Overview
The Award module is capable of managing money transactionally. This allows an institution to keep all records related to an award in a single document, and then report on the financial transactions applied to that award. Monetary transactions and period of performance changes are applied via the Time & Money document within the Award module. This document can be utilized in a number of different ways to reflect the business processes of your institution. Often Time & Money is used in conjunction with hierarchy functionality; more information on this can be found in the Award Hierarchy section of documentation (especially the Award Hierarch - Time & Money article).
The Time and Money Panel
When an Award is first created it is possible to enter Project Period and Award Amount information directly into the Award document via the Time and Money panel if the MAKE_AWD_CUM_ANTICIPATED_OBL_EDITABLE parameter is set to Y. Once a second award node is added to the award hierarchy this functionality is locked down since managing the relationship between the money in the multiple nodes of an Award Hierarchy requires the Time and Money document. The Project Start Date remains editable in the Award Document even after the rest of the panel has been locked down, but it can never be edited from the Time and Money document. If the MAKE_AWD_CUM_ANTICIPATED_OBL_EDITABLE parameter is set to N then this panel will always be locked down. The only way to manage the amount and period of an award in this case is via the Time & Money document. (NOTE: The Time & Money document and panel can be configured to allow entry of Direct and F&A fields with a calculated Total field by setting the ENABLE_AWD_ANT_OBL_DIRECT_INDIRECT_COST parameter to 1, or to have a single editable Total field by configuring the ENABLE_AWD_ANT_OBL_DIRECT_INDIRECT_COST parameter to 0. This is displayed below. The remainder of the screenshots in this article use the Total configuration primarily to manage space in the article.)
Time and Money Document
If an institution is using Award Hierarchy, or wants to track their Awards transactionally, instead of by Award version, they will need to use the Time and Money document. Once an award has been saved a Time & Money document can be created by clicking on the blue Time & Money button in the upper right hand corner of the Award document.
When you click on the Time & Money button you will be taken into the Time and Money document. The first time you do this the system will create the first Time and Money document for your award and it will be immediately editable. For subsequent transactions the most recent Time & Money document will open. If that document is pending it will be editable, but if the most recent document is in Final status then you will need to go to the bottom of the screen and press the Edit button to initiate a new document in an editable status. The following fields should be completed before Date and Transaction data is entered.
- Description: This field is required, but will autopopulate with "timeandmoney document". This does not need to be modified to complete the document, but can be if desired.
- Transaction Type: The first time you create a Time & Money document this will automatically populate with "New". On subsequent Time & Money documents this field will be blank and you will need to select a Transaction Type. This is a required field.
- Notice Date: This field is not required by the system, but it is the only date the user can control that is connected to Time and Money transactions, so some institutions require this field to drive Award Transaction reporting.
- Comments: These comments will be tied to this Time and Money document, and all changes made in this document.
Hierarchy Dates
The next set of fields in the Time & Money document are the Date fields in the hierarchy view. To prevent the Time & Money document from taking up too much window space the hierarchy is displayed inside a frame that you can scroll through to find the dates you need to change.
Due to way the hierarchy indents to show child/parent relationships within the hierarchy the headers won't always align with the date fields. The first Date field in any given node is Obligation Start Date, the second date field is Obligation End Date, and the last date field is Project End Date. The obligation period for any node cannot extend beyond the project period. The dates for any node in the award hierarchy can be modified on this screen, and will be applied to the appropriate awards when the Time & Money document is finalized. If the Project Start Date needs to be changed that must be done by editing the Award document.
Hierarchy Display Modes
Immediately above the Hierarchy panel in Time & Money is a dropdown right next to the Current and Pending options. This dropdown controls the Hierarchy details display mode. Each of these display modes are useful for different tasks.
Totals: This is the default display mode. When Totals is selected the amount of money, including rollups is shows for every node in the hierarchy.
- Example: You have a hierarchy with 4 nodes, the top level 00001 node, and 3 children. Each of the children has $3000 Anticipated Total funds, and no Anticipated funds have been put directly in the parent. Each child will display with $3000, and the top level node will show $9000 Anticipated Total. Even though no funds have been put directly into the parent, it will display the total amount for itself and all awards nodes below it. For simple Hierarchies this is the easiest display mode, since it is a clean, relatively simple display. (The screenshot below shows the Totals display, but does not display an entire example due to space constraints in the hierarchy display frame)
Dates Only: This display omits the financial data and only displays the dates for the award nodes in the hierarchy. For actions like a no cost extension, or an error correction that only pertains to dates this can eliminate clutter from the interface that isn't useful to make it easier to focus on relevant fields.
