The guidelines set forth by Property Management Office (PMO) in the Property Administration Manual should be followed when purchasing service center equipment. Additionally, the equipment must be clearly identified as a service center asset by proper notation in the purchasing requisition document and in Sunflower as discussed below.

All service center equipment must be identified in the Fixed Asset (FA) Module via Sunflower. Sunflower is being used for both financial and governmental reporting purposes. CMA will use Sunflower/FA to calculate equipment depreciation expenses which are allocable to Federal awards. Therefore, all service center assets, regardless of funding source, must be properly identified in Sunflower/FA as a service center asset.

Sunflower includes several fields of information for each asset, including the following: tag number, asset description, location, acquisition account, department organization code, and various other fields. Of particular importance to service centers is the department organization code, which identifies the department which is using the equipment. PMO has established a unique department code in FA for each service center or grouped service centers.  

PMO maintains a master list of all of the Department Property Administrators (DPAs) including those that are associated with the service centers. Service center managers must work with their respective DPAs to ensure that their service center department organization code is properly identified to their assets in Sunflower. CMA will use these department codes to identify and exclude service center assets from F&A costs allocated to Federal awards.

As noted above, federal guidelines do not allow the purchase cost of a capital item to be a direct charge to a center. However, depreciation on service center assets may be charged to the service center. Therefore, service centers are required to finance equipment purchases with departmental gift funds or through University Capital Accounting. Refer to Administrative Guide Memo 53.

If the center is interested in obtaining University loan funding they must obtain approval from Capital Projects and Management (CP&M).

After approval has been granted by CP&M, Capital Accounting will establish amortization entries in the General Accounting system to charge the center for the principal portion of the debt repayment. The amortization period for financed assets is set equal to the useful life of the asset. The debt amortization is thereby equal to the annual depreciation expense for the asset. The asset categories and useful lives for all University assets are included in Memo 53.

Service center assets acquired with Operating Budget funds, as well as any other assets used by the center, must be identified as service center assets in Sunflower. (See discussion in the Property Administration section above.) Government and non-Government funded equipment cannot be depreciated through a service center.

 More importantly, federally-funded equipment, even if title is with the University, cannot be used in a service center unless specifically allowed by the Government sponsor. The service center manager should contact their DPA if use of Government funded equipment is contemplated in a service center.

Note: Departments may choose to subsidize service center equipment (i.e., purchase equipment with unrestricted department funds and not charge the center for depreciation). This equipment must still be identified as a service center asset (by department code) in Sunflower. It is vital that the equipment is not included in the equipment depreciation cost pool for F&A rate cost studies or proposals.

The interest associated with the debt for financed equipment which costs $10,000 or more is allowable per revised A-21 Section J.22.e. The University has decreed that although the interest on assets financed from FY05 forward is automatically allowable, interest on asset financed prior to FY05 are not. Therefore, unless the service center prior to FY05 interest on specific capital assets paid to an external party associated with debt for new equipment costing $10,000 or more was agreed to be allowable by the ONR interest is unallowable.

Service center managers should contact Capital Planning & Management CP&M if they wish to purchase equipment using debt through University external financing.

Interest will not be charged if the equipment funds are obtained from the center’s department’s gift or unrestricted funds. It is only when the center requires the use of external financing that interest is required. Contact Capital Accounting to see if they are willing to post the monthly amortization payment to the department’s gift account and if not, the department should post the monthly depreciation journal. 

Starting in FY04, Capital Accounting has begun charging a markup fee for utilizing the University’s finances. This unallowable markup can not be posted to an academic or the VSC service center. Therefore for the unallowable markup fee the service center should provide Capital Accounting with an unrestricted or gift PTA.

Depreciation is an accounting term which recognizes that a capital equipment asset's value is spread out over a period of useful life, or benefit. The asset is "consumed" over an extended period of time, typically several years. This period is called the useful life of the asset. The following list of asset classifications and useful lives are limited to Stanford assets typically required in a service center.

Service center equipment depreciation is calculated on a monthly straight-line basis, and begins the month after the asset is put into service. The cost of the equipment is divided by its useful life to determine each month's or year's depreciation expense. The entry made to recognize this use for a service center is:

• Debit - Service Center PTA 58665 - SU Internal Principal Amortization
• Credit - Original PTA for funding for the equipment (the Capital Accounting financing PTA, or the department's gift or unrestricted PTA used for the purchase of the asset)

By the end of the equipment's useful life, the source that funded the purchase of the acquired equipment has been "repaid" by the service center through "amortization" entries.

