Invoicing and income

Invoicing of sponsors and collection of funds due is the responsibility of the Research Operations Office in conjunction with the Credit Control Team within the Finance Division. However, departments have specific responsibilities in ensuring that documentation, certificates and reports etc are submitted in an accurate and timely manner.

On this page:

• Invoicing sponsors
• Credit control
• Starting certificates
• Scientific reports
• Exchange rates
• When an award finishes
• Excess income and excess expenditure
• Project evalulation

Invoicing to sponsors

Expenditure  is usually recovered through invoicing or an expenditure claim. Most sponsors’ billing is generated through the Grants Module; this means that there is data available to departments on the amount billed per grant.

The Research Operations Office may request further information from departments to enable them to recover costs from sponsors, such as copy invoices or clarification of expenditure. In most cases departments will be notified when processing invoices that ROO require copies of these invoices for audit purposes.

Departments must inform their Finance Analyst - Research and Grants from their Research Office Operations School Team of any potential delays when an interim or final research report is required by the Principal Investigator before an invoice can be sent to the sponsor.

All cheques relating to a research grant must come through the Research Operations Office. Departments must not bank cheques received from sponsors or code any other income directly to a research grant.

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Credit Control

Credit checks

The credit control team within Research Accounting credit-check all new sponsors for credit worthiness where possible. Existing sponsors are monitored regularly. If a contract negotiation is being entered into Credit Control should be contacted as early as possible in the process so they can advise on payment terms for that sponsor.

Bad debt provision

Overdue invoices are followed up on a priority basis.  A general bad debt provision of 25% of the invoice value is posted into departments accounts as follows.

There is also a specific provision which is used to provide 100% of the value of the invoice regardless of its age; this is for cases where we have doubts about the recoverability of that particular debt.

Each month the prior month’s provision is reversed, the latest month’s is calculated and posted into:

• the departmental research cost centre,
• source of funds EDAZ,
• transaction code FJNC.

Notification

Departments will be contacted via the ROO at the earliest opportunity to discuss any defaults in payments from sponsors.  If you become aware of any issues which may affect payment of an invoice please contact Credit Control immediately.

Bad debts

Bad debts and any legal costs of debt recovery are the responsibility of the department.

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Starting Certificates

Time limits

Submission of Starting Certificates provides official notification to the sponsor of the start date. Not all sponsors require starting certificates. Each of the relevant sponsors has its own time limits within which the grant must be started. These are as follows.

Departments are responsible for the submission of starting certificates within the specified time frame outlined by the sponsor.

Administration

The Research Operations Office will send the starting certificate to the departmental administrator as soon as the award letter is received and the grant has been activated. The department is advised to fill in the certificate at the same time as completing the HR / Payroll forms and then send the certificate off when the staff member starts. A copy of the certificate must be sent to The Research Operations Office in order for the start and end dates to be amended on UFS.

Where time limits cannot be met

If these rules cannot be adhered to for any reason, the Department/Principal Investigator should contact the sponsor immediately to ask if the start date can be delayed. In this instance please copy any relevant documents to your Finance Analyst - Research and Grants to help mitigate the risk of the grant being withdrawn.

The University will not be able to provide any financial assistance to departments if contracts of employment have been issued against a grant that has been withdrawn.

If there are any significant changes to the staff employed on a Research Council grant such as maternity leave/sick leave or a change to the Principal Investigator the sponsor needs to be informed. Departments can either do that themselves and copy in the Research Operations Office or contact their Finance Analyst - Research and Grants in their Research Operations Office School Team who will inform the sponsor.   

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Scientific reports

Some research sponsors, eg. Research Councils and the EC, may require a Principal Investigator to submit an interim or final scientific report. These are also known as Individual Grant Reviews (IGR).

If these are not submitted to the sponsor within the specified time limit (to be confirmed by the sponsor) they may disallow claims and issue financial sanctions to the University. Financial sanctions of this nature will be applied and charged to the grant-holding department. For a short delay, a 20% sanction is usually applied but the Research Councils reserve the right to increase this sanction. 

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Exchange rates

Awards payable in US Dollars, Euros or other foreign currencies will be budgeted in sterling. The foreign currency policy is detailed under Foreign currency grants

Awards denominated in Euros or US dollars are budgeted using a lifetime rate. For other currencies, please contact your Finance Analyst - Research and Grants in your School Team in the Research Operations Office.

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When an Award finishes

When a research grant comes to an end the Research Operations Office will perform a number of administrative processes and then close the grant. This may take up to six months, depending on the sponsor and their payment terms. Awards from The European Commission (EC) may take significantly longer to close due to the administrative processes within the EC before making the final payment.

As an example:

• Grant end date: 31 March 2018
• Final statement sent within three months: 30 June 2018
• Final payment received within three months: 30 September 2018

Final statements

For the final statement the grant is checked by the Research Operations Office to ensure there are no outstanding commitments or payments and the department will be contacted by their Finance Analyst - Research and Grants in the Research Operations Office to confirm that everything has been processed and spent according to the sponsor’s terms and conditions. If there are overheads or non-direct costs the values posted are also checked and corrected if necessary. When the final statement or invoice is sent to the sponsor the status of the grant will be changed on UFS.  The project will be changed from Active to “Pending close” and the award to “On hold”.

Grant closure

After the final payment is received, the grant will be closed. As part of the closing grants process a final reconciliation is completed for each grant, to determine whether an under- or over-spend has occurred. The status of the award and project will both be changed to "Closed" in the Grants module.

Any under- and over-spends will be transferred to the Department's relevant account in the GL unless the funds need to be returned to the sponsor.

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Excess income and excess expenditure

Following instruction from ROO, Research Accounting transfer any excess income or excess expenditure (ie. overspend) to the departmental research cost centre, with the ED source of funds, and a transaction code LZEG for excess income or AZZN/EZZN for excess expenditure.

Adjustments are not made to the Grants Module for under and overspends.

For example, if an award is under-spent the Award Status report will continue to show an under-spend after the transfer of excess income is made in the GL.

The Award number, project and Principal Investigator name are quoted in the details of the journal. Departments are advised to run a GL Account Analysis report at month end for information of balances transferred as individual notification emails are not sent by the Research Operations Office.

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Project Evaluation

Once the project has ended departments may wish to compare the actual costs incurred against the original application. This will identify any deficiencies in the costing or planning of the research and improve future applications for that sponsor. Departments may wish to pay attention to:

• under or overspends
• expenditure, if any, which could not be claimed from the sponsor
• budget virements.

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