Closing Types (Grant and Contract Closing Process)

Included on this page:

Deficit with continuation budget
Deficit without continuation budget
Unexpended balance with continuation budget
Unexpended balance without continuation budget

Fixed price

The closing type for a budget depends upon whether the budget has a deficit or an unexpended balance and whether there is a continuation budget at the time of closing. The closing type determines the actions GCA and the PI/staff need to take to bring the budget balance to zero.

Description

Deficit with continuation budget: An award in which expenditures are greater than revenue and there is a continuation budget.

For NIH Awards:

Non-Competing Research Awards: GCA will transfer over-expenditures to the continuation budget.
Competing Research Awards: Cost overruns are not allowed. GCA will separate pre-award costs from cost overruns. Pre-award costs are all allowable expenditures incurred 90 days prior to the start of the new award. If the over-expenditure exceeds the pre-award costs, GCA will transfer the pre-award cost portion to the continuation budget. The remainder of the over-expenditure must be transferred to a departmental non-federal budget.
Training Grants: Cost overruns will not be based on pre-award calculation. Please refer to the Training Grants website.

For Other Letter of Credit Awards:

GCA determines whether the carryover of the deficit to the continuation budget is allowable on a case by case basis.

For All Other Awards:

To transfer the deficit from an award to the continuation budget, you may need written approval from the sponsor. Check the guidelines for your particular award.

Deficit without continuation budget: An award in which expenditures are greater than revenue and there is no continuation budget.

Transfer the excess expenditures and resolve your deficit by:

Providing GCA with an appropriate non-federal budget number (i.e. Gift, Income, State, Research Cost Recovery (RCR), etc) for the deficit transfer,

Preparing a Request to Transfer Expenditure (RTE) or Retroactive Salary Transfer (RST) Form to transfer specific expenditures to an appropriate budget.

Unexpended balance with continuation budget: An award in which revenue is greater than expenditures and there is a continuation budget.

GCA determines whether sponsor regulations require prior approval to carry unexpended balances forward to the continuation budget.

If prior approval is not required:

GCA carries forward the balance as unallocated direct costs (38-99-00) and facilities & administrative (F&A) costs (25-99-00).

No additional departmental action is needed to spend these funds.

If prior approval is required (GCA sends you a letter telling which action applies to your budget), either:

On all federal awards, GCA:
- carries forward the entire balance in the restricted category (37-99-00).

On all non-federal awads, GCA:
- does not carry forward the balance until they receive written approval.
Note: With some sponsors, the unexpended balance is applied as partial funding for the next budget period.

Unexpended balance without continuation budget: An award in which revenue is greater than expenditures and there is no continuation budget.

For Fixed Price Awards (budget type/class 05/14 and 05/31) and Fixed Price Clinical Trial budgets (budget type/class 05/16 and 05/35):

If balance is greater than 10% of the award amount:

Department submits a request to OSP to extend the budget period or to transfer the balance to departmental Fixed Price Surplus Account. Reference that this is a fixed price budget.

If balance is less than 10% of the award amount:

Request a one-year extension from GCA (email gcaques@u.washington.edu) or ask GCA to transfer the balance to the departmental Fixed Price Surplus Account. To establish a Fixed Price Surplus Account for this purpose, contact Office of Sponsored Programs (email osp@u.washington.edu).

For All Other Awards:

GCA automatically returns the unexpended balance to the sponsor.

Supporting Documents

GIM 18--Postaward Administration of National Institutes of Health (NIH) Grants

Contacts:

Contact the GCA team assigned to your school or college to have the budget closed.

Closing Process NOE Letter