February 20, 2025
MRAM Q&A February 2025
Meeting materials are available for your review along with a list of links shared during the session. Q&A from our session are included here for reference and will be available with the other meeting materials shortly.
Within a week or so following every MRAM, an email like this one typically goes out with Q&A from the session and a link to the meeting materials.
- Federal Administration Updates
- Grant Spend Verification Demo
- Budget and Accounting Date Definitions & Impacts
- Foundational Reports Workbook
Federal Administration Updates
Q1: What is the Provost’s Office and GCA doing to address late financial reports? We are at risk of losing carryforward.
A1: Please follow GCA’s Urgent Request Process.
Q2: What about NSF No-Cost Extensions?
A2: Both requests and notifications are being processed in Research.gov.
Q3: How is this affecting subawards issued by the UW?
A3: Unless the prime award is under a stop-work order, we are issuing subawards to both foreign and domestic collaborators. As needed, we are including additional terms and conditions.
Q4: Can you post the language to include in proposals affected by the TRO from the last slide?
A4: “The University recognizes this program falls under recently issued Temporary Restraining Orders. In order to meet the submission deadline, the University submits this application with required components and reserves the right to amend it consistent with current Court rulings.” See: Guidance On Federal Administration Research Policy
Q5: This will help with emergencies however, given that you can only keep temp staff for a year at time (creating training issues, and that escalating reports just reorders the backlog, what is the plan to eliminate it? Should we be lobbying the Provost?
A5: GCA continues to focus on our financial reporting backlog and have continued our downward trend as evidenced in GCA Workload Metrics. We continue to work with UW IT and other central office partners to obtain more automation so we are continuing on these efforts with the expectation that this will also eliminate our backlog.
Q6: Is there any sense of whether NIH carry forward requests are being processed? I’m not hearing back from the GMS who needs to accept the FFR that was submitted to them in mid-December, in order to move forward with the carry forward request.
A6: Responses have been slow or we are still in waiting mode.
Q7: Is there any text or reference about the language suggested for proposals, as shown in the presentation on the OSP website?
A7: Yes, please review the Proposal section of Guidance On Federal Administration Research Policy
Q8: What if we received verbal request from our NIH PO to remove language from our public facing platforms that might be viewed as non compliant with the EOs?
A8: It is recommended you reach out to the PO in light of the recent Temporary Restraining Orders, in particular the TRO issued from Rhode Island District Court, and ask about the request in light of the TRO. If the PI decides to take down any information based on the PO’s response, please archive it.
NOTE: For folks considering taking down information, in addition to the guidance provided, remember that the content is subject to UW record retention standards. Contact Records Management Services (recmgt@uw.edu) when making changes to your content.
Q9: Are we drawing down funds this week?
A9: We have not stopped drawing on awards unless the stop work order is still in effect. Some Notice of Awards had specific language about requiring a SF270 to draw but GCA has reached out to the sponsor for clarification as we do not do advance draws.
Q10: Regarding the Research website: Are advance budget requests allowed for non competing awards?
A10: This guidance has been updated. It is allowed but higher risk at this time.
Q11: If pauses are un-paused, are we able to bill for the time /FTE from when things were paused. I’m wondering about how to adjust costing allocations.
A11: This would depend on the terms listed in the stop work order and the terms listed in the resumption order if/when that work is allowed to resume.
Q12: Does the TRO and rescinding of the OMB memo mean that we don’t need to comply with our NIH POs request to remove DEI and gender language from our website and socials?
A12: It is recommended you reach out to the PO in light of the recent Temporary Restraining Orders, in particular the TRO issued from Rhode Island District Court, and ask about the request in light of the TRO. If the PI decides to take down any information based on the PO’s response, please archive it.
Q13: If UW is unable to draw down funds due to an award’s ASAP account being frozen/suspended, is that considered a suspension/stop order, even if no formal communication is received from the agency?
A13: If a system is down and the UW is unable to draw funds, draws are resumed once the system is back up and running. This situation would not be considered a suspension of an award. The UW would not stop drawing on a specific award unless a MOD was received that limited our ability to draw funds.
Q14: What is the guidance for preparing proposals with salary cap?
A14: Review How do I document salary cap on proposal budgets?
Q15: How should we prepare PIs working in the field for the possibility of a stop work order?
