For those of you that were unable to attend today’s zoom session on this topic, the recording of the introduction to the new methodology for internal cost and revenue accounting for service centers and auxiliaries at Rice is available via this Rice box folder link.
Administrative staff engaged in project financial management occasionally need to adjust and transfer project costs. However, a specific transaction type—the Net Zero Cost—is systematically restricted from further transfers or manipulation.
This restriction is not a system error; it is a critical automated safeguard. The principle of the Net Zero Cost ensures that the Project Portfolio Management (PPM) subledger maintains absolute synchronization and balance with the General Ledger (GL). Identifying the Net Zero Item flag is essential for administrative efficiency, as attempting to adjust these items will result in immediate system rejection, confirming that the transaction’s accounting role has already been fulfilled as a cancellation record
A Net Zero Cost transaction is a specialized, negative accounting entry generated automatically by the system to execute the formal reversal of a prior expenditure item. Its function is cancellation; it does not represent an actual, allocable expense.
Cost corrections in PPM always utilize a three-part transaction model :
The Net Zero Item attribute is the field that explicitly identifies the Reversal Cost as True. This confirms that the transaction is the necessary offset, designed to create a zero balance for the pair.
Net Zero Costs cannot be transferred because they are defined as reversed expenditure items and are explicitly disallowed from further adjustment.
The Net Zero transaction’s sole purpose is cancellation. If a transfer were permitted on the Net Zero transaction, the original charge would become effectively uncanceled at its source. The transfer is rejected to maintain the integrity of the audit sequence, as the Net Zero entry is the immutable record linking the cancellation back to the original source charge. Disruption of this linkage results in the system issuing a mandatory rejection message stating that adjustments are not allowed on a reversed expenditure item.
Identification of Net Zero Costs
Right now, there’s only one place in iO where you can confirm the status of a transaction relative to it being part of a net zero pair.
Go to Grants Management/Awards
Click on the Page icon on the right of the page
Search for the award that contains the project that contains the cost. Click on the drop down next to the project that contains the cost. Select Manage Project Costs
If this is the first time that you’ve ever looked at this Project Costs view, you may need to ensure that the net zero column is selected.
When examining the row with the cost that you are considering transferring, you can see the net zero column that indicates if it is or isn’t a net zero transaction.
When you see an x, it is not a net zero transaction and is transferrable. If you see a tick mark, it is a net zero transaction and it is not transferrable.
The NLCT template has updated from 1.08 to 1.09.
Here’s what changed and why.
A Note on Training
Some people have reached out to to RCA ask if they can get 1-1 training, or if there will be office hours for NLCT?
Most of these queries could have been addressed by applying the instructions, or watching the videos.
The ideal scenario is that should there be user need, then a combination of these resources along with colleagues training other colleagues would be the first choice.
This is not always possible of course and please do reach out in either the event that this first choice is not an option, or in the event of encountering any technical issue.
During the recent cost transfer training, there were a number of unanswered chat questions. The most frequent one of these related to Faculty Funds and how to process cost transfers to them?
Here’s the answer
1) Leave the ‘New Award’ field totally blank (i.e. delete all content from the cell)
2) Select or enter the Faculty Fund project number (must begin with the letter F) in the New Project Number(s) field.
3) Take care to confirm you have added the desired task number (which will default to ‘1’) in the New Task Number field.
In early 2025, a new non-labor cost transfer method (and template) was developed through a collaboration between Research & Cost Accounting (RCA) and Financial Information Systems (FIS).
The new method leverages Oracle’s Project Costs Module, and offers an alternative to the baseline method that has been in use since the iO implementation.
In March/April 2025, the concept behind the new method was proved to be viable, and testers from across the university were subsequently recruited to provide feedback and development guidance throughout April/May 2025. With feedback collected and applied, the new method is now live for general use.
Depending on the type of origin data, a slightly different version of the new template is applied to complete the following range of cost transfers
Each of the new templates are functionally very similar to use, and differ only in the following ways.
+ Single step process for PPM-COA and COA-PPM NLCTs.
+ Source data is from iO. Eliminates transcription errors.
+ Ineligible cost categories filtered out by template.
+ Non-zero transaction transfers prevented.
+ PM/CCMs identified, and authorization step added.
