The PI is responsible for reviewing the terms and conditions in the award document, the approved award budget, and all applicable terms on the Award Requirements webpage prior to charging labor effort and purchasing goods and services using sponsored funds.
Direct Expenditures
Direct expenditures are costs that can be identified specifically with a particular sponsored project, an instructional activity, or any other institutional activity or that can be directly assigned to such activities relatively easily with a high degree of accuracy. In order for any labor effort or purchase to be charged directly to a sponsored project, it must be allowable, allocable, reasonable, and treated consistently.
Indirect (F&A) Expenditures
Indirect expenditures are expenses not able to be directly allocated to a specific project (i.e., general office supplies, clerical support, facility costs, etc.). The University has a negotiated indirect cost rate agreement with the Office of Naval Research, our cognizant agency, to be applied to all sponsored research budgets. Indirect costs may also be termed Facilities & Administrative (F&A) costs. Additional information can be found here: Facilities & Administrative (F&A) Rates
Personnel Expenditures on Sponsored Projects
Transactions for personnel affiliated with a sponsored project must be processed as soon as possible, but no later than 60 days after the PI is notified the award set-up has been completed. If the sponsored project includes funds to support the PI, and/or other personnel (i.e., research faculty, graduate research assistants, wage employees, etc.), please work with your unit research administrator to charge current GMU employees to the project or hire new employees for the project.
PIs are obligated to ensure that all personnel related transaction forms (i.e., hiring, funding changes, and timesheets) on a sponsored project are submitted in a timely manner. Failure to do so could cause disallowed cost transfers resulting in effort being charged to a non-sponsored funding source.
Helpful Resources for Personnel Expenditures:
- Human Resources
- Faculty Appointments – Office of the Provost & Executive Vice President
- Hiring Graduate Students – Graduate Education
- Funding Change Forms – Office of Strategic Budgeting & Planning
- Personnel Forms – Office of Sponsored Programs
- Payroll-Fiscal Services
Non-Personnel Expenditures on Sponsored Projects
PIs are obligated to ensure that all non-personnel expenditure forms on a sponsored project are submitted in a timely manner. Failure to do so could cause disallowed cost transfers resulting in transactions being charged to a non-sponsored funding source.
Helpful Resources for Non-Personnel Expenditures:
- Fiscal Services
- Subawards and Subrecipients
- Health Insurance for Graduate Students
- In-State Eligibility for Doctoral and MFA Students
Cost Transfers
A Cost Transfer is a transfer of labor or non-labor expenses to a federally funded sponsored project for an expense previously recorded elsewhere.
