Expenditure Monitoring of Sponsored Awards

Expenditure Monitoring on Sponsored Awards 

Responsible Official:  Associate Vice Chancellor of Research and Innovation 

Responsible Office:  Office of Sponsored Projects 

Effective Date:  January 20, 2025 

Revision Date:  January 20, 2025 

Guidance for Expenditure Monitoring 

Monitoring expenditures for compliance with sponsor policies and procedures is an ongoing set of activities conducted by many different people and departments and takes place at different stages of a transaction’s lifecycle.  Responsibilities for expenditure monitoring vary based on an individual’s or department’s first-hand knowledge of or distance from the work; the individual’s role in creating and maintaining processes and systems that enable compliant grant spending; and the individual’s or department’s subject matter expertise. 

Summary of Stages of Expenditure Monitoring 

At a minimum, expenditure monitoring takes place at least three times during a transaction’s life:  before the transaction has been incurred, during the processing of the transaction, and after the transaction has posted. 

Pre-Incurrence 

In general, emphasis should be placed on the planning of a transaction to ensure that the expense to be incurred follows the cost principles and gets posted correctly the first time.  Focusing on preventing errors and inappropriate charges reduces risk and rework, increasing the effectiveness and compliance of the research operation overall. 

Transaction Processing 

As an expense is being processed, there are multiple stops to validate the transaction’s validity on the grant.  Grant expenses should be carefully reviewed at this stage, before the expense is incurred and accumulated on the general ledger. 

Post-Incurrence 

Despite best efforts, errors can and do occur.  Grant ledgers and other documents such as effort certification statements should be regularly monitored for accuracy and completeness. 

Roles and Responsibilities Summary 

Monitoring expenses is an activity undertaken by various individuals and groups.  Researchers and their support staff hold primary responsibility for ensuring that transactions are incurred on and post appropriately to their account(s) and that policies and procedures are adhered to.  Leadership and management of research areas have responsibility for directly reviewing higher risk transactions and for ensuring that local processes, tools, and organizational structures adequately support the research and compliance activity.  Some departments function as process enablers or provide oversight or subject matter expertise. 

Principal Investigator (PI) 

As the person with primary responsibility for the grant overall as well as first-hand knowledge of the grant’s expenses, the PI has the most important role in expense monitoring.  In addition to the compliance aspect of spending, correctly charging grants is essential to projecting research expenses and planning future work.  Since the PI is not directly involved in every transaction route in Workday, the focus should be on properly initiating transactions. 

Department/College Administrative Staff 

People who provide administrative and financial management support to PIs and researchers have the most contact with expense transactions, as well as financial reporting and sponsor and university policies and expectations.  These individuals are highly influential in all aspects of grant expenditures:  at the pre-incurrence phase, they provide information and context to PIs to ensure that expenses comply with policy; during transaction processing, they review most or all of the expenses prior to posting; post-incurrence, they have the most direct access to reports on the general ledger. 

Deans, Directors, Department Heads/Chairs 

Although some transactions route to department and college leadership during their lifecycle – and should be reviewed with questions directed to the PI or department/college support staff – the primary function of local leadership is to establish organizational structures and processes that effectively and compliantly support sponsored research, while monitoring metrics to ensure effectiveness.   

Office of Sponsored Programs (OSP) 

As the subject matter experts in grant policy, OSP has broad oversight responsibility at the transaction, account, and policy/procedure levels.  Before expenses are incurred, OSP ensures that the processes for doing so are appropriate and that the right people are involved.  Certain transactions, based on risk to the institution, thresholds, the nature of the transaction, and other factors, are reviewed directly by OSP during processing.  As the office responsible for certifying expenditures to sponsors, OSP also conducts post-incurrence reviews of grant transactions. 

Other Individuals and Departments 

By accepting sponsored funds, the university agrees to structure its processes and functions to accommodate sponsor expectations.  This requires process partnership across the administrative pillars of the university.  Functional areas such as Human Resources, Procurement, Travel, Finance, and others must coordinate with OSP in enabling sponsored compliance.  Some departments and/or individuals may have an oversight role more closely aligned with auditing or specific compliance areas.

Click this link to view the Expenditure Monitoring Roles and Responsibilities Matrix