If the asset was purchased in FY05 forward with University financing, there will also be an external loan interest allowable charge which can be allocated to the service center users in the rates.

Note: For assets not shown, please call Capital Accounting or refer to Admin Guide Memo 53.

An equipment donation is considered to be the equivalent economically of a cash donation which is subsequently used to purchase equipment. When a service center receives an equipment donation, it may be depreciated through the service center, or recorded in a departmental gift account. In either case, the donated asset must be properly identified by the DPA as a service center asset. (See discussion in the “Property Administration” section above.)

 If donated capital equipment is acquired for use in a service center, refer to the Property Administration Manual for instructions on recording the asset in the Sunflower, booking the value, and gathering the required supporting documentation. For additional information on the treatment of donated Capital Assets please refer to Exhibit J: Capital Assets.

For equipment depreciation indirect cost purposes, the useful life for all non-service center assets acquired prior to FY97 was as follows: assets acquired through FY82 are depreciated over 15 years; assets acquired from FY83 through FY92 are depreciated over 10 years, and assets acquired from FY93 through FY96 are depreciated over 8 years.

If equipment is financed (purchased using the Capital Accounting PTA), a sinking fund account is credited for the "depreciation." If equipment was purchased using non Operating Budget department funds (a gift or unrestricted PTA), that gift or unrestricted PTA is credited.

Technically, this is an "amortization" charge, a paying off of the loan of funds used to purchase the asset. For service centers, the amortization (repayment of the loan) schedule is matched to the life of the asset (its depreciation schedule).

For various reasons, a department may wish to have its service center charge its users less than fully costed rates; and may choose to subsidize center operations with operating budget or other unrestricted funds. In these circumstances, a center should first calculate a fully costed rate in accordance with the “General Rate Calculation” discussed above. A percentage discount can then be applied to the fully costed rate to derive the desired subsidized rate to be used throughout the year. Subsidized rates must be consistently charged to all internal university center users. External users should be charged the fully costed rate(s).

Throughout the fiscal year, all service center expenses must still be charged to the service center account. At the end of the year, the net year-end balance should be evaluated in accordance with the breakeven policies contained in Sections V.E. and VI.D.3.

A stores service center rate is determined by dividing its administrative or operating costs by its projected cost of goods sold. Its rate is, therefore, a markup percentage on the cost of goods sold.

The stores service centers will generally incur a low percentage of inventory loss as a normal course of business. 24 hour “self-service”, illegible or incomplete log sheets, closed sponsored accounts, etc. will cause a percentage of inventory loss. The percent of loss is calculated by dividing “Amount of Loss” by “Cost of Goods Sold” and the annual amount should be within 10%. If the inventory loss is more than 10%, the guarantee account should be charged for the inventory loss amount.

Service centers that have a wide fluctuation in usage during the day may establish a time-of-day rate structure. Higher rates may be charged during hours of peak use, "prime time," to provide incentives to reduce the demand for services during these times. This structure helps all users by improving performance during peak hours and encouraging the utilization of off-peak hours, thereby reducing the cost for additional equipment. This structure should also encourage an increase in volume which should help keep rates low since expenses will be divided over a greater number of users.

Service centers utilizing a time-of-day rate structure must show that all users have an opportunity to use the center during non-peak hours and that no particular user, especially Organized Research, is disadvantaged by the proposed rate structure. This type of rate structure is used most frequently in computer and communications service centers and also with use of scientific equipment such as magnets for magnetic resonance imaging (MRIs). 

Computer facilities may charge users based on the computer "shares" concept. The computer capacity is divided into shares, gigabytes, etc and users purchase shares/bytes necessary to meet their computing requirements.

In some instances, analysis of a service center's sales may show that its products or services are sold in substantial quantities both to Stanford users and to the general public. In such cases, federal regulations permit the use of established catalog or market prices, if approved by the cognizant government agency. In other instances, a service center such as a stores or copy center may provide services similar to providers external to Stanford. Because of competitive pricing levels, a service center may be able to charge only what the market will bear for one or more of its products or services. When using market-based pricing, the service center must still comply with the non-discrimination and overall breakeven requirements.

