Advance Budget Requests

A Principal Investigator (PI) or Research Administrator (RA) can request authorization to spend in advance of the receipt of an award or the setting up of an award in UW systems. The department must guarantee these expenditures if an award does not come through.  The UW authorizes advance spending through the assignment of an advance budget number.

The PI or RA uses SAGE to create the Advance Budget Number Request or Advance Extension. Once approved by the PI, Department Reviewer, and the Office of Research SFI Reviewer, the advance request moves to GCA Assigned status and is available for processing in SAGE Central.

From the Awards tasklist, open the item by selecting either the Request ID or Short Title.  You can also search for an item by its Request ID or associated eGC1 number.  Selecting the item from the result list will open it in a new browser tab.

The advance request header for an Advance includes (reading left to right):

  • a blue arrow to return to the tasklist
  • the text “Advance Budget Request” and the request’s number (ADVnnnn)
  • a link to the Request Application (eGC1)
  • the Advance Budget number (if it exists)
  • the Award Activity number (if it exists)
  • a link to the Associated Cycle (if it exists)
  • the Request Status
  • a more options menu (three vertical dots) which allows you to add a comment

The following image shows an example header for an advance.

advance request header

When you open an advance, by default the Request Summary section will display.

Within the Request Summary, you can edit the GCA Managed Information section. You will be able to view the remaining sections:

  • General Information
  • SFI & FCOI
  • Cost Share
  • Non-Fiscal Compliance
  • Supporting Attachments
  • Delegation of PI Approval

These sections are described in the Advance Review & Submit, Request Summary article in the SAGE User Guide.

Within the Request Summary, you can also Return a Request to campus.

Once a budget number or numbers are assigned, you can Mark Setup Complete & Notify Campus to complete the process. This will change the advance’s status to Processed, display the budget number in the header, and update the GCA and Processes nodes on the Approval Flow.