A15: We would recommend trying and minimize costs as much as possible if there is a possibility of a forthcoming stop work order. If there are costs which need to be incurred for future work, and it’s possible to wait to make those purchases, it is recommend holding off as long as possible. Additionally, if any travel is planned for the coming months, we would strongly recommend purchasing unrestricted or “refundable” airline tickets. The federal regulations allow for the purchase of an unrestricted ticket on federal sponsored awards, which can help to ensure the cost of the ticket is protected in case of any funding disruptions. If a restricted or non-refundable ticket is purchased for travel, and a stop work order is issued that causes a cancellation of the need for the travel, the cost of that non-refundable ticket would not be reimbursable on a federal award.
Q16: A slide seemed to reference freezes on funds being used for foreign work. I want to make sure that I am understanding if there is truly a freeze on any foreign work as our dept. has a few folks who have conducted work in foreign locations and we have several 3rd party cost shares with foreign agencies.
Can you elaborate what this means? What is the start date for when costs for foreign work must cease? And, does this mean any foreign work prior to that date is allowable?
A16: There isn’t an outright freeze on any foreign work; the slide was trying to convey that many of the stop-work orders or suspensions of work that the University has received for specific awards has tended to focus on awards which were foreign in nature (such as awards from USAID, etc.). That’s where the University has seen (to date) the majority of the suspensions.
Grant Spend Verification Demo
Q1: For access to the BI portal should we assign PIs access to the portal or simply download for them?
A1: If you would like them to do this process themselves, they would need access. Otherwise, it is just the initiator who needs access.
Q2: Summarized salaries isn’t as helpful since the ECCs come so late in the process.
A2: We have heard this concern from multiple people and will take it back to the steering group. Thank you for your feedback.
Q3: Can these be run and approved by Award # or does each approval have to be done by individual grant (GR) number?
A3: When you run the report, you can run it by a PI with no additional criteria, which will show all grants for that PI. You can further refine by CCH, Award or grant if so desired.
Q4: Will the grant spend verifications be effective July 1, 2023 (go-live) or starting when?
A4: Yes, you can run the report for any period (or range of fiscal periods) from go-live up to the current month.
Q5: Can the report fields be updated to allow for more than one PI at a time? Use case: multiple grant lines (assigned to different PIs) that roll up to one award that the lead PI is ultimately responsible for review.
A5: We don’t currently have the report set up to run by the Award contract Owner (aka the Award’s lead PI).
Q6: A report that shows PIs more specific information about transactions (so they can review what those supply costs actually are, and can therefore tell if something needs correcting) would be great. As is, this report doesn’t show all of the detail PIs ask us for.
A6: I think the report would show more detail with a better example. My sample only had F&A (bad choice on my part). Give it a try, and let us know what detail you feel is missing. Perhaps we can address those in the future.
Q7: On the Grant Spend Verification report, if the PIs Department is needed, why not write “Department of PI” instead of just “Department”?
A7: Good point – We will ask for that update!
Q8: Are we able to send a PI multiple grants through one DocuSign or do we need to do this for each individual grant?
A8: Yes, you can pull all grants for a single PI in one report.
Q9: Could there be a consideration to include the salary details, or a way that we can choose to include or not? Our PIs like to see how ALL costs in a month are contributing to their expenses in one report.
A9: Yes, let us take this back to the steering group – we have received this feedback from multiple people!
Q10: Regarding the Grant Spend Verification report, is the expectation PIs certify back to 7/1/2023?
A10: From a central perspective, this report is optional to use, although different departments are deciding to make it mandatory.
Q11: Is there a single report where we can get the 4 elements together by department or cost center (not one by one)? 1)budget vs. 2)actual spend AND 3)invoices issued vs. 4a) cash received for invoiced awards, or 4b) draws for letter of credit (LOC) awards? Why we want this: To quickly identify financial risks/problems. (It takes a long time to do this by piecemealing information from multiple reports grant by grant.)
A11: Such a report would be lovely. I am not certain we have all the data needed for such a report available in the EDW, but we will research and see.
Q12: Who would be the contact to request access to the Grant Spend Verification? I am receiving an Access Denied error.
A12: Send a screen shot of that error to datagrp@uw.edu with Grant Spend Verification in the Subject?
Q13: Could this report be updated to include salary too, my PIs want to see all costs at once.
A13: We will take this to the steering committee – it is a popular request!
Q14: How will this system work when/if the PI flags items in the report as “issues” which are in fact not issues. How do we amend PI comments, if needed? This does happen from time to time.