Also, market-based prices can not exceed the actual cost of providing the service(s) in total. Therefore, as long as the service center breaks even in total some rates may be priced above actual cost while others are below cost. Remember to charge all users the same rates do not discriminate between them, i.e. sponsored users vs. department users.

Sometimes economies of scale dictate that a large quantity of a product or service can be provided to a customer at a lower overall cost than the normal per unit rate. Such a volume discount is allowed as long as it is 1) disclosed and justified in the service center's proposed budget and rates; and 2) its effect is not discriminatory to a single type of customer, other than by amount of product or service provided.

Other cost/rate structures to meet specific service center needs may be approved by RAPC, but must be in compliance with Federal Cost Principles (A-21 and CAS).

Each year, a service center's proposed budget and rate(s) must be submitted to RAPC/CMA between August 1st and September 30th. 12 Even if the service center is not changing its rate(s), a new proposed budget supporting that rate must be submitted for the upcoming fiscal year. Rate approvals are usually specified on a fiscal year basis, i.e., "September 1, 2008 through August 31, 2009."

 The large scale Administrative service center budgets are utilized by the Budget Office. These centers generally submit their operational budgets to the Budget Offices database system in the first part of August.

The annual budget and rate submission should include the following:

• Service Center Budget. The budget must include the total operating costs of the center, even if some costs will be subsidized with other unrestricted funds. The budget should include line items for the various service center cost components (as relevant) described in Section VI.B., by expenditure type where possible.
• Service Center Rate(s). All rates used by a center must be submitted to RAPC and disclosed to the Government. If subsidized rates will be charged, both the fully costed rates and the subsidized rates must be submitted to RAPC:
• Service Center Revenues. Projected by estimated usage of service(s) to be provided.
• Subsidies. A center must identify any departmental subsidies anticipated to be used to augment the center’s budgeted income. (Use of equipment within the service center that is not financed and depreciated to the service center is also a subsidy. These assets should be identified in Sunflower.)
• External Users. Anticipated sales to external users must be identified in the budget submission.

Note: When August income and expense are fairly well-known, service centers should strive to submit their budgets and rates to RAPC/CMA as early as possible in August. When this is not the case, service center budgets should be submitted by the end of September.

It is RAPC’s goal to have all service center proposed budgets reviewed and new rates approved by the end of November. Notice of RAPC's review and approval of rates is sent to the University's cognizant Government agency, the Office of Naval Research (ONR); with copies to the Defense Contract Audit Agency (DCAA), the responsible individuals in the service center's department, and school and/or department heads/financial management.

 If RAPC's review and approval has not been completed, a service center's new, proposed rate(s) may be used for the new fiscal year billings. If any problems which affect the rate(s) are then uncovered in the RAPC review process, these billings must be adjusted, to reflect the actual rates approved.

Service center managers are expected to evaluate their service center's activity each month, for the following:

• to determine accuracy of billings and expenses charged (including that the proper, approved rates were used to charge)
• to remove any unallowable costs charged to an academic service center to an operating budget or gift account/remove any unallowable costs not associated with capital assets posted to an administrative service center by transferring to an operating budget or gift account
• to assess each month's effect on the budget and projected year-end breakeven position

RAPC/CMA may perform a cursory review of service center income and expense on a monthly basis in the early part of the new fiscal year. RAPC/CMA conducts a detailed, comprehensive mid-year review of the performance of each service center, to identify any problems early and to help ensure that all centers will breakeven by the end of the year. Mid year review data is followed up on and is updated thereafter with review and analysis (as needed) of monthly service center data to fiscal year end.

A request to change a service center rate should be made as soon as it appears that the service center will not breakeven at year-end using the previously approved rate. Such requests should be routed to RAPC/CMA for review and approval before the new rate is used.

A request for a rate change must include a revised income and expense budget, an estimate of the level of activity anticipated during the revised budget period, and an explanation of the reason(s) for the changes in budget and rate(s).

