Good afternoon,

Most sponsored projects awarded to UVM are cost reimbursable. Below are some questions and answers related to this type of award:

Q1: What is a cost reimbursable award?

Cost reimbursable awards are grants or contracts where UVM will bill sponsors based on incurred costs. As with all research awards, the costs must be reasonable, allowable and

allocable. Only costs posted in Peoplesoft to the appropriate sponsored project are eligible for invoicing.

Q2: Costs for my award are posted in Peoplesoft. When will billing to the sponsor occur?

The billing frequency is typically determined by the billing terms in the agreement. There are a several types of billing frequencies:

· Monthly – Invoices are generated on a monthly basis. The costs on the invoice will usually be posted in Peoplesoft in the month prior to the billing.

· Quarterly – Invoices are generated once every three months, on a quarterly basis. The “regular” quarterly cycle bills are generated in January, April, July and October for activity in the prior three months. “Off-cycle” quarterly billings occur in [February, May, August and November] and [March, June, September and December]. The cycle of the bill is dependent upon the agreement.

· Payment Schedule – An agreed schedule of periodic payments from the sponsor. These may or may not necessitate an invoice to trigger payment. While billing/payment is not based on posted costs, a refund of any unspent funds is required at the end of the project.

· Milestone (task based) – Invoicing is allowed upon the completion of tasks. Rare for cost reimbursable awards.

· Advance (upfront) – Payment for the full award amount is made at the beginning of the project (may or may not necessitate an invoice). When the award ends, a refund is required for any unspent funds.

Q3: How does Peoplesoft determine what costs can be billed?

A nightly procedure loads Project Resource – PeopleSoft’s costing program – with that day’s expenditures that were posted in the GL. The procedure then creates billable lines based on the expenditures via a process called “pricing”. When the billing process is run by SPA, any billable lines that fit within the parameters set by the billing analyst will be picked up to invoice. To prevent duplicate billing of expenditures, those lines are marked as billed which excludes them from being picked up on future invoices.

Q4: What if my award is overspent? Will the system generate an invoice that “overbills” a project?

No. Peoplesoft features a billing limit field that will restrict the total amount that can be invoiced to a sponsor. When the billing limit is surpassed, the system will stop creating billable lines in Project Resource and instead mark those lines as being over the billing limit. The overage lines will not be picked up by the billing process.

Q5: Can I see copies of invoices that have been sent to the sponsor?

Yes! All invoices submitted for payment to the sponsor will be saved in Peoplesoft as an attachment to the award. These can be found in the PI Portal under the Financial Documents tab.

***Please note that many of the awards at UVM are “billed” via a drawdown from the sponsor. There will be no invoice copy saved for those awards.

Thank you,

Matthew Beissel | Assistant Director – Sponsored Revenue | Cash Management | Audits

University of Vermont