Managing your research award

Departments and units use Income Fund Reimbursable (IFR) appointments to charge award budgets for the efforts of any SUNY state personnel who are working on the project. The IFR process can document the efforts of the PI and any other state employees listed in the budget.

SPS will create an IFR form and load it into the business system so you can note the efforts.

UB's human resources office manages payroll operations, including the appointment of Research Foundation (RF) employees for your sponsored award. Please work with your Finance Manager to facilitate appointments for your award.

If you have any questions regarding the electronic payroll systems or forms, please contact the RF Human Resources Office at (716) 645-7777 or at hradmin@buffalo.edu.

Tuition for graduate students is an allowable charge on almost all sponsored awards. Please work with your department to fill out the following forms, which need to be completed prior to the start of fall semester. 

1. Graduate Tuition Remission Form
   
2. Grant Billing Form
   
3. Request to Amend Tuition Remission

Upon completion of these forms:

• Student Services will create invoices after the add/drop period.
• SPS will receive the invoices and review them for allowability and adequate funds.
• When approved, the invoices then move to Accounts Payable for processing payment.

If your award includes funding for a subaward to other entities, your SPS Subaward Coordinator or Subcontract Coordinator will work with you to put the appropriate contract mechanism in place.

SPS will work with you and the Sponsor to make any necessary adjustments or modifications to your award.

For times when you need to contract with an expert, an Independent Contractor or Consultant, please follow Procurement Services process for Independent Contractors. 

PCard is preferred for purchasing business related items, excepting travel. The card functions like a credit card with a $2,500 limit. While PCards are issued to individuals, the university assumes the liability. The Pcardholder's personal credit history is not reviewed nor is his/her personal history affected by issuance of a card.

ShopBlue is a fully integrated eProcurement system allowing authorized UB faculty and staff to place orders for necessary goods and services. Once created the requisition is forwarded to the apprpriate individual for departmental approval, then to SPS for compliance review, and finally to purchasing for final processing and the creation of a purchase order.

Departments and service centers can transfer funds interdepartmentally to pay for goods or services provided by another unit on campus.

Service Centers shall submit ETFs through UB Box. The process for submitting Expenditure Transfer Requests:

1. Email OVPR.SPSMail@research.buffalo.edu, Sponsored Projects Services (SPS), to obtain access to the box. The Center contact will provide the name of the Center and contact name.
2. SPS will create a specific Center folder and provide access to the Center contact to upload invoices. Invoices should be single IDIs with associated backup, and NOT one document with all IDIs.
3. SPS will direct the IDI to the appropriate party for review and processing, based on the type of Charge Account as Sponsored or Non-Sponsored.
4. For charges to a Sponsored account, the SPS Award Analyst will review and approve the IDI for processing.      
5. For charges to a Non-Sponsored account, the IDI will be directed to the Non-Sponsored Group for processing.   
6. To avoid duplicate processing of IDIs, Service Centers should NOT mail any hard copies of IDIs. 

For sponsored research involving human subjects, the option to compensate the subjects at the time of their visit is available.  The Human Subject Matrix provides descriptions for a variety of options. Forms for these options are available below as well as within the Human Subject Matrix.

A PI may request to pay human subjects via a Campus Bank Account. The PI will need to ensure that specific duties for funds management are distributed among various personnel, per The Research Foundation for SUNY’s Establishing and Maintaining Campus Bank Accounts and Petty Cash Funds procedure.

Cost sharing occurs when a portion of the project costs are borne by the university rather than the funding agency.

A separate cost-share award is set up to track your committed cost share based on the sponsor-approved budget. If the cost-share includes Other-Than-Personal-Services (OTPS), you will forward the expenditures to SPS to process.

While every effort must be made to charge costs to the correct account when they are incurred, cost transfers are appropriate when their purpose is to correct posting or bookkeeping errors in the original charges.

If you wish to delegate your signature authority to approve expenditures on your sponsored award, please email this request to your Finance Manager (FM).