A14: The correction would not need to be made. The current system doesn’t have a way to clear the ‘correction needed’ flag. or add additional comments. We will take this back to the group to see if there is anyway to do this.
Q15: We review expenditures with our PIs already. Are these reports optional?
A15: Yes this process is optional.
Q16: Did the work group involve PIs as a tester for Grant Verification Tool?
A16: I believe the College of Education included PIs during the Pilot.
Q17: Can you post the wiki.cac.washington.edu/ link from the previous slide?
A17: https://wiki.cac.washington.edu/x/lco6Dg
Q18: Really need to see who was paid on the grant for the PI to approve. Would also be helpful to have the name of the grant appear. Many PIs don’t refer to AWD or GR #s, just the short titles of their grants.
A18: The name of each grant is listed at the top of each page on the report. We will talk to the steering committee about adding the salary detail.
Q19: On the Grant Spend Verification report, can anyone sign for the PI or are there specific rules about that delegation?
A19: “Under GIM 2, the PI may provide documented delegation to conduct a variety of functions related to fiscal compliance on sponsored awards, which would include any reconciliation or budget review actions.
Delegations should be given to those with direct knowledge of the award and whether expenditures benefit the objectives of the award. Delegation should also be in writing.
Please see GIM 2 for the full University policy regarding PI delegation.
Budget and Accounting Date Definitions & Impacts
Q1: GCA question: is there an update as to when Residual Balance Worktags will have the surplus funds transferred from previously closed grants? We are going on 18 months waiting to use the surplus/residual balances. With end of Biennium coming up we need ample time to transfer all the costs we’ve incurred over the last 18 months to the new Residual Balance funds.
Q2: Q for GCA: It’s been over 18 months since any Worktags have been closed in Workday. This includes NIH awards. Is there any ETA on when there will be a focus on closure of Worktags?
A1 & A2: GCA had to deprioritize our Closeout stream to focus on Award Setup, Financial Reporting, and Invoicing. We are working to resume this team and are hiring new folks to get this team back up and running. We should be seeing more movement on closeout actions in the next couple of months.
Q3: Under what circumstances could an expenditure move from unallowable to allowable?
A3: This would be up to the unit to decide as GCA does not make this determination. My comment regarding correcting the budget date was to say that by doing this, the unit is confirming that the transaction is allowable.
Q4: If the search field uses the department as a search field. What happens if someone types the name incorrectly? This needs to be a drop down menu.
A4: We didn’t make it a drop down menu because it Schools/Colleges each define department differently. Luckily the search capabilities in docfinity is robust. I would recommend using wildcards.
Q7: Our office runs a similar report and just notes that the salaries are for information and not for approval.
A7: That is a good idea. We will suggest that to the design group!
Q8: Do PAAs show the correct budget date when they are processed? Do they show the earned period end date as the budget date?
A8: They do show the correct budget date by default. But budget date is an editable field on PAAs, so it can be overwritten.
Q9: I might have missed it; will the Grant Spend Verification be the process for PI reconciliation process?
A9: This process is merely for the compliance requirement that PIs review expenses for ‘Reasonableness’, as is not intended to be a full reconciliation.
Q10: What workday security role is necessary to view budget date and accounting date for transactions?
A10: The grant financial analyst should allow this.
Q11: Could I request that budget date be pulled into the raw data of the R1234 report as it is pulled into the raw data of the R1300.
A11: The Datagroup has taken this suggestion.
Q12: How willing is GCA to prepare revised invoices if we are working to change budget dates for late-posting transactions?
A12: It depends and each case may can have a special nuance. If you have a question on a grant, please submit an AP ticket under that grant.
Q13: Any plans to incorporate awards made prior to 2024? many are multi-year and started prior but are active.
A13: Yes! You will find those on the Active Converted Awards tab.
Q14: Will the Grant Spend Verification replace the previous MYFD process for PI reconciliation?
A14: The purpose of this report is just verification of expense ‘reasonableness’ not a full reconciliation.
Foundational Reports Workbook
Q: The ORIS google doc with Workday and SAGE data does not appear to have been updated since January 20th or so. Will this be updated again soon? How often should we expect this to be updated going forward?
A: The version at our Key Reports folder , is updated. The easiest way to tell is the final column on each tab. It will have the refresh date and is refreshed several times a week. Here are instructions for downloading and refreshing on demand if you’d prefer self-service: While the subject reads specific to the unassigned subawards report, it is true for the Applications, Awards and related requests workbook as well.
Contact us at grantrpt@uw.edu if you need help.