Department Administrator

Session #5 – June 19th 2012

Agenda• Automated emails

– Grant disabled– Grant/Unit mismatch (How is this working?)– Email End Date notice (Upcoming notices)

• Follow up from March 1st session – Steps within My Grants Tracker – Salary

• Post Doc Fellow paid directly from NSERC - Insurance liability for PDF

• End Date for OMAFRA Month End Reports• HVPO and the cancelling/clearing of commitments • Transfer of funds to GPR (Grant/Contract)• Reasons for Journal Entries

– Reasons for Journal entries– Additional comments about journal entries

• Next scheduled session

Automated Emails

Grants Disabled– Account past its end date, AND– Account is at a $0.00 balance

• How is this working?– Feedback: Working well

Automated Emails

• Grant/Unit mismatch– Assumption that the proper unit has been

entered?– It is not necessary to copy RFS on correcting

entries

• How is this working?– Feedback: Working well

Automated Emails• 90 day notice of upcoming end date

– Prepare to finish the project– If a project extension is required than start working with

sponsor and appropriate Office of Research or Research Financial Services contact

– NOTE: an end date extension can only be made if we have a written message from the SPONSOR (an email from the researcher is not sufficient)

• 30 day notice of upcoming end date– Finish spending and ensure all expenses are incurred in

the account

• Feedback: Must consider Tri-Council awards which receive automatic 1 yr extension. RFS to review and follow up

90 Day Notice Email• Dear Researcher,

The end date of your project is 90 days or less.  Please ensure that all of your expenditures have been recorded in this account and any outstanding items are received and paid in full prior to your end date.  Expenditures that are made to the account after your end date will be considered ineligible by your sponsor and must be removed from the account.

If you require an end date extension for your CFI or Ontario Research Fund project, please follow up with the appropriate person at the University of Guelph to ensure that a confirmation can be obtained to extend the end date of the award.

University of Guelph contacts:CFI - Lee Bennard (lbennard@uoguelph.ca or ext. 52078) Ontario Research Fund - Shaun Wilson (swilson@uoguelph.ca or ext. 58770)

If you require an end date extension for any other research project, please follow up with the appropriate contact person at the University of Guelph as well as your sponsor to ensure that an amendment to the award (grant/contract) can be obtained to extend the end date for your project.

University of Guelph contacts:

Tri Council Awards (CIHR, NSERC, SSHRC) - Asif Momin, Research Financial Services (momin@uoguelph.ca or ext. 54681)

Contracts/Grants with industry, government, all other non-Tri-Council sponsors - Office of Research Services (research.services@uoguelph.ca or ext. 56943)

* please indicate an amendment is required for an existing award (grant/contract)

Grant  Description                                                                                                                                   Grant # Grant Title                     Funding Agency                                   OWNER: (Grant Leader)     EXPIRY: (End Date)                                                                                          

If you are not the responsible Grant Leader of these grants than please contact Koray Beduk in Research Financial Services (kbeduk@uoguelph.ca) so we may update our database.

Regards,Research Financial Services

30 Day Notice• Dear Researcher,

The end date of your project is 30 days or less.  Please ensure that all of your expenditures have been recorded in this account and any outstanding items are received and paid in full prior to your end date.  Expenditures that are made to the account after your end date may be considered ineligible by your sponsor and will need to be removed from the account.

Grant  Description                                                                               Grant #     Grant Title                             OWNER: (Grant Leader)        EXPIRY: (End date)  

If you are not the responsible Grant Leader of these grants than please contact Koray Beduk in Research Financial Services (kbeduk@uoguelph.ca) so we may update our database.

Regards,Research Financial Services        

Follow up to March 1st Session

• My Grants Tracker – Salary Summary

Post Docs paid directly by NSERC

• Question raised by admin:– What do other departments do for liability

insurance in regards to someone paid directly by NSERC?

– Some departments have the student sign off on a waiver form.

– Elaine Smith following up with Sasha Alexander.

End Date for OMAFRA Reports

• Will be looking into the inclusion of more header information for month end OMAFRA reports

• Update to Oracle therefore timing will be delayed

• Timing of the project remains uncertain at this time

Purchase Orders and the cancelling/clearing of commitments• Purchasing is reviewing and hoping to

communicate something in the future

• Generally … a commitment is set up when a purchase order is created and the commitment is relieved when Accounts Payable makes payment and they can match payment to the purchase order

Purchase Orders and the cancelling/clearing of commitments• Scope: How often are purchase orders set up

but they are cancelled and re-keyed to align with a new account (eg. AAFC)

• Noted issues:– Cancelling a PO but the commitment still appears in FRS– PO entered with wrong account so commitment is made to

wrong account. Issue when trying to change coding– Any other noted issues?– PO set up > Account closed > Cancel PO then set up

new PO– Multi-year commitment covering multiple accounts when

a new account is assigned for each fiscal year

Purchase Orders and the cancelling/clearing of commitments• If you have a question about a

commitment, please contact:

Lynne Harbin

lharbin@uoguelph.ca

Ext. 58482

Transfer of Surplus Funds from Research Awards to GPR Account

• Grant– Full award amount has been received– Past end date of award– No commitments– RFS will transfer balance to GPR account

Transfer of Surplus Funds from Research Awards to GPR Account

• Contracts– Service Agreement

• Full award amount has been received• Past end date of award• No commitments• Confirmation from Sponsor that obligations have been fulfilled• RFS will transfer surplus to GPR account

– Research Agreement• Full award amount has been received• Past end date of award• No commitments• Confirmation from Sponsor that obligations have been fulfilled• Follow terms of agreement regarding surplus funds at end of award

– If the agreement does not explicitly state what to do then we need direction from the sponsor what to do with the surplus funds

• RFS will transfer the surplus to GPR account

Reasons for Journal Entries• Reasons for Journal Entries

– No account set up (Early Account Set up form – some Chairs/Deans are resistent to sign off on an Early Account request)

– Maximize expenditures for an award– Others ???– Grant/Unit mismatch– Internal billings– JE for Tri-Council new accounts (e.g. renewal of discovery grant)

– RFS is looking into this

– Closing an account– Split coding for some vendors … some vendors only accept one

account for coding although the invoice has expenditures for multiple accounts

– URA’s– Default coding (e.g. Purolator)

• Additional comments about Journal entries– Have you been able to reduce the number of journal entries?

– No– Remember explanations for journal entries must be descriptive

– Is it possible to attach PDF as supporting documentation? … RFS will follow up to see if this can happen

Next Scheduled Session

• Opportunity for sharing– Topics– Format

• Possible dates– September– October– November

• Next session will be planned for late October