Financial Review and Spending Process​

Weekly, the PI should log into KeanWise Financial Management to check charges against the grant account/s.   

If the PI has questions about any charges appearing against the project, they should be addressed immediately to ORSP Grants Accountant. The Grants Accountant will work to resolve any errors or omissions. The university’s Cost Transfer Policy (see the policies) outlines the acceptable and unacceptable reasons for cost transfers and the time frame for identifying and correcting any errors. 

When required by the sponsor, the PI must work with ORSP to obtain prior approval for certain actions or expenditures. These may include international travel, time extensions, and certain equipment purchases. Most of these items will have been identified and reviewed during the initial budget meeting, but the PI should address any questions or concerns that may arise during the course of the project to ORSP.   

Every quarter, Post-Award will email an expense report to the PI/PD to review expenses to ensure they are reflected accurately.  

Spending Process

• Reasonable: Constituting action which a prudent person would have taken in similar circumstances (e.g., travel at federal domestic and/or foreign per-diem rates are generally deemed “reasonable“ on federal grants)​
• Allocable: Assigned directly to the sponsored project under consideration (e.g., costs involved in a purchase of specific materials and lab supplies must be proportionally allocated to the particular sponsored grant or project being charged)​

Sometimes, despite thorough research in the proposal stage, expenses do not come out to their anticipated amounts or the budgeted product or service is no longer available by the time the PI/PD is ready to purchase it. Based on the award terms and conditions, PI/PDs may be able to rebudget funds without prior approval. To initiate a budget revision, PI/PDs must submit a budget amendment and justification to their assigned Grant Accountant. If the Grant Accountant determines that prior approval is required, PI/PDs must work with ORSP Post-Award Officers to submit a formal request to the sponsor (See Forms).

Budget revisions are initiated in writing by the Project Director/Principal Investigator or a designee to ORSP. In some cases, a budget revision will be initiated by the Grants Post Award Administrator or Grants Accountant if they find an error during the day-to-day monitoring of the expenditures and budget of the grant or contract.  

When a budget revision is needed, a budget amendment form should be emailed to the Grants Accountant. ORSP will determine whether the transfer of funds is allowable by the funding agency. ORSP will also determine whether the request is reasonable and allocable. ORSP will receive funding agency approval if needed. 

Budget revision requests will be denied if the request to transfer funds is to allocate funds to cost categories that are not allocable or allowable to the grant or contract.  

The budget amendment form must contain a full explanation and justification for the budget revision, along with any supporting documentation.  

Once approved by ORSP, the grant accountant will make a journal entry to effect the budget revision.  

The PI is responsible for ensuring that all expenditures are reasonable, allocable, and allowable under the terms of the award and sponsor regulations. ORSP can assist in determining whether a cost is allowable or unallowable. 

Examples of unallowable costs may include, but are not limited to: advertising (except for job searches), alcoholic beverages, food, entertainment, public relations, memberships, subscriptions, certain travel costs, and costs incurred before the start of the project or after the end date of a project. Membership dues are unallowable for NSF and NIH, but may be allowable for other funding agencies. The principal investigator should verify the requirements of the fund. 

The Office of Research and Sponsored Programs will review and approve all grant related requisitions to ensure expenses are appropriate and allowable based on the budget included in the award. However, occasionally expenses are charged erroneously. When an erroneous entry affects a sponsored award, the correction must be made within 90 days [See Policy on Cost Transfers], and sufficient information must be provided to allow for a clear audit trail back to the initially recorded expense. ORSP will work with the PI to transfer mistakenly charged unallowable costs to the PI’s department account. For specific questions on allowable and unallowable costs. Further directions for processing a cost transfer are listed in the next section. If you have questions about an expense or a cost transfer, please contact ORSP Post-Award at postaward@kean.edu.

Cost transfers are initiated in writing by the Project Director/Principal Investigator or a designee to the Office of Research and Sponsored Programs. In some cases, a cost transfer will be initiated by ORSP or the Grants Accountant if they find an error during the day-to-day monitoring of expenditures to sponsored projects.  

When a cost transfer is needed, the cost transfer form must be emailed to the Grants Accountant in the Post-Award Office of Research and Sponsored Programs for approval, and the Grants Accountant will make a correcting journal entry to effect the transfer.  

Retroactive personnel cost transfers for correction of labor and benefit charges require particular attention. Revisions to the effort (and corresponding dollars) of personnel charged or credited to a sponsored award account must be carefully justified for a cost transfer to be approved.  

The cost transfer form must contain a full explanation and justification for the transfer, along with relevant supporting documentation.  

The documentation should address the following:  

• That the expense directly benefits the receiving activity/account.  

• That the expense is allowable.  

• The reason the expense was charged incorrectly to the first activity/account. 

Cost transfers must be made within 90 days after the month in which the charge appears in Ellucian Colleague/KeanWise. Cost transfers after 90 days will be allowed only if an appropriate justification for the lateness of the transfer is provided on the cost transfer form.  

NOTE: The cost transfer will be returned for further documentation if sufficient justification and documentation to meet sponsor regulations and award terms and conditions are not provided.  

Federal regulations strictly prohibit the transfer of costs from one project to another in order to cover cost overruns with funds in other projects, avoid restrictions incorporated in the award, or for other reasons of convenience.