With the introduction of SAGE Central, all GCA functions are now done there.
This guide has been “retired” but retained for now.
GCA staff use the System for Electronic Research Accounting (SERA) to manage SAGE-related items of the following types:
Advance Budget Number Requests (ADV): Campus users create these to request a budget number in advance of their award so that they can begin spending the award.
Funding Actions (FA): OSP staff create these to manage awards received by the UW.
Post-Award Changes (PAC): OSP staff create these to manage any award changes made after the initial receipt.
Other Forms (OTH): GCA staff create these to record and track forms related to setting up new budgets in addition to Advances, Funding Actions and Post-Award Changes.
You can replace the cost share addendum with a newer version when an advance is in In GCA or Processed status.
In the Cost Share section of the Request Summary, there is a 3-dot more actions menu at the far right of the attachment row. The menu options are:
Replace file with newer version
Delete attachment
The following image shows the menu choices.
To replace a file, select that option from the menu. A dialog will display, as shown below, where you can upload the newer version of your file.
Once you have added the newer version, you can expand the row and add a comment for the revised file. The expanded view will show all versions of the attachment, with the most recently added version at the top. The following image shows an example.
Once an advance budget request has been processed, campus can request an advance budget number extension.
Advance budgets that are requested for the maximum of 12 months can be extended for up to 6 months.
NOTE: If the advance budget is requested for less than 12 months, the duration of the advance (12 months or less) + extension must be less than or equal to 18 months.
Along with the revised end date and reason for the extension, campus can indicate any sub-budgets associated with the parent advance budget that they also want extended.
Once campus submits their extension request in SAGE, you will see it on the SERA tasklist with the following information:
Action/Request Type: Extension
Last Action Taken: Received in GCA
Status: In GCA
Click Select to open the Advance Budget Extension Request page.
Once all of the budgets associated with the extension have been updated in FIN, you can select Approve Extension.
A dialogue box will appear where you can enter an optional comment regarding the extension, then click All Set, Notify Campus.
Once you have approved the extension, the status will update to Processed and notifications will be sent to the parent and sub-budget Principal Investigators (PIs) with the advance preparers copied.
If you select Deny extension, a confirmation dialog will display. Once you enter the required comment, the Deny, Notify Campus button will be enabled. Select it to change the advance’s status to Denied and notify campus.
By default, the Prior BN, Short Title, PI Name, and Org Receiving Funding fields are auto-populated based on the associated application and funding action.
The following image shows the Budgets section for a new advance before a budget number is assigned.
Budget Setup For New Advances
Follow these steps to complete the budget setup process:
Click the Type of Budget drop-down menu to assign the budget type. NOTE: Once the budget type is selected, the Biennium and ADV BN will automatically be filled in.
Enter the ADV BN and other required information into FIN.
Click the green Mark Setup Complete & Notify Campus button.
Once you click Mark Setup Complete & Notify Campus, a dialog box appears with a reminder to make sure all budgets associated with the request are set up in FIN before notifying campus. If your budgets are set up in FIN, click the blue All Set, Notify Campus button. If you are not ready to notify campus, click Cancel.
Once you click All Set, Notify Campus , the header will automatically update to include the Advance Budget number and the status will update to Processed.
NOTE: You can navigate away from the Budgets section prior to completing the budget setup. All of the information you have entered will automatically save. The advance request will remain in GCA status, and the last action taken will update to Budget# Assigned/Confirmed.
Edit an Assigned Budget Number
The advance budget number can be updated to any budget number prior to marking the setup complete.
If a different Budget Type is selected, a confirmation message will appear, confirming that you want to change the type and assign a new budget number.
Budget Setup for Renewals
Advance budget renewal requests can be submitted for parent budgets with and without sub budgets.
In this case, the advance budget request for the parent budget is listed first on the Budgets section, and any sub budget requests will follow.
NOTE: The Prior Budget Number details for renewals are listed in the General Information Section.
To set up and edit budget numbers for renewals, follow the same steps (1-5) outlined for setting up new advance budget requests.
The following images shows a renewal with sub budgets selected.
To return an Advance Budget Request to campus for modifications, scroll down to the bottom of the Request Summary page. Below the PI Delegation section are two buttons: Return Request and Mark Setup Complete & Notify Campus, as shown below.
When you select the Return Request button, a confirmation dialog will display, as shown below.
Once you have entered the required Return Reason, the Return Request button will be enabled. To cancel out of the dialog, use the Cancel link or the blue X in the upper, right corner.
When you return a request, the item will move to Returned status and will be read-only. An alert message will display at the top of the Request & Submit/Request Summary page with the date of the return and the reason. The following image shows an example of this.
The GCA view of the Request Summary includes the GCA Managed Information section, shown in the following image.
By default, the following fields are auto-populated based on the associated application or budget details. You can edit each field as needed by clicking within the field or on the drop-down arrow:
Assigned To
Activity Location
F&A Rate
Parent Budget F&A Rate Base Type
NOTE: If you update the Activity Location, F&A Rate, or Parent Budget F&A Rate Base Type within the GCA Managed Information section, the update will automatically appear in the General Information section.
The last field within the section is the Form of Payment, which must be assigned by GCA. To assign the Form of Payment, click the drop-down arrow and select the appropriate form of payment. The following image shows the menu choices.
FIX: Unprocessing of FAs/PACs/ADVs Can Cause Errors
Periodically GCA staff need to “unprocess” an item previously completed. When new fields are added to SPAERC and SERA, it would at times cause validation messages at time of unprocessing of an item, that were not able to be corrected by GCA. The system has been updated to suppress validations during unprocessing, to alleviate this problem. The validations will again run when the item is re-processed.
