At Georgia Tech, the establishment of a sponsored award is a joint effort between the Office of Sponsored Programs (OSP) and the Office of Grants & Contracts Accounting (G&C). OSP is responsible for reviewing and submitting proposals, as well as negotiating, accepting, and executing awards. New award initiations, modifications, and advance project numbers (described below) are sent over to the Workday financial system from the OSP Contract Management System (CMS) – also known as Deltek. G&C runs a report daily that identifies these feeds from CIS and completes the setup of the award in Workday. At this point, the award is ready for spending.

An award’s period of performance (POP) represents the time interval between the start of the award and the planned end date. For charges to be allowable and billable to the sponsor, they must take place during this POP. While a standard research award with an established sponsor may be a relatively quick setup process, awards from newer and smaller sponsors, industry sponsors, and foundation sponsors may entail far more administrative effort to establish. As a result, there may be situations where the award has not been set up even though the POP has begun. Options for handling this situation include:

• Wait until the award is initiated before beginning the work. Technically speaking, until the terms and conditions have been agreed upon by both the sponsor and Georgia Tech and the award has been fully executed, we are not authorized to do the work.
• If the award has not been executed and you are many months after the start date, consider asking the sponsor for a modification to extend the end date.
• Work with the Office of Sponsored Programs (OSP) to set up an Advanced Project Number (APN). This will result in a grant line where you can post charges for the work incurred prior to the award setup. Once the award is executed, the grant line is already established and no cost transfers or EDRs will be needed. Please note that the unit/department will assume the risk of covering all expenses if the award is not executed, which means this should only be done when you have high confidence that the award will come to fruition.
• Post the charges on Georgia Tech Foundation (GTF) or Georgia Tech Research Corporation (GTRC) funds. When the award is initiated, you can move the charges to the new grant lines. Please note that because this option is administratively burdensome for all involved, the APN is a better alternative. As with the APN, the unit/department will assume the risk of covering all expenses if the award is not executed. This means this should only be done when you have high confidence that the award will come to fruition.

In the absence of any of the above actions, commencing work may very well result in the unit bearing these costs due to an award never being executed or trying to transfer costs after the POP has ended.

Also remember that in the absence of a fully executed award, the PI should not provide any deliverables to the sponsor. Otherwise, this will essentially provide them the work for free. 

If you have any questions, please contact Josh Rosenberg at josh.rosenberg@business.gatech.edu.