ATTACHMENT 7
Overall Vision for Electronic Research Administration at UH
Critical Needs
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Improve compliance capacity in key areas such as effort (FTE reporting) cost
sharing and interest allocation
Improving institutional management of finances in areas such as
receivables/billing, drawdown and cash management
Pre-award process
Technical Resources for ERA
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Analyst and programmer resources to address critical needs
Servers and systems in appropriate space with appropriate environmental
conditions, security and off-site backups
Proposal Tracking System – For all UH proposals submitted through any
authorized process
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Web based – Supports Windows, Unix and Macintosh systems with browsers
Permit collaborators to work on proposal and accommodate variety of document
formats
Allow users and approvers to view documents and complete and approve Form 5
electronically; notify approvers via e-mail; see proposals that need approval upon
log-in
Accommodate alternative routing when approvers are on leave
Integrate with Committee on Human Studies, Institutional Animal Care and Use
Committee and Environmental Health and Safety Systems to ensure protocols
are compliant
Auto-fill in most commonly used agency proposal forms (e.g., PHS 398, SF 424)
Capture data for account establishment in FMIS – not only attributes, but budget
Export proposal for upload into sponsoring agency submission system
Ideally, use XML to auto-populate sponsoring agency submission system
Permit users and approvers to view outstanding proposal data such as PI name,
title, proposed amount, effort proposed, and cost sharing commitments
Alert when investigator effort goes over 100% for researchers and over 50% for
instructors including any RCUH commitments (might be difficult to account for
varying faculty workload and period overlap)
Automatic reduction of effort when proposals are not awarded; earmarking of
effort if awarded
Post-Award System
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Integrated with proposal tracking system
Track status of contract and contract modifications
Integrate with Committee on Human Studies, Institutional Animal Care and Use
Committee and Environmental Health and Safety Systems (currently use cover
memo to keep in loop at award stage to ensure research protocols are reviewed)
E-mail notification of awards, including ORSIS ID to allow fiscal officer to pull
down attribute and budget information for (near-) automatic FMIS account set up
Input award information such as problematic terms and conditions (e.g., can’t buy
equipment), billing cycle and format, and required reports and due dates into
ORSIS
Web based interface to allow users to access information such as required
reports and due dates
Method to indicate when reporting requirement is met or to flag overdue reports
and generate e-mail reminder to investigator
Effort reporting
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Overall system to capture both funded effort and cost shared effort that will
flag over-commitments (How will we track and identify situation when PNF is
different from award budget? For example, budget says 25% PI effort, but PI
chooses not pay self from grant. Should require PI to fix information with
sponsor.)
Electronic distribution and signature of quarterly reports
Method to ensure that combined effort at UH and RCUH does not exceed
100% full-time equivalent
Cost sharing
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Reprogram to account for actual fringe benefits, budgeted amounts for award
period and personnel with less than 100% appointment
Create edits to cap commitments for instructional faculty and to generally
prohibit commitments for Deans/Directors and administrative staff (central
override)
If possible, would like to treat all employees, including RCUH employees, as
Type A – Salary Costs
If possible, would like to be able to account for actual expenditure of nonsalary commitments except external support
Include unrecovered indirect cost as part of cost sharing unless prohibited
(central override)
Electronic distribution and signature of monthly reports (tied to billing cycle,
which is mostly monthly)
Financial Management Systems
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Web based financial reporting system with forecasting and what if capabilities that is
easy to understand
Allow investigator to link together accounts for birds-eye view of project with
capability to drill-down to details
Early warning system that will set bells and whistles off that if project is terminated
and that all costs must be posted in a timely manner or ORS will send final bill 90
days after project termination
Fiscal Compliance
Note: Although we have edits for funds availability and period of availability, some of
our internal controls reside outside the computer system.
For example, there is subrecipient debarment and suspension screen, but how do
we stop transactions with debarred or suspended vendors or subrecipients? This
might not be programmable, but is necessary because any transaction with the
debarred or suspended entity would be disallowed.
Also, we are going to need to be more serious about rejecting transactions. In
particular, untimely cost transfers or procurement actions as well as prohibited
transactions (e.g., terms specify equipment cannot be purchased with grant funds).
For other processes, such as equipment screening, perhaps inventory system could
be modified for declaration of excess equipment so that inventory can be queried to
meet screening requirements.
Accounts Receivable/Letter of Credit
A/R
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Templates for as many invoice formats as possible that map to sponsor budget
categories
Templates to prepare required supporting documentation (e.g., payroll details
that give name, title, percent of effort, monthly salary, and total salary to date
information) or a means to export such data into Excel for formatting
Aging schedule for unbilled and billed receivables that is accessible by ORS and
departmental staff to track receivable aging
Tie A/R into web based schedule for reports (e.g., investigator and fiscal officer
will know that technical, patent and property reports are due); Encourage use of
Edison to electronically file patent reports if acceptable to sponsor
Via XML, create way to auto-populate sponsors’ web based invoicing system
(e.g., NIH)
LOC
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Revise interest allocation program to take into account check clearing cycle,
which will enable the University to stop delay of draw downs that was put in place
to address federal auditor’s concerns
Program to help determine “immediate cash needs” (e.g., 13-week moving
average) so that we can request funds in advance, but minimize excess cash
balance (no more than 3 days) as required under the federal regulations
Indirect Cost Proposal
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Design system to accommodate indirect cost classification using combination of
separate accounts and subcodes; policy to require proper coding assignments
Ensure that property system can identify equipment fully funded or split funded with
grant funds for proper exclusion from cost proposal
Setup automated accounting entry to properly record equipment acquisitions and
disposals in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles, which is
required by federal regulations if University intends to use depreciation in cost study
Canned reports from FMIS and Human Resources datamarts to support cost study
analyses
Web based space system, including functional use survey
Training/Certification
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Web based training for critical issues with certification test similar to Micro Mash
system (80% required to pass) and searchable log to ascertain certification/recertification status of investigators, fiscal officers and other administrators