• Ascertain that revenues have been received.
• Confirm the availability of project funds as needed.
• Ensure that costs are consistent with the project schedule and incurred between the start and stop dates of the project.
• Discover any errors in your budget (for more information on budgeting and budget reporting, see the Budget Tool and the Period Expenses Report), encumbrances, or expenditures whether these are caused by an end user, a service department, or any other system-generated p_normalroblem.
• Avoid overspending, which may cause a deficit and limit further spending.
• Give your Principal Investigator a high degree of confidence that the project is in compliance with the sponsor's spending terms and conditions.
• Verify that cost transfers and corrections have been made or are made in a timely manner.
• Maintain a clear audit trail for the future.

Do not wait until a problem is brought to your attention or until a project has terminated before reconciling an account.

The longer an error remains uncorrected, the harder it is to show that allowability and allocability are in compliance with the University Cost Transfer Policy.

The responsibilities you have been assigned will limit the data you can access and the final results you will find in your reports. It is important to understand how your responsibilities are set up and to make sure the information you are viewing is complete. For more information on responsibilities and how they affect reporting output, refer to the reporting responsibility object code restrictions segment on ABLE or contact your local financial office.

Crew Reports

• The Detail Listing Report : The Detail Listing Report is run to see individual transactions that have been recorded in the General Ledger. By looking at individual transaction lines, an end user can determine if all charges are accurate and appropriate. Also, miscodings (i.e. wrong activity / subactivity / object code) can be easily identified using this report.
• The Period Expenses Report : The Period Expenses Report (PER) is run to obtain a summary of your award on an object code level. The budgets are also listed on the report to make for easy comparison between budgeted and actual expenditures. This is the best way to view the fund balance, as it includes all income and adjustments that have posted to the award in a concise and easy to read manner.
• The Monthly Effort Certification : The Monthly Effort Certification report is used to certify direct non-faculty salary/effort on federal projects. It is the unit administrator's responsibility to generate, distribute, track, and file the signed forms monthly. This report confirms that all salaries are reported correctly.
  Reports to Run for Effective Grants Management:
  Monthly
  Quarterly

Cost Accounting Standards (CAS) 501, 502, 505, and 506

• Address consistency in allocating costs incurred for the same purpose as well as other information on the CAS requirements for universities.
• Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Circular A-21
  • Establishes university cost principles
  • Defines direct and indirect costs
  • Impacts indirect cost recovery

• Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Circular A-110
• Addresses administrative requirements
• Lays out documentation standards
• Other sponsor terms and conditions regarding expense allowability, allocability, and reasonableness

Need
There is a very high financial and reputational risk whenever Harvard fails to comply with the above regulations. OMB Circular A-133 (Federal Audit Guidelines and Procedures) findings extrapolated across the University would represent a significant amount of disallowed costs. Aside from the financial exposure for the University, there is reputational risk associated with the negative publicity around disallowed costs.

Process in Place
The Office for Sponsored Programs performs a risk based approach to conducting post-audit reviews on a monthly basis. The reviews are performed on federal sponsored awards only and focus on high risk expense categories such as consulting fees and costs normally considered indirect costs that are charged to direct costs. The following OMB Circular A-21 criteria are used: OMB Circular A-21:

• Allowability
• Allocability
• Reasonableness

Questionable transactions are faxed/mailed to the departmental administrator for clarification. OSP will require the department to remove expenses from the federal award if the explanations are not sufficient to meet the above criteria. This risk based approach recognizes that department administrators are responsible for review and reconciliation of sponsored award transactions and monitoring of actual spending to budgets.

For more information on setting up Cross-tub Awards, please refer to the following pages in the Sponsored Chart of Account Business Rules:

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