Distributed/Distributable: This mode displays the breakdown of funds that reside in a specific node, as opposed to only displaying the funds the node is inheriting from its descendants. The Distributed value lists money that a node is inheriting from its descendants. The Distributable value lists funds that reside in that node, and can therefore be transfered from that node to another location in the hierarchy.
- Example: If you were to turn on the Distributed/Distributable display in the award from the example above where a hierarchy has 3 children with $3000 each, and the parent node displays $9000 you would see the following breakdown for each award.
- Parent 00001
- Distributed: $9000.00
- Distributable: $0.00
- Total: $9000.00
- Child 00002
- Distributed: $0.00
- Distributable: $3000.00
- Total: $3000.00
- Child 00003
- Distributed: $0.00
- Distributable: $3000
- Total: $3000.00
- Child 00004
- Distributed: $0.00
- Distributable: $3000
- Total: $3000.00
- Parent 00001
- If we add $1000 directly to the parent its display will change, but the children will remain unchanged. The New display will be.
- Parent 00001
- Distributed: $9000.00
- Distributable: $1000.00
- Total: $10,000.00
- Parent 00001
- We can now transfer up to $1000 dollars from the parent award to another node in the hierarchy.
Transactions
The next section of the Time & Money document is the Transactions panel. This is where monetary changes to an award are recorded. A Time & Money document can include any number of transactions. Each transaction consists of the following data elements.
- Comments: Especially if multiple transactions are being taken in a single Time & Money document this is where you include functional details about a specific transaction so it can be easily identified later on. Typical comments include "Increment 3 of 5 on 5 year award", "Supplement on Year 4", "Deobligation of Remaining Award Funds", etc.
- Source Award: This shows the award funds will be taken from. If the transaction is adding new money to an award hierarchy then the Source Award will be External.
- Destination Award: This shows the award funds will be added to. If the transaction is removing money from an award Hierarchy then the Destination Award will be External.
- Obligated Change: This shows how much money is being removed from the Source Award's Distributable Obligated amount and added to the Destination Award's Distributable Obligated Amount. This may be a single field, or broken into Direct and F&A depending on your institution's configuration
- Anticipated Change: This shows how much money is being removed from the Source Award's Distributable Anticipated amount and added to the Destination Award's Distributable Anticipated Amount. This may be a single field, or broken into Direct and F&A depending on your institution's configuration
Direct/F&A Funds Distribution
Some institutions setup their Award Hierarchy to track account breakdown on an award instead of the period breakdown, but still need to track breakdown of Direct and F&A funds on an award by period. The Direct F&A Funds Distribution panel allows you to track F&A by period when the Award Hierarchy structure does not capture this information. Since not all business processes require the use of this panel it can be configured as optional or required with the AWARD_FNA_DISTRIBUTION parameter. If this parameter is set to O the system will display a warning if no data is entered in this panel. If the parameter is set to M the system will display an error that prevents finalization of a Time & Money document if no data is entered in this panel. If the parameter is set to D the system will not alert the user at all if there is no data entered in this panel.
To add an entry to this panel you must enter the Start Date, End Date, Direct Cost, and F&A Cost for the period you are recording the Direct/F&A breakdown for. Then click the add button next to the line. The panel will calculate the total of all lines entered. The panel also displays the Obligated and Anticipated total for the Award Node you are modifying at the top of the panel so you can easily validate your breakdown. You can track the breakdown in individual nodes, or for the overall hierarchy at the 00001 level.
Note: The panel header displays which node you are editing. This defaults to the award node you entered Time & Money from. The award node being edited by the Direct/F&A Funds Distribution panel can be changed right above the Hierarchy display frame using the Go To dropdown.
Finalize the Time & Money Document
Once all the appropriate data is entered into the Time & Money document you should proof any changes by flipping the Hierarchy display type to Pending and review the information that shows in the Hierarchy panel. This view will reflect all the changes that will be made if you finalize the document and is the best way to catch any errors in advance of submission.
After you have proofed your work press the submit button to finalize your Time & Money document and apply your changes to your Award Hierarchy.
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