As noted in our prior year response, the University continued to have cost transfers in fiscal year 2023 as it reconciled its grants. To limit cost transfers in the future, the following steps have been taken by the University: • The Controller’s Office along with the Office of the Vice President of...
As noted in our prior year response, the University continued to have cost transfers in fiscal year 2023 as it reconciled its grants. To limit cost transfers in the future, the following steps have been taken by the University: • The Controller’s Office along with the Office of the Vice President of Research configured our accounting system with an automated control that prevents general (non-payroll) expenditures from being charged to the grant after the period of performance end date, one root cause of cost transfers. • For payroll expenditures, post-award specialists updated grant labor costing allocations in our accounting system to contain an end date that coincides with the period of performance end date. This change in Workday restricts labor costs from being charged after the period of performance. The University’s post-award specialist review grant labor costing allocations on a periodic basis. • With collaboration between the payroll department, the Controller’s Office and post-award specialists, before each payroll is processed within the accounting system, grants that have ended are identified and the payroll expenditures are removed from the feed and not charged to the grant. • On-going training on data certification by post-award grant managers has improved grant-expenditure compliance and data accuracy. In addition, the Controller’s Office implemented a process in which post-award grant managers are now reviewing grant level budget versus actual reporting on a periodic basis to identify errors timely (i.e. before the 90 day threshold). Additionally, the University’s Workday team is exploring additional functionality within our Workday grants management module to build in additional expense approvals, specifically for labor, before those expenses are charged to the grant to reduce future cost transfers. As part of the University’s corrective action plan, during fiscal year 2023 the sponsored programs accounting team recalculated fringe and indirect costs on all federal grants to ensure the correct expense was recorded to each grant. During this reconciliation process cumulative award to date errors were identified and corrected. The sponsored program accounting team continues to reconcile fringe and indirect costs on cost transfers at the grant level on a periodic basis to ensure accuracy. Tara Thomason, Controller and Assistance Vice President, is responsible for addressing the above items by June 2024.