July 9, 2015
Tool simplifies industry-centric budget development
Attendees at the spring 2015 Working With Industry Boot Camp noted that industry sponsors usually do not understand budgets that are developed around governmental accounting principles, especially when they use the term indirect costs. However, they do understand the concept of cost of performance, and they prefer fixed-price, bottom-line totals that do not separately detail a budget line called indirect costs.
In response to these concerns, PreAward Services staff members created a tool that easily converts budgets that follow standard government formatting to the industry-centric fully burdened budget format. The worksheet is available for download from the PreAward Services Forms Web page; see item 12 on the list.
The Excel worksheet has three tabs. The first instructs faculty to prepare an internal budget using the second tab. The third tab automatically calculates the fully burdened budget. The bottom-line total can serve as a quick quote of K-State's full cost of performance, or Tab 3 can be printed for industry sponsors who prefer a line-item budget.
Please note that faculty must consult PreAward Services when preparing any form of proposal and/or award materials for an industry-sponsored funding opportunity prior to submission to external sponsors. For more information call 785-532-6804, email research@k-state.edu, or visit our website.