Source: OSP Website

Regular and ongoing account reconciliation throughout the life an award helps to ensure expenditures are within budget and in compliance with award terms. Department/Local Level Managing Units are primarily responsible for reconciling accounts and working with the PI to determine allowability and allocability of expenditures on sponsored awards. The timely review of expenditures helps with:

• Identifying and correcting unallowable expenses
• Mitigating the need for cost transfers
• Managing budget to actuals
• Assessing the burn rate of an award
• Avoiding over-expenditures
• Avoiding large balances at the end of an award
• Ensuring expenditures on the general ledger are allowable, allocable, reasonable, and able to be invoiced or reported to the sponsor

Timely account reconciliation helps to facilitate the disabling of sponsored chart of accounts in the general ledger and the segment closeout of awards in GMAS processed by OSP Research Finance. To assist with the closeout process, OSP Research Finance distributes a monthly HART Report to Departments/Local Level Managing Units to proactively identify awards ending in 30, 60, and 90 days (30-60-90 Report). Please contact an OSP Financial Analyst or Manager to be added to the monthly distribution list. Department/Local Level Managing Units can generate a similar report using the HART Segments dashboard.

Preparing for the End of Award

In addition to ongoing reconciliation, Department/Local Level Managing Units must pay additional attention to expenditures as an award comes to an end. The following list provides general activities that should occur at the end of an award.

• Continue to review and clear expenses flagged in the GMAS Transaction Monitoring module
• Review and update recurring charges, including salaries, service centers, and utilities
• Discuss any remaining large purchases with the PI
• Request the PI and research team to submit any outstanding reimbursements, including travel
• Request and review final subcontract invoices
• Run the HART Committed Funds report to identify open PO’s
• Remove over-expenditures
• Remove post-term charges not incurred within the award period

Additional details and guidance is available in the Sponsored Financial Reporting and Closeout Policy .

Final Invoices and Financial Reports

OSP Research Finance is responsible for the preparation and submission of all invoices and financial reports (financial deliverables) to the sponsor. The general ledger serves as the source of financial information submitted to the sponsor. Prior to submitting final deliverables, OSP Research Finance provides a general compliance review using the downloadable Compliance Checklist for that deliverable in GMAS. The Department/Local Level Managing Unit reviews and approves all checklist items, including any items flagged for Transaction Monitoring in GMAS and provides the [Final Figure] to be used for closeout.

After the Award End Date

The Department/Local Level Managing Unit should continue to review and reconcile any active accounts in the general ledger to ensure expenditures match the Final Figure. Any expenditures that were not included as part of the Final Figure are unallowable and must be removed. OSP Research Finance performs any final collections on outstanding receivables and coordinates final drawdowns with the Cash Team to ensure sponsored income posts to each account.