In order to establish an account for your newly approved grant funding, ORSP must have in possession, at a minimum

• a transmittal form (see proposal section),
• a budget approved by an ORSP manager
• an award document (mentioned above)

Once all of the above documents are received, an ORSP post-award manager will evaluate your grant award and determine the best way to translate it into ORACLE Financial Management System language to set up an account.

An important note is that cash does not need to be in the University's hands before research can commence. As long as we have a signed agreement with the sponsor identifying the needed information in an award document, the University will “front” your awarded budget. In many cases, the University will recover the value of your costs on a monthly or quarterly basis as we must bill for actual costs incurred as the project moves along. Charges will accumulate, based on the sponsor's a pproved budget and the GCA staff will collect those costs on the university's behalf.

TIP: OHIO supports your research by establishing an account for your full award before payment from the sponsor is received. This “fronting” of money allows you to jump right into your research without worrying about money being received first. The Grant and Contract Accounting Office will then work with the sponsor to collect the funding that is due.

In April 2003, Ohio University moved to a new financial management system developed by ORACLE. Each proposal that is funded through externally sponsored funds is assigned a unique account number, which separates and tracks the funds designated for that account in FMS.

The ORSP manager will look at a number of criteria when deciding to establish an account structure, such as:

• Annual reporting
• Overhead rates
• Overhead details
• Subcontr acting
• Fiscal tracking
• Reporting Schedule
• On campus / Off campus

Information such as the start and end dates, budget amounts, source of funds, title and department, or center affiliation is transferred by the ORSP managers to the GCA office for entry into the university financial management system.

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