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Home Tools and Applications: Project Expenditures

Tools and Applications: Project Expenditures

  • What are Project Expenditures? Project Expenditures are detailed reports of costs, revenue, and invoice activities for your project(s).
  • Why are Project Expenditures being tracked? Project expenditures are used as the basis to allocate a portion of state funds to the School of Medicine departments. Both direct costs and indirect costs are incorporated into the model as separate components.
  • How are funds allocated? The MBM allocation model divides the state funds into separate pools for Basic Science and Clinical Departments. Basic Science units include Biochemistry, Biomedical Informatics, DFPM: Public Health, Human Genetics, Neurobiology & Anatomy, Oncological Sciences, Pathology: Cell Biology & Immunology, and Physiology. Funds are spread proportionately within each category according to effort. For example, if a department comprises 10% of the School’s total basic science activity of direct costs, the department will receive 10% of the pool available for that category. Similarly, if a department comprises 5% of the clinical department total of indirect costs, the department will receive 5% of the pool assigned to the clinical departments for indirects.
  • What Projects are included? Projects include University Fund 5000 chartfields, VA grants, and HHMI budget allocations. University data come from PeopleSoft; data for the VA and HHMI are provided by their respective organizations. Intramural awards (eg, University of Utah Research Foundation) are included in the data for completeness, but they are not included for credit purposes. Similarly, subcontracts are excluded from direct costs for purposes of the allocation model, but they are included in the data for completeness.
  • Why are we tracking collaborators? As an institution, we encourage collaboration within and across departments. We want to recognize that collaboration in the SOM State Fund Allocation Model in terms of “financial credit.”
  • How does this process affect the returned overhead allocation? The SOM State Fund Allocation Model is entirely separate from the allocation of returned overhead (Fund 2500). This process has no impact on the returned overhead allocation.
  • What do I need to do as a faculty member? Principal Investigators have the responsibility to work with his or her collaborators to agree on fair and appropriate allocation percentages. The Principal Investigator has the ability and the responsibility to enter it into the system. Once entered, Co-Investigators will be able to see their allocation records. Each faculty member should review his or her information to make sure it is correct and complete. Co-Investigators should contact the PI to initiate a discussion if the allocation percentages have not yet been entered.
  • What do I need to do as an administrator? Administrators should encourage their Principal Investigator faculty to work with their collaborators to agree on allocation percentages. Department and division administrators can enter the percentages into the system if the PI so chooses.
  • How often do I need I need to review? The review process will occur on an annual basis, typically starting in November. Faculty and departments will have through December to review data, determine allocation percentages, and enter the information into the system. The data will be circulated to departments for a final review prior to being used in the MBM allocation model. Once percentages are assigned to a project, the distribution can apply for the lifetime of the project (eg, five years) so percentages do not need to be reassigned each year. But if changes in effort occur, the percentages can be modified to apply to future years.

How Does Project Expenditures Function?

Existing Grid of Entries

The project expenditures category opens with a grid of existing entries with the latest fiscal year displayed. The grid contains filters, clickable headings for sorting, and a keyword search, all to help view and find existing entries. Initially, faculty will see the records for those projects for which they are the principal investigator. Collaborators will be able to see records reflecting their involvement once the P.I. has entered them on the project. Department/Division Adminstrators will be able to see all faculty within his or her department and/or division(s) as well as collaboration records assigned.

Adding Collaborators

For existing entries, the principal investigator (financially responsible person) and financial administrator will have the ability to add or delete collaborators for the open fiscal year only. The open fiscal year represents the last completed fiscal year. For example, during the fiscal year 2015, the fiscal year 2014 project data is available for editing collaborator information. Prior fiscal year collaborators and percentage of collaboration can be viewed, but cannot be edited. By clicking on the “Add Collaborators” button in the entry screen, an add entry view will appear which will allow the user to search for School of Medicine collaborators. By typing the last name of the collaborator into the search box, a list will be generated of potential faculty. Select the faculty and click “Add” or press enter. Once a collaborator(s) has been selected from the list, clicking the “Done” button will return the user to the entry screen where percentages can be added for each collaborator. Only School of Medicine faculty are available for selection as collaborators.

Assigning Percentages

Percentage of collaboration is editable for the open fiscal year only. The percentages can be edited by clicking the “Edit Percentage” button or double-clicking on the percent for each collaborator. The total percent distribution must add to 100% before the entry can be saved.

Confirmation

A confirmation button is included in the entry form. When checked it indicates that project information has been reviewed and that collaborator(s) and percentage of collaboration have been added if applicable. The name of the person who marked the project as confirmed will appear below the check box.

Financial Summary for Reference – view detail for a single year, or all years

Project expenditures for all years are view only. The entry screen for the project displays each fiscal year for the project summarized by direct costs, F&A, subcontracts and total. A detailed view of the financial summary which includes each collaborator, percentage of collaboration, and the amount of the costs assigned to each collaborator can be viewed for a single year or for all years. Collaborators will have the ability to view the project expenditure data, collaborators, and percentage of collaboration for the year(s) in which he or she was a collaborator.