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: 

1. INR_CS_FED_MANDATORY_REPORT
2. INR_CS_FED_VOLUNTARY_NO_REPORT
3. INR_CS_NON_FED_MANDATORY
4. 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)

Transaction controls are used to block the use of designated expenditure types for new sponsored projects and new cost sharing awards.

Why

Many of the hundreds of expenditure types now available for use on sponsored projects may not be appropriate for use on sponsored projects, or may be considered unallowable or only be appropriate in certain circumstances.

Benefits

Blocking the use of expenditure types that are inappropriate for use on a sponsored project will prevent administrators from charging unallowable or unallocable expenses to the award, will reduce the number of journals and other time-consuming adjustments administrators must make, and reduce further unnecessary costs to the departments. 

Details

OSR will assign transaction controls at the project level (the “P” in P-T-A) when OSR sets up PTAs using project templates in Oracle. The project templates will address these six areas:

1. Unallowables – not chargeable on federal or state awards

2. Administrative Charging on Federal Awards (Major Project)

3. Stipends on Research Awards (example NIH R01 awards)

4. Expenditure types that would not be charged to any sponsored projects (example: ET 51610 LD Clearing Account, Cost of Goods Sold, COGEN , etc.)

5. Expenditure types that are chargeable to federal/non-federal awards only  (example: animal care charges (VSC),  NSF participant costs)

6. Capital Equipment and Fabrications  - The default is SU owned,  with the ability to change to non-SU or no capital equipment/fabrication

A list of available Oracle Project Templates can be found here.

To find out what Project Template assigned to your sponsored Project, run RM3 #180 PTA Configuration Report.

What Administrators Can Do

When an expenditure type cannot be charged on a sponsored project, make sure you understand why the expenditure type is not useable:

• Review the job aid “Error Messages:  expenditure type cannot be used because of a project  transaction control for example error messages when a project transaction control is making an expenditure type unchargeable.

• Run the RM3180 PTA Configuration Report for a listing of all project transaction controls on the award. (See the job aid: Transaction Controls on the RM3 #180 PTA Configuration Report.

Once you have determined a project transaction control has made the expenditure type unavailable for charging, do not pick another expenditure type just because it is chargeable. Ask yourself the following questions:

• Am I using the correct expenditure type?
• Is this an expenditure type that is restricted to a specific award type (federal/non-federal)?
• Am I charging administrative expenses to a federal award that is not “administratively intense" (major project)?
• Is this a charge that is not allowable on any sponsored project?
• Am I correctly charging the appropriate capital /fabrication expenditure type?
• Am I incorrectly charging stipends instead of salary on a research award?

Once you determine the expenditure type is chargeable on the sponsored award, the department can request that the expenditure type be made available for charging by completing the OSR Form Request to Make Expenditures Types Chargeable/Non-Chargeable. This form can  also be used to make expenditure types non-chargeable as well.

• Transaction Controls on the RM3 #180 PTA Configuration Report -- provides guidance about transaction controls and how they restrict the use of expenditure types on your project. 
• Error Messages  --  expenditure type cannot be used because of a project transaction control displays examples of error messages when a project transaction control makes an expenditure type nonchargeable.
• Expenditure types and their definitions can be found using the Expenditure Type Query Tool and/or the Expenditure Type Definitions and Rules.