Account Establishment

Once the grant/contract is negotiated by an ORSP post-award manager, specific information such as start/end dates, budget allocation and sponsor information is conveyed through setup sheets to GCA. Also included with the set-up sheets is backup documentation of the award which includes the terms and conditions. The setup sheets are then reviewed and completed with the accounting information that is needed in Oracle FMS for tracking the expenditures and revenue of the Project. Grants and contracts are created and accounted for in the Project Accounting Module (PA Module) of Oracle FMS. This permits the project to cross fiscal years unlike an operating account that is spent on a fiscal year (July - June) basis.

The account number string is created in the following:

Fund Type - Fund-Organization - Object Code - Project No. - Task No.
i.e. 020-3300-08110-400000-GM0011802-01.01
(Object Code is synonymous with expenditure types and natural account codes.)

The project number is a nine-digit field. It has a prefix of Gx or UE followed by a series of numbers/letters, which represents the Uniterm number assigned by ORSP. The prefixes, which have meaning to the GCA Office, currently utilized in the PA Module are:

GA – Advance of Funds
GC – Research Challenge Projects
GE – Reporting/Collection of Money at End of the Project
GL – Letter of Credit Project
GM – Monthly Billing
GQ – Quarterly Billing
GR – Miscellaneous (has unique reporting requirements)
UE – University Endowment

The task number can be in three formats:

XX
XX.XX (Task followed by Sub-task)
XX.XX.XX (Task followed by Sub-Task followed by an additional Sub-Task)

The purpose of the task is to permit flexibility in budgeting the project into activities, if needed for tracking expenditures on the project or if the P/PD needs to track costs at a finer level of detail. In instances where reporting is required to the sponsor in one-year increments, a unique task will be assigned for each budget increment, i.e., a three-year award given in three one-year increments will have three tasks. Some projects are broken into tasks and sub-tasks. An example would be a project for FY10 that has a sub-task for on-campus costs utilizing an overhead rate of 47% and another sub-task for off-campus costs utilizing an overhead rate of 26% or a sub-task for costs that do not have overhead (i.e. REU or Participant Costs). The project would be assigned Task 01 with the title of FY10 Expenditures, Task 01.01 as FY10 On-Campus Costs and Task 01.02 as FY10 Off-Campus Costs or task 01.03 for FY10 REU Costs. When there are sub-tasks on the project, spending must occur at this level. That is, if your task structure has an 01.01.01, your account number for the charge must reflect that detailed, lowest task number. You cannot apply charges to the next higher task, 01.01.

DON'T FORGET: When there are sub-tasks on the project, spending is always at the lowest level. If your task structure has an 01.01.01, your account number for the charge must reflect that detailed, lowest task number. You cannot apply charges to the next higher task, 01.01.

When the project is entered in Oracle FMS, a staff member of GCA is assigned the project for billing purposes. Customers are created in the system to enable the Oracle Invoicing process to interface with the Oracle Accounts Receivable (AR) Module. PI/PD’s are assigned the “key member” role of “Project Manager”. Co-PI’s are assigned the key member role of “CO-PI”. This is used for report distribution purposes and will be used for Business On Line, when activated. Once the setup sheets are entered into Oracle FMS and the project is “Approved”, spending may begin on the project. When the project is “Approved”, an award letter is sent by ORSP through its LEO system.


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