Financial Administration of a Successful Research Grant

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Background Submitting a Grant Opening the Research Account Income in the Research Account Research Grant Expenditure

Transfer of Grant Income to Collaborative Institutions Financial Reports The End of the Project Closing the Research Accounts

Background

The Office of Research is responsible for setting up research grants, ensuring their financial and progress reporting obligations are met and finalising the grant. These grants can be divided into two types:

1. External grants such as ARC grants, NHMRC grants and grants from Industry Partners (Activity 51, 52 and 53 accounts). These have a number of conditions attached to them regarding the expenditure of income, reporting, timing and returning of unused funds, which the university has an obligation to fulfil. Most of the obligations are recorded in the ResearchMaster database (RM)
2. Internal grants that are funded from the University Research Budget (Activity 08 accounts) such as Early Career Researcher Grants etc

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Submitting a Grant

When the initial grant application is submitted to the Office of Research, it must be accompanied by a QUT Approval to Apply for Research Funding Coversheet, which will ensure the grant is correctly entered in RM. The data contained on this coversheet is used for Australian Bureau of Statistics and the Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations (DEEWR) reporting as well as for the analysis of faculty and university research performance. This coversheet needs to be signed off by the Head of School/Centre Director/Domain Leader confirming that the Chief Investigator has the time to work on the grant and that facilities are available for this research.

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Opening the Research Account

Once the grant is successful:

• Contracts need to be signed - for those with Industry Partners this can take several months
• Ethics Clearance needs to be obtained (if required) before the research can start

As soon as all these requirements are complete the Research Grant Account Form (RGAF) is issued by the Office of Research. A separate RGAF will be issued for each funding body of the grant.

• The codes and categories on the RGAF are pre-filled according to the budget submitted and approved for the grant. Most grants are not awarded the full amount applied for so the actual dollar amounts for the budget are left blank for the researcher to complete. If other categories of expenditure are required that are not on the original budget then the Budget Variation Request Form will need to be completed. This allows the Office of Research to check whether the expenditure, eg international travel, is allowed under the funding conditions of the grant.
• The RGAF needs to be signed off by the Chief Investigator and Head of School/Centre Director. A copy should also be retained by the Faculty/School/Institute before forwarding it to Financial Administration Unit (Division of FRP) where the account is set up. Finance will send an email advising the project account number, then forward the account form to the Office of Research for updating RM and filing in the project file.
• The Project Account number is recorded in RM under the Fund Sources, Budget Amount Details tab.

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Income in the Research Account

• For University Research Budget funded activity 08 accounts and ARC grants the money is transferred directly into the account when it is opened.
• For other research grants, the granting body will either pay directly to QUT or the Office of Research will raise an invoice.
• Invoices
  The amounts and dates for these invoices have been negotiated at contract stage and these are recorded in RM under Significant Dates as Invoice Due, for example, Inv: Dept of XYZ or Inv: 4 of 6. The Action date is the date the invoice is due as per the executed agreement. The other details such as the invoice amount and invoice number can be viewed in the Completion Details and Further Details tabs. To view these run report 301-Research Grant Significant Dates in the Projects Module of RM. Most invoices are issued within a short time of them being due, however some require a progress report, financial report or the previous invoice may not have been paid, all of which will delay the issue of an invoice.

  All Invoices required for research grants as per the executed agreement must be organised by the Office of Research. If a cheque or notification of payment is received by the Faculty/School/Institute for a research grant, please contact Office of Research Budgets team, researchbudgets@qut.edu.au.

