Set up a cost-sharing PTA.
If cost sharing is committed, that is, proposed by Stanford and accepted by the sponsor, then it must be accounted for as cost sharing. As part of the New PTA Setup or PTA Setup Amendment transactions, the SeRA (Stanford Electronic Research Administration) system will automatically create unique cost sharing PTAs as needed.
Cost sharing tasks are given the designation of the 700 task series with budget and expense tied to the sponsored project period and carried over the fiscal year end (corresponding to the primary sponsored agreement). In many instances, when the cost sharing funding source is coming from different schools/departments, or if there are multiple investigators whose cost sharing commitment needs to be tracked separately, multiple tasks can be set up to accommodate this complexity. Cost sharing PTAs will be listed on the SeRA Notice of Award along with the other PTAs set up in support of a particular sponsored project.
For the purpose of identifying federal vs. non-federal and mandatory vs. voluntary cost sharing, four Oracle Award Purpose codes are used:
- INR_CS_FED_MANDATORY_REPORT
- INR_CS_FED_VOLUNTARY_NO_REPORT
- INR_CS_NON_FED_MANDATORY
- INR_CS_NON_FED_VOLUNTARY
Cost sharing PTAs are budgeted with the committed cost sharing appearing in the Expense Control column of the Monthly Expenditure Statement.
Overdraft Cost Sharing
If the department administrator becomes aware of cost overruns after the sponsored project end date, contact your OSR accountant to request a cost sharing PTA be set up for overdraft purposes.
If there are cost overruns at the end of an award and a cost sharing PTA has not yet been established for this purpose, the OSR accountant will contact the department administrator to discuss setting up a cost sharing PTA as part of the closeout process. OSR will notify the department when cost sharing PTAs are setup in Oracle. The Oracle Award Purpose code for overdrafts is INR OVERDRAFTS.
Note, An overdraft does not represent cost sharing but it must be charged to a cost sharing account in order for it to be properly reflected in the calculation of the F&A (Facilities & Administrative) cost rate.
Timing of Funding the Cost Share PTA
The best practice is to fund the cost sharing account at the inception of the PTA. At minimum, the cost sharing PTA(s) must be funded by the end of each fiscal year and at the end of each award period. Cost sharing PTAs cannot be in overdraft at the end of the University's fiscal year. Department administrators must provide the funding source when providing the cost sharing PTA attributes. The funding source can be from one or more of the following sources:
- Gift fund
- Endowment income fund
- Designated/special fund
- Operating budget (not allowed in SoM - School of Medicine)
