Research and Cost Accounting will be hosting a Webinar on January 26th to discuss research management. We encourage all faculty and staff who are involved with research awards or projects to attend. Please share with any faculty members who may benefit from this information.
The Zoom link can be found on the iO Training Calendar. Hope to see you there!
By popular request, the Payroll Office is hosting a special topics office hours focused on Encumbrance Calculations and Management.
Materials were prepared in conjunction with the RCA, Finance, Enterprise Systems and HR teams who will also be in attendance.
Payroll Office Hours: Encumbrance Calculations and Management
Wednesday, January 18, 2023
11 am – noon
Join Zoom Meeting
https://riceuniversity.zoom.us/j/99356972751?pwd=YmI3Mjc1VENrN1BmWTBPeHdFVzlIQT09
Meeting ID: 993 5697 2751
Passcode: 140274
Office hours materials will be made available in the iO Training Catalog by January 27, 2023.
Most of you have been using the SPFF for over a year in order to see expenses and commitments on your sponsored awards, University awards, and faculty fund projects. I would like to point out another useful feature that was created in order to assist the departments with closeout preparations.
In the Awards Overview tab, there are two tiles at the far right indicating how many awards will be ending in the next 30 – 90 days.
Clicking on the tiles will take you to a list of the respective awards. Please use this list to determine which awards require your prompt attention. Any missing expenses or other corrections should be made quickly in order to assure they are captured in the final report or invoice. Please note that any expenses not included in the final invoice are at risk of not being reimbursed by the sponsor and will have to be covered by departmental funding.
iO has the capacity to store information about awards that is not captured in the Cayuse documents, but is significant for reporting and analytics. Until now, RCA has been collecting this information through informal communications. In order to streamline the process, we have designed a simple, one-page Adobe Sign form that allows departments and PIs to provide all this data before setup begins.
As of this week, the SPARC award notice email will contain a link to the form in the Comments section (see below).
| 4. ***NEW*** Please complete the Award Setup form https://tinyurl.com/492j5e93 so RCA has the information necessary to create the award in iO. For best results, log in to your Adobe Sign account before clicking the link. You only need an Adobe Sign account if you will be initiating these forms. If you do not currently have a Rice Adobe Sign, send a request to mailto:helpdesk@rice.edu. More information about Adobe Sign can be found here: https://kb.rice.edu/page.php?id=85738 |
The Department Administrator, Project Manager, or PI who receives the SPARC notification and has a Rice Adobe Sign account can initiate the form and add others to the routing as needed. There are no required approvals, and the form is configured to include RCA as the final stop. Please note the brief instructions for how to fill out the workflow at the top of the page. For more information about Adobe Sign, please visit https://kb.rice.edu/page.php?id=85738.
Detailed information on how to fill out the form itself can be found in the Award Information Help Document.
We’ve had several inquiries lately about what Fund Types and Fund Sources should be used in order to fund projects via Balance Transfer. Please use the information below for funding Cost-share, Deficit, Salary Cap, and Faculty Fund projects, as well as University Awards.
We’d like to share some information on the different Non-Billable projects that are available to the departments in iO. Some of these are created based on information contained in SPARC notices, while others require a help desk ticket to the RCA queue in order to be created.
Advance Spending award
Cost Share project
Salary Cap project
Pending Amendment project
Deficit project
In order to make the structure more consistent and easier for users, we’re restructuring some of the sub-folders in Box.
Currently, you see:
We are going to move all of the drop off locations to “drop off here” and all of the processed / in progress files to “processed”.
Within “drop off here” you will now see these choices:
The template for each folder is listed, and all of these are available under templates, which will look like this:
The FBDI box folder will continue to host the Labor Distribution template and instructions and the budget transfer memo job aid, but both of these are submitted through AdobeSign processes and completed templates should not be dropped off in Box.
Please name your general ledger entries with your name and date. Please name your sponsored project cost transfers using the following naming convention:
These naming conventions will make it easier for RCA to answer questions when people inquire about progress (i.e. “did my entry post?” or “did my cost transfer for project XYZ get processed?”).
Hello, everyone:
We have received several inquiries lately regarding expenses that posted incorrectly to a department’s Central Operating Fund (100.000000) instead of posting to the appropriate Fund Type and Fund Source for a sponsored project (e.g. 104.040000 or 104.047000).
The Fund Source value is derived with a mapping set based on the Award Type for Rice Sponsored Projects. PPM has a version of the mapping set, and it contains 23 Award Type values. Payables also has a version of the mapping set, but it only contained 9 Award Type values. When the system can’t find a match, it maps to an employee’s Default Expense Account. Typically it would be the Central Operating Fund, but it doesn’t necessarily have to be the case.
The Payables mapping set has been updated and should now include all Award Types for Sponsored Projects. In order to correct any existing error on your GL, please create an GL entry to credit expenses on the incorrect COA string and debit expenses on correct COA string.
Hello,
When entering expenditure types on a cost transfer, please use an expenditure type that is on this list in box. Please enter exactly as written to ensure prompt, accurate processing.
https://rice.app.box.com/folder/156749942989
Hello,
Below are a few things to keep in mind when managing your sponsored projects.
Close Date- iO utilizes the close dates to control spending on projects. The close dates are typically set to 45-60 days after the award ends to allow departments adequate time to post adjustments. Note that the expenditure item date of the expense must be within the project period. Expenses must be posted on or before the close date to report the expense via invoice and/or financial report to your sponsor.
Advance Spending- New advance spending awards will be setup initially in iO as an award, and not a Faculty Fund Project task anymore. Once the award has been executed, RCA will update the award budget and project end dates and allow iO to process invoicing.
Deficit/Overspent Projects- Costs in excess of the award amount will be moved to another project on the award. RCA will create the deficit project and move the expense. Essentially, the excess costs will be accounted for and reported as uncommitted cost share. Funding for these costs are managed the same way as your cost share expenses.
Project Tasks and Subtasks– For sponsored projects, all tasks are “Task 1”. For Faculty Funds, there can be multiple tasks and subtasks. Note: When you add subtasks to a task, it makes the original, primary task nonchargeable. If you have expenses, including labor distributions charging to a primary task, but you created subtasks, that expense will not be processed since the expending must occur at the subtask. A new labor distribution schedule will need to be created and sent to Payroll for processing.
Subaward Requisitions- Beginning in January, subawards requisitions are now split into two lines. One line for the amount up to $25K, and the second line for the amount over $25k. This way, when you do your receiving, you can select the first line on the requisition to be paid first, then the remainder on line 2. This will correct the F&A calculation challenges some departments were having on subawards. Correcting F&A on subawards prior to January require submission of a cost transfer form.
Communication– When contacting RCA via the helpdesk, please include the award/project number and your Org number so we can route the request to your accountant for a prompt reply.
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