+ Numerous pre-submission validations added. Reduces errors & rework thus improving process accuracy and efficiency.
+ Submission and progress tracking via iO ticket portal.
A training program is underway on a divisional level. Training sessions throughout July 2025 are planned and will be communicated here on the RCA Blog.
To prepare and submit an NLCT, follow the 2-page guide.
Video Links
Hello,
Several people have contacted RCA and P2P concerning issues when charging a sponsored project. Most of the issues have been corrected by doing the following tasks:
For Sponsored Projects, the following funding sources are used to map the iO projects to the COA. The fund source mapping is based on the Award/Project Type and Task of the Project. Navigating on the Finance Dashboard and selecting the Award/Project Org and Fund Source to see the transactions.
Below are the Funding Sources for PPM Projects:
The Fund Source for Sponsored Projects are:
For Cost Share and University Award Projects, the Fund Source defaults to the values below. For Faculty Funds, the funding source is derived from each task on the Faculty Fund. To see the expenses that need to be funded for University Awards, Cost Share, and Faculty Fund projects, navigate to the fund balance report on the dashboard to see the expense and funding activity.
For Cost Share Projects, Deficit Projects, and Salary Cap Projects, the Fund Source is:
For University Awards, the Fund Source is
For Faculty Funds, the Funding Sources are:
Navigating in the Finance Dashboard- Budget to Actuals
Enter the Period Name, Organization, and Fund Source to see the Budget to Actuals information. You can see the beginning fund balance on the fund balance report.
Fund Balance Report
This report shows the beginning balance by Fund Source for a particular Org. The Period Net shows the expense activity in the Period (September 2021) $2,305.50 for an Internal Award.
We’ve had several departmental folks reach out to us asking what “account code” to use for their Sponsored Projects expenses in PPM. I know we’re all used to having to enter an account code number as part of the FOAPAL in Banner. However, in the iO system, we use expenditure types instead of account codes, and we no longer need to memorize the corresponding numbers. Yay!
In PPM, Sponsored Projects expenditure types are broken down into 8 expenditure categories: Salaries & Wages (S&W), Fringe Benefits (FRB), Tuition Remission (TUR), Other Direct Costs (ODC), Travel (TRV), Subawards (SUB), Equipment (EQP), and Facilities & Administrative Cost (F&A). Each of those expenditure categories has multiple expenditure types associated with it.
So for example, if you want to charge lab supplies to a sponsored project, you would search for “supplies” in the expenditure type field and it will give you a list of all the ones that have the word supplies in them. Then you just pick the one called ODC: Supplies Laboratory.
Please see the attached list for expenditure types allowed on Sponsored Projects.
ET List: Expenditure Types
Expenditures associated with Sponsored Projects, Faculty Funds and Capital Projects created and managed via PPM in iO have multiple associated dates. These dates allow for tracking of costs from both a compliance and financial reporting perspective.
Expenditure Item Date
The Expenditure Item Date is the date that a transaction occurs. For sponsored projects, the Expenditure Item Date of a transaction must be within the period of the grant in order to comply with the terms of the award. Expenses with an expenditure item date outside of the project period will fail to post on the project in iO.
Creation Date and Accounting Date
A transaction’s Creation Date is the date the transaction is loaded into PPM, while the Accounting Date is the date the transaction is recorded in the General Ledger (GL). These dates are used for financial management and reporting purposes. These dates may differ depending on the timing of the accounting process for each module.
Example:
Assume that following completion of a business trip, a staff member has created and submitted an expense report, and all of the approvals (departmental and central) are completed as of June 15. Assume also that the related accounting processes for both PPM and the GL are run on June 15.
If this report contains an expense of $300 for an airline ticket that was paid via credit card on May 15, then the Expenditure Item Date for that $300 in travel expense will be May 15. However, the Creation Date and Accounting Date for that $300 travel expense will be June 15, as that is the date the accounting process for the expense was completed.
Because there’s so much new terminology and information we’re all having to learn, I thought it would help if we had one place to list some of the basic concepts of Project Portfolio Management (PPM). Please keep in mind that this presentation is not all-inclusive and is only meant to be an overview of PPM for departmental research administrators. The presentation will most likely be updated from time to time as we determine what information is most helpful for PPM users.
Presentation: PPM basics