last month to let everyone know that with the Senior Accounting Service Manager position still in active recruitment, Erica Webber will be serving as Acting Senior Accounting Service Manager. She will supervise the service teams and provide operational leadership of RAS billing and standard non-RAS billing, award maintenance, fiscal reporting, and award closeout processes. Should you have questions, comments, or concerns about the service you receive from your service team, please contact Erica at 476-9641.

Effort Reporting System (ERS): The earliest we would start using the new ERS system would be March 12th.  Currently, UCSF uses the paper PAR process to meet the OMB A21 effort certification requirement for all federal grants and contracts. The purpose of the Effort Reporting System (ERS) is to replace the paper PAR process with an online web-based certification system which will eliminate the 17,000 paper PARs we currently process every year. ERS functionality will enable us to:

For more information about this implementation, go to http://ucsflink.ucsf.edu/ef_about.htm.

Policy 400-14: Keep an eye out for new financial procedures related to Policy 400-14 affecting industry-sponsored agreements. Specifically, financial procedures will address departmental administrator responsibilities upon closure of a fixed price project fund and the transfer of its residual balance to an account that the PI, department, or unit has designated to record and receive residual funds.  EMF is developing procedures to help departments comply with this policy. http://policies.ucsf.edu/400/40014.htm.

Small Balance Write-Offs : Together with department and school representatives, EMF is working on solutions to address the number of untimely cost transfers.  One of the solutions to improve compliance is to develop and implement a standard small-balance write-off process for sponsored funds.  EMF expects to validate and implement this process this fiscal year.

January 2007

Award Set Up Team: EMF and OSR sent a RAS campus communication award set-up status update addressing:

For department staff involved in post-award management, the document can be referenced here: Award Set-up Status Update.

FSRs: EMF service accountants worked intensively on federal FSRs the last week of December. We plan on sending out concurrence letters on fully spent (overdrafted) funds to departments soon. We will proceed with sending underspent funds concurrence notices for departments to respond within 5 days. This will expedite the processing of FSRs that are late and coming due very soon.

Training: EMF hosted  the 1st post-award RSA quarterly meeting  (to continue the meetings previously held by Pat Clausen for graduates from the former RAP program) on December 21st.  The power point presentation can be referenced here: Post-Award RSA Quarterly. We discussed postdoc benefits, Policy 400-14 financial procedures and the “Reviewing RAS Award Revenue, Billing and Payments in Weblinks” job aid.

While the RAS revenue cycle job aid is intended to assist you in navigating existing Weblinks summary and detail reports to understand RAS billings and payments on your awards, please note that we are currently working to develop and implement new Weblinks reports that will allow simplified access to this information.  In addition, town halls will be delivered in early February to provide more detailed training on the RAS revenue cycle.

December 2006

Award Set Up Team: There is no backlog! The award set-up team worked diligently to complete the processing of all backlogged awards since RAS conversion. We are back to the original service level agreement which is 6 days from receiving information from departments for new and renewal awards and within 6 days from receiving modification on awards from OSR. Look for updated process and timeline information on the communication page soon!

Cash Management, LOC, A/R team: The Cash and A/R Team has been working overtime sessions with the Controller's Office system support and cleaned up the remaining unapplied deposits. We reduced unapplied deposits by 40% between mid-October and mid-November. We are currently working on publishing unapplied deposit data on the EMF website for the campus to review.

Compliance Team: EMF's new overdraft monitoring report process has recently been rolled out. This process calls for EMF to alert the campus control points about overdrafts greater than $50,000 on their awards so they can then follow up with the respective departments who are tasked with managing the award. To date, this new process has helped to identify those awards that have continuation funding expected, but had not been received from the sponsoring agencies. It has also helped to identify awards that had received additional funding, but the paperwork had not been received by OSR or EMF and thus the budget appropriation had not been completed.

Training: EMF is teaming up with representatives from OSR and Development & Training to develop courses on how to read Weblinks reports after RAS conversion and develop courses for the new Research Administration Program (RAP). Stay tuned - we will be sending out concise communication about how to use existing weblinks reports to get information like a job aid!

 

This page last updated on: Friday August 15 2008