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Research Grant Expenditure

In terms of expenditure, the grant is expected to be managed by the Chief Investigator and their administrative support. This means that all grant expenditure should be checked to make sure:

• It is an allowable expense under the approved budget
  The Budget Financials can be viewed in RM, or run report 601-EXP Research Grant Budget Financials for export to excel. This report will have the approved budget for grants starting from December 2003, however for earlier grants the original budget submitted on the Research Grant Account Form will need to be used. If you have any difficulty locating the budget please email researchbudgets@qut.edu.au and we will send a copy of the budget to you.
• Changing the budget
  If expenditure, other than that approved on the original budget, is required once the grant is in progress then the Budget Variation Request Form will need to be completed. This allows us to check whether the expenditure, eg international travel, is allowed under the funding conditions of the grant. This is especially important for external grants.
• There is enough money in the account for this expenditure
  Check the account income and expenditure using the Financial Portal accessed via QUT Virtual. Alternatively income and expenditure reports can be run from RM, using the reports in the 65x range. These reports will help monitor expenditure and hopefully indicate problems early enough to be sorted out effectively.
• Check invoice schedule
  It is also important to look at the invoice schedule for the grant, as research grants can be overdrawn as long as there are still some invoices left to raise. Some research grants require that the final invoice is raised after the final report is submitted, so the schedule should be checked, otherwise the project may finish with money left in the account.

The most frequent problems with grant expenditure are usually expenses such as travel and equipment, which may not be allowed under the grant’s conditions, and salaries going over budget. Other common problems are expenses being charged to the wrong research grant or charged to a Faculty/Institute account and not transferred across to the correct research account in a timely manner.

The money allocated to a grant is specifically for that grant ONLY, so it is important that it is managed appropriately as over-expenditure on a grant cannot be rectified by using another research grant.

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Transfer of Grant Income to Collaborative Institutions

Some grants, typically ARC grants, may be shared across institutions and so money may be transferred to another university as part of a multi-institutional agreement. Details of the transfer are recorded in RM under Significant Dates, as 'Financial Transfer'. Other details, such as the amount, can be viewed in the Completion Details or Further Details tabs. To transfer money, the recipient institution needs to issue an invoice to QUT and the Chief Investigator needs to confirm that the transfer can proceed.

All Financial Transfers must be processed through the Office of Research. If you receive an invoice for a Financial Transfer from a Chief Investigator or through AP Online, please forward it to the Office of Research Budgets Team.

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Financial Reports

Some Grantors require regular Financial Reports and these appear in RM under Significant Dates as 'Financial Reports Due', for example 'FR: 1/7/06-30/6/07'. The Action date is the date the Financial Report is due as per the executed agreement. Details such as the reporting period can be viewed in the Completion Details and Further Details tabs. The Office of Research will request these to be completed by the Financial Administration Unit (Division of FRP) and will forward them to the granting body.

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The End of the Project

The end of a grant is signalled when the final report is submitted for the project. This is recorded on RM in Significant Dates as 'Final Report Due'. For most grants this tends to be a fairly flexible date as the project progresses and is updated on RM as required. Final reports should be submitted to the Research Development team in the Office of Research, researchgrants@qut.edu.au, for submission to the granting body.

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Closing the Research Accounts

Once the final report is submitted all accounts associated with the project need to be closed. Any accounts that have been opened by the Office of Research need to be closed by this Office. Any accounts that are ready for closure can be emailed to researchbudgets@qut.edu.au.

Before forwarding a request for closure to the Office of Research, there are some tasks/checks that should be performed by the Faculty/Centre/Institute:

• Employee appointments and assets
  There should be no current salary appointments against the account. A Business Objects report can be run from QUT Virtual to determine this. There should also be no assets attached to the account. Contact Finance & Capital Management in the Division of FRP regarding assets: fcmu@qut.edu.au
• Overdrawn accounts
  If an account is overdrawn, expenditure will need to be transferred to clear the account before it can be closed. Usually the Faculty/Centre/Institute will have to provide this money.

  Note that some grants receive funds from more than one fund source and will therefore have more than one account for the grant. Run reports from RM in the 65x range to view income and expenditure details of all accounts associated with a grant.

• Surplus funds in account
  If there is money left in the account, as a condition of the grant, this usually has to be returned to the grantor along with a final Financial Report. The Office of Research will organise the Financial Report and return of funds.

Details of the closure process are recorded in RM under Significant Dates as 'Project and Account Closed' and this significant date is left active until the accounts are closed. Once all completed the status of the project in RM will change from Approved to Closed Off. The project file held in the Office of Research is then archived and is recorded in RM, Significant Dates as 'Project File Sent to Archives'.

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