Sponsored Projects Accounting Policy on Submission of Final Invoices*
(*or Financial Reports required for final payment)
The Sponsored Projects Accounting Office is in charge of preparing, reviewing and submitting invoices to sponsors in accordance with widely varying sponsor requirements. Typically, certain deadlines must be met in order to ensure payment is received from the sponsor, especially for final invoices. In most cases, final invoices cannot be completed until an Outstanding Obligations list is prepared by the department and provided to Sponsored Projects Accounting.
In the past there have been times when these Outstanding Obligations lists have not been provided to the Sponsored Projects Accounting Office until after the sponsor deadline for invoicing, even after several requests and reminders to the department. As a result, the invoice was submitted to the sponsor late. In many cases we have been lucky and the sponsor made the final payment in spite of a missed deadline. There are cases, however, where final payment has been refused. When the sponsor does not pay, the department must cover the costs. Obviously, this is not a good situation.
Effective immediately, if the Sponsored Projects Accounting Office has not received the needed information from the department within 5 working days of the sponsor’s final invoicing deadline, the department (including department head) will be notified that the invoice will be prepared based expenditures in the system as of the END DATE of the sponsored project.
If the account was not fully spent as of the End Date, the department will be notified of the amount remaining and that the sponsor will not be billed for that amount. Any expenditures recorded against that amount after the end date will have to be transferred to a departmental account, even if the expenditures were otherwise allowable.
If the account is overspent as of the End Date, SPA will determine what expenditures will not be included on the invoice. The department will be notified and will be responsible for transferring the designated expenditures off of the account.
Proper grants management has always been accomplished through the joint efforts and cooperation of the SPA Office and departments. Because of that, it is anticipated that the need to apply this policy should be infrequent. One non-payment due to late invoicing is too many, however, and this policy is meant to make everyone more aware of the need for timely invoicing.
Questions regarding this policy may be addressed to the Sponsored Projects Accounting Office, 532-6207