PI Article: OSP and G&C Responsibilities in the Award Set-Up Process

The October 2025 PI Article on Award Set-Up PI Article – Award Set-Up | Grants and Contracts Accounting provided information on the general steps to the award set-up process and where issues may arise. The purpose of this article is to expand on the process by detailing which elements are managed by the Office of Sponsored Programs (OSP) versus which elements are managed by Grants & Contracts Accounting (G&C).

OSP Responsibilities

In OSP, the contracting officer (CO) is responsible for the negotiation, acceptance, and execution of the award after receiving the notice of award (NOA) from the sponsor. Key award demographics entered by OSP include: contract number, period of performance (POP), billing information, reporting requirements, terms and conditions, contract value, funded amount, and sponsor contacts. OSP sends the completed data entry to Workday. Once the information is entered into the Contract Management System (CMS/Deltek), Workday imports the data and an award number is automatically generated.

G&C Responsibilities

Every 2 – 3 business days, G&C runs the “Extract-Awards” report and filters by “OSP Import – NEW” to identify awards that are ready for initiation in Workday. The G&C set up process includes: creating grants (GR worktag numbers) and assigning them to cost center, fund, function, budget reference, etc., adding the appropriate F&A rate, adding basis limits for subawards, adding spend restrictions, adding roles (Grant PI, Grant Manager, G&C Analyst), adding budget, adding financial award tasks (financial reports, cost share reports), creating the billing (invoicing) schedule, and assigning award roles (Award PI, G&C Analyst, G&C Billing Accountant). Once set up is complete, G&C changes the award status to “active” and submits in Workday.

Other Notes

Advance Project Number (APN) requests provided by the department must be reviewed and approved by OSP when spending needs to occur prior to the official set up of the award. This is especially important, as circumstances may delay award execution and setup. For additional context, please refer to Advance Project Number Policy, which outlines the applicable requirements and considerations.
As a consideration, the PI could request a no-cost extension (NCE) if the establishment of the award and associated grant lines occurs close to the end date of the POP. Note though that NCEs may not be feasible or necessary in all situations (for example, if an APN is approved).
The grant manager/PI may request (to G&C) that the award be put into Central Administrative Review (CAR) status to allow additional time after the end date to get costs onto the award. Note that the costs must have occurred during the POP in order to be eligible to be moved onto the award.
G&C will establish a POP that is in line with what OSP establishes. So if (for example) the award is a multi-year award and OSP sets the POP as one year, G&C will set up only one year in Workday.

If you have any questions on the contents of this article, please contact Josh Rosenberg at josh.rosenberg@business.gatech.edu.