If the rate revision results from a prospective change in either services provided or operations, then the rate change may be prospective only. Otherwise, the rate change should be retroactive to the beginning of the fiscal year (to ensure that each individual service center user is only charged his fair proportionate share for total service center usage during the year). Over-recovery in excess of 15% at the time of re-budgeting must be refunded proportionately to all academic service center users billed at the original rates. Under-recovery in excess of 15% must be charged proportionately to all academic service center users, or offset against the center’s guarantee account. When adjusting rates mid-year, academic service centers must rebate/recover such that the net balance is within +/-15%. Centers may refund or recover to a zero net balance, at their discretion, at mid year.

Notification of RAPC's review and approval of the revised budget and rate and its effective date is sent to the same distribution as the original rate approval letter.

If an established service center is requesting a rate for new service please refer to the New Service Rate Request Form in "related items" below. If you are requesting a new service rate after already submitting your center’s rates for the year, include a revised total service center budget to show you will breakeven at year end.

1. Complete 12th month billing: In order to most appropriately match costs with revenues, it is important to have each month's income billed to the service center's users by the accounting close of that month. This is especially important at fiscal year-end when the service center needs to ensure that its twelve months of expense are matched with its twelve months of income. It is also important to have any adjustments to service center expense made by fiscal year- end.
2. Unallowable costs: No unallowable costs or activities should be included in an academic department, service center account. Each center manager must review the center accounts for unallowable costs or activities, and transfer the expense to an appropriate non-service center account.
   
   Administrative service centers are currently only allowed to include certain specific unallowable costs associated with their capital assets in their rates. These centers should review all of their costs for general appropriateness as fiscal year-end approaches.
3. Breakeven review: Each manager should estimate his service center’s breakeven percentage prior to year-end. (See Section VI.D.3.). Service center recoveries exceeding the +/- 5% or +/- 15% should be resolved in accordance with section V.E. Service center managers should discuss the proposed resolution of recoveries exceeding +/- 5% or +/- 15% with RAPC, and inform RAPC/CMA with the iJournal numbers which correct these situations.

Academic Service Centers

During the closing of twelfth month, RAPC reviews a preliminary report for the academic service center accounts. Each service center is reviewed a final time for unallowable costs, any other activity problems noted during the year, and to confirm the +/- 15% breakeven position.

If RAPC's review discloses any problems, the service center manager is consulted and corrects the problem. Corrective actions include the following:  

• transferring an unallowable cost off the service center account;
• completing billings for twelve months of service center usage;
• refunding a greater than 15% overrecovery, in total, to all users proportionately;
• funding a greater than 15% loss, in total, from the guarantee account or by charging it out to all users proportionate to their fiscal year use.  

The year end process has been determined and Exhibit F has been updated with year end close deadlines. Academic service centers will need to run their own online reports to determine if hard close entries will be required. Hard close statements will be printed and distributed to the service centers.

Administrative Service Centers

The administrative service centers year end balances will be rolled up to the Award/Fund level. Given the larger operational scope and nature of these service centers, hard close entries are often necessary to record and correct expenses after soft close figures are known. RAPC/CMA analysts review both soft close and hard close administrative service center Reportmart statements for possible problems, and for +/- 5% breakeven. Final adjustments must be made in hard close. Hard close statements will be printed and distributed to service centers.

Occasionally, extraordinary or unusual circumstances may cause a service center to unexpectedly end the fiscal year outside the +/- 5% breakeven position. The reasons must be made known to RAPC. Lack of regular, normal departmental managerial oversight is not an acceptable reason to allow non-conformance to the +/- 5% breakeven requirement.

If RAPC determines that the service center could not reasonably have adjusted its expenses or rates in time to achieve fiscal year-end breakeven, the balance may be allowed to be carried forward into the next year's budget and rates. RAPC notifies the Government of such exceptions to policy, the reasons why they occurred, and what corrective actions were taken.

Most academic service centers do business mainly with Instruction and Departmental Research users and Organized Research users. Charges to sponsored PTAs should be completed in the soft close however if adjustments still need to be made, centers will also have hard close to post final entries. The academic service center PTAs balances will be rolled into their award/fund with a default project and org code.

Departmental stores service centers (calendar year-end centers) must combine parts of two fiscal years, January through August 31 and September through December, to form their calendar year-end operation and breakeven positions. These service center managers and RAPC review their operations and calendar year-end position prior to December, similar to the above, fiscal year timing schedule.

