Award & Post-Award

Post-Award Responsibilities

Review and Acceptance

Faculty, Departments, Engineering Research Administration, and Sponsored Programs may all receive awards for external funding. Once the contract or award document arrives, the process for negotiating and accepting the award begins.

Negotiating the Agreement

The administrative process for all sponsored awards begins in the Office of Sponsored Programs (OSP). OSP negotiates with the Sponsor when specific terms or conditions are involved and is also responsible for signing the award. Then, the paperwork to establish a fund is initiated and forwarded to the Office of Contracts and Grants Accounting (CGA) to create the fund.

Principal Investigators (PIs) may negotiate directly with the sponsors regarding the scope of work to be conducted. However, PIs may not negotiate any other terms.

Signing the Agreement

If the Sponsor's signature is present on the agreement and if there are no changes to the agreement, OSP will sign for the University, and provide the original, fully executed agreement to the Sponsor. If changes to the contract are required, OSP will work directly with the Sponsor to address the changes before signing the contract. If the terms of the agreement are standard, the documents are generally signed within 1-3 business days.

PIs are not authorized to sign agreements on behalf of the University.

Setting Up the Fund

OSP sends the signed agreement along with a fully signed Auburn University Cover Form for Extramural Programs, budget, journal voucher, and indirect cost distribution form to CGA to create a fund and copies the PI and departmental administrator on the distribution.

After receiving the documentation from OSP, CGA establishes the new fund number in the Banner system. Considering the tight technical schedule of PIs, CGA works to minimize the time it takes to set up a fund to allow for expenditures. A new fund notification is sent by email the same day the fund is established.

Anticipation

The University does not have formal authority to incur costs against a grant or contract until a fully executed award document is in place. However, there are times the PI needs to begin spending before the award document is fully executed. Charging another sponsored project account for costs associated with a pending award is not allowed. Instead, when the award documents are delayed and the investigator knows that the University will accept the terms of the award, e.g., standard Federal grants, it is appropriate for the investigator to request that a Fund be established on anticipation. Establishing a Fund on anticipation is not appropriate if the University and sponsor have not completed negotiation of unacceptable terms of a contract.

Fund Management

Each sponsored project fund in Banner is assigned to a PI as the responsible person. The PI may delegate some of the duties associated with financial management of the fund to a business manager. However, the PI assumes full responsibility for all activity on the fund.

The PI is responsible for ensuring that all disbursements from the fund are:

• for the bona fide purpose of the account.
• allowable per the terms of the award.
• authorized in accordance with University policies, State and Federal laws and regulations.
• charged to the appropriate account code.
• within the available funding for the fund.

The PI is responsible for ensuring that:

• the fund is reconciled on a timely basis.
• immediate action is taken to resolve the errors or discrepancies noted during the report reconciliation and to follow up to ensure that errors are corrected.

My Funding, a tab within the Self-Service Banner Application in AU Access, is a dashboard that displays real-time financial data on external contracts, grants, and cooperative agreements. It provides faculty and staff live and historical financial data for an individual’s external support, facilities and administrative cost recovery details, advanced search functions, and the ability to download relevant financial information as needed.