To delegate authority for ShopBlue/ePTF please access the RF Delegate Authorization System.

As a recipient of Federal funding, the University at Buffalo (UB) is required to comply with Federal regulations. UB’s Payroll Review System is an after-the-fact review of payroll expenditures on awards. The Principal Investigator (PI) is responsible to review the payroll expenditures to ensure they are reflective of the actual work performed on the project during a specific reporting period. Using the RF Report Center (Report Center) Principal Investigator Dashboard or the RF Activity Interface Reporting Dashboard, the PI will verify that all payroll charges are on the award, including IFR, as well as review to determine if payroll is represented correctly. Incorrect payroll could include, but not limited to, missing payroll (including suspense), misallocated payroll, or changes in salary that is not reflected on the report. Timely response, within 60 days of notification, is required.

Please review the Electronic Payroll Review System guidance and instructions for additional information.

If you have scientific reasons for continuing your project beyond the original term date of your sponsored award, please complete the No Cost Extension (NCE) form.

For grants awarded under the Federal Demonstration Project (FDP), your Sponsored Projects administrator can approve the first No Cost Extension without obtaining sponsor approval. This includes most federal awards (NIH, NSF, NASA, etc.).

For all other federal and non-federal awards, your SPS administrator will work with you in preparing a request to the sponsor.

Reporting is a term of most sponsored awards and is typically included in the Notice of Award (NOA).  Each sponsor has different requirements, but it is typical for Technical/ Progress Reports to be required annually and at the completion of the project, though some sponsors may require more frequent submission of reports (e.g. Monthly or Quarterly). 

Reports must be submitted timely (before or by their due date) to avoid negative impact on payment for individual awards, future funding for the entire university, and damage to a PI’s and/or University’s reputation. University and project-specific audits encompass reporting compliance, so federal penalties and other consequences may result due to non-compliance.

Therefore, to ensure institutional compliance with sponsor terms, SPS has implemented a Technical Report Process for delinquent reports that includes an escalation process that can result in the PI’s funds being frozen until the delinquent report is submitted.

• NSF Progress Reports - You will submit your NSF Progress Reports through www.research.gov.
• NIH Progress Reports - You will initiate your NIH Research Performance Progress Report (RPPR) through eRA Commons system.

Please work with your Finance Manager regarding the required content and due dates.

The Research Foundation for SUNY provides all PI's and departmental administrators with access to an online sponsored awards financial reporting tool known as the RF Report Center. This helpful tool can be accessed through the RF SUNY homepage.

To gain access to the RF Report Center, please complete the RF Report Center Access Request Form. Instructions to complete and submit this form can be found at Access Request Form Instructions.

For questions regarding access to the RF Report Center, please contact the UB RF campus security administrator at 716-645-6071.

When you believe you have discovered a novel technology or developed useful new software, you need to contact Technology Transfer. They will help you determine your next steps.

To ensure your proprietary information is protected, SPS and Technology Transfer will assist with the transfer of materials or information.

When the need for a CDA or MTA is identified, submit a request into Click agreements and SPS will work with you to identify the appropriate office to assist with the transfer of materials or information. The transfer and sharing of materials for research purposes is consistent with UB's mission and its obligations to federal research sponsors.

• Confidential Disclosure Agreements (CDA) allow the exchange of secret or proprietary information in negotiating future sponsored research agreements, clinical trial agreements, research collaborations or license agreements and preserves intellectual property protection.
• Material Transfer Agreement (MTA) terms define the permitted use of the materials, for example, non-commercial research use only, for a specific research project, and not in humans. MTA terms also protect the providing institution from any liability that might arise from the use of the materials by the recipient, and protect the research interests of the providing scientist.

If your sponsored award is a fixed price award and is closing, the unspent direct cost balance may be able to be moved to a non-sponsored residual award.  If the unspent balance is 25% or greater of the total costs awarded, the Residual Balance Form must be completed and forwarded to your Finance Manager.