Students, faculty, and staff funded by universities or colleges who use the service center to support their research, teaching, or public service commitments.

High school, junior high, and community college students supported by programs designed to enhance education. Support may be provided by government or non-government sources such as federal agencies, State of California, local school districts, non-profit foundations, and corporations.  

Service centers may use the new exclusions in calculating the external user UBIT 15% limitation for fiscal year 2012 and after.

Service centers have the option of calculating the UBIT 15% limitation on service center external users using billed hours or billed units in addition to the current calculation based on revenue.

Example calculation using hours or dollars:

Billed hours/units subject to the UBIT 15% external users limitation

Divided by

Total billed hours/units (external and internal)

Equals %  

Service centers may use billed hours/units in calculating the external user UBIT 15% limitation for fiscal year 2012 and after.

For assistance in applying these revisions, contact you RAPC/CMA service center analyst.  

Please contact the University Tax Director, Chris Canellos, if there is any question on the identification of a user as an external user, subject to the UBIT 15% limitation vs. an associated organization, not subject to UBIT 15% limitation.

The University believes that most transactions between service centers and external users are not collaborative in nature. However, if a service center and an external user collaborate on the intellectual direction, interpretation and/or outcome of the requested service, the external activity is subject to the Research Participation Agreement (RPA) Policy. Please refer to the RPA policy and Implementation Guidelines for an in depth discussion of the approval process and accounting treatment.

The majority of transactions with external users is not collaborative in nature and is subject to the following approval process and accounting treatment. The University has implemented revised policies and procedures for all service center sales (academic and administrative) that are not collaborative in nature. This policy requires that each service center that has, or anticipates having external users, must complete a Service Center External Sales Proposal Routing Sheet, found in "related items" below, and a proposal to provide services to external users. This procedure does not apply to associated organizations.  

The proposal must include:

1. A description of the types of services to be provided and the rates to be charged for them,
2. An indication of the anticipated level of external sales, relative to total sales (e.g., 5% of total sales),
3. A discussion of whether or not the services to be provided are unique (i.e., are the services easily available locally, within 50 miles?),
4. A discussion of how the anticipated external user services support the University's academic mission of education and research,
5. The corporate status and industry of the anticipated external users (e.g., for-profit, non-profit or individuals, educational institutions, pharmaceutical companies, bio-technical companies, etc.),
6. A list of the equipment used in the conduct of providing services to external users (please provide SU tag number and asset description),
7. If the external user will be personally using the service center’s equipment the Standard Agreement, found below in "related items", should be signed by each external user prior to their initial use of the service center facility (the service center must retain each signed agreement in its records), Risk Management has required that external users who will be physically utilizing the center’s facilities formally acknowledge Stanford’s non-liability in case of any accident while they are working on campus and
8. The location where the service is to be performed.

The Proposal Routing Sheet (PRS) must be signed by either the school Dean (academic centers) or the Provost (administrative centers). The Service Center Manager is responsible for distributing the signed PRS and proposal to the following University departments for review and approval:

• Risk Management
• RAPC
• University Tax Officer
• Property Management Office

Academic centers must renew their approvals every few years by completing a new PRS and proposal. Administrative centers are granted approval until circumstances dictate that an approval renewal is required. 

As discussed in Section B.1.a. above, if a center and an external user collaborate on the intellectual direction, interpretation and/or outcome of the requested service, the activity is subject to the University's RPA policy. Per the RPA policy, each agreement will be assigned an award in range UBxxx. The PTA attribute determination is based on the nature of the agreement's activities (e.g., organized research, sponsored instruction, or other sponsored activities).

The Office of Sponsored Research will open the sponsored account (PTA) after the center has obtained the required approvals as specified in the RPA policy. All service center costs associated with the RPA agreement shall be charged to the established RPA sponsored account using the approved billing rate(s). Similar to transactions with other internal sponsored accounts, the revenue is recorded to an interdepartmental revenue code in the service center account.

The Tax Director has determined that RPA agreements do not fall into the external user category and may be coded as internal income up to 10% of total income, above dollars should be coded as external. The limit on the combined total of both RPA – 10% maximum and external – 15% maximum is a combined total of 25% of total revenue.

Further information can also be found in RPH: Research Participation Agreementssection.