Monitoring and Reporting
Monitoring and Reporting
Subrecipient Monitoring
Federal funding agencies require that institutions working on subawards under Harvard prime awards follow all the rules and regulations that would apply if the award had been issued to them directly. Additionally, as the recipient of the prime award, Harvard holds the responsibility for ensuring compliance with those regulations. The Harvard subrecipient monitoring policy provides guidelines for this process.
Requirements
The policy outlines two primary responsibilities:
- Audit Compliance Monitoring: Ensure that the subrecipient institution complies with the audit requirements under the Uniform Guidance (2 CFR 200), specifically §200.331.
- Performance and Financial Monitoring: Ensure that the subrecipient is appropriately managing the subaward. This responsibility primarily falls to the Principal Investigator (PI), who should:
- Routinely gather and review Technical Performance Reports
- Review invoices and expenses to ensure alignment with the approved budget
- Conduct periodic on-site visits, when appropriate
- Initiate audits, if warranted by risk or concern
Committee
The FAS Subrecipient Monitoring Committee assists the Harvard research community in complying with federal and University requirements by:
- Offering feedback on subrecipient monitoring plans upon request
- Creating tools and guidance to support risk assessment and ongoing monitoring
- Providing education and outreach related to monitoring responsibilities
- Engaging in collaborative problem-solving
- Escalating concerns about subrecipient performance or compliance to the University-wide committee
Resources
Reporting
The reporting of programmatic and financial information to the sponsor may be required based on the terms and conditions of the award. The timely and accurate submission of these reports ensures compliance with sponsor requirements.
Financial Reports
The Office for Sponsored Programs (OSP), as the central financial administration office for all of Harvard’s sponsored awards, reviews, approves, and signs all invoices and financial reports on behalf of the President and Fellows of Harvard College.
Non-Financial Reports
The PI is responsible for the submission of all technical reports required under the terms of an award in the form required by the sponsor. Failure on the part of the PI to deliver any required technical reports or deliverables to the sponsor in a timely manner may affect the collection of funds for the project and future funding from that sponsor to the University.
The submission of an annual and/or a final technical report is often tied to the release of future funding. Technical reports may include:
- Annual Progress Report
- Final Technical Report
- Equipment Reports
- Patent and Invention Reports
Interest Income on Non-Federal Sponsored Funds
The University pays interest on a monthly basis on balances in non-federal grants and exchange accounts. Interest income is credited only to the main account, even for awards with multiple part-of accounts. The income may be used for project-related expenses during the life of the award and often for general expenses after the project ends.
Over Expenditures Guidance
Principal Investigators are responsible for managing expenditures on their grants and for working with administrators to project sponsored accounts and ensure that over-expenditures do not occur. If deficits are projected the PI must discuss them with the head administrator of his or her department. If a research portfolio has a projected deficit that cannot be resolved within sixty days the PI must submit a written plan for deficit reduction.
If a remediation plan will not remove a deficit, FAS Finance, the Divisional Dean, and FORA must be alerted immediately. Overspent funds are an audit risk because they suggest a problem with our accounting practices. Transferring costs to other accounts causes a great deal of extra work for administrators and researchers alike, especially when personnel charges are not corrected in a timely manner.
Finally, over-expenditures have serious financial implications for the FAS because non-sponsored funds must usually cover sponsored project deficits.
Companion Accounts
All committed cost sharing should be tracked using companion accounts, which are created by matching the Activity, Sub-activity, and Root segments of the sponsored account code and the Fund segment of the non-sponsored account that provides the cost sharing.
Request and Support
To begin charging to a companion account, please make a request to FAS Finance Security and Chart of Accounts Administration (APPSEC). Contact APPSEC if you experience any problems charging to a companion account string.
Cost Sharing
If faculty effort is being cost shared, FAS Finance will assist with a journal transfer from core funds to the companion activity (the cost sharing account tied to the sponsored award). This should be done in advance of each certification period using SPECTRA, which is the system of record used to initiate and route the journal entries. Please refer to budget preparation to learn more about cost sharing.
Systems and Tools
The FAS and University systems and tools below support proper monitoring and reporting of sponsored funds.
FAS Systems
Aurora is an FAS system that facilitates staff, temp/LHT, TF/TA, faculty and other appointment processes.
- Aurora Look-up and Reporting (FAS) Training: This ASAP Training class will cover how navigate and customize views in Aurora, how to search on and process a few available actions, and how to best use Aurora Reporting, the tool's interactive reporting functionality.
- Aurora Knowledge Center: Aurora Knowledge Center is where you will find helpful information to guide you in using Aurora. Many pages include links to downloadable User Guides.
- System Access: Use this form to request/change access to Aurora.
For general inquiries, email the System Access team at: appsec@fas.harvard.edu
SPECTRA is administered by the FAS Office of Finance. According to Harvard’s Effort Reporting Policy, University faculty are expected to certify their time to sponsored awards commensurate with the committed effort expended on activities they perform. Payroll charges to sponsored awards, and cost sharing recorded for faculty, serve as the initial data points for the University’s effort reporting system. See additional SPECTRA guidance here.
University Systems
Effort Certification and Reporting (eCRT) is a web based tool to facilitate the effort certification and reporting process. eCRT supports the Annual Faculty Effort Certifications and Quarterly Project Effort Certifications.
Buy2Pay eProcurement is an online tool which powers Harvard’s electronic solution for the end-to-end procurement process. The eProcurement system enables departments to buy what they need quickly, securely, and cost-effectively from established punch-out suppliers, catalog vendors, or non-catalog suppliers using purchase orders. The system also provides a mechanism for paying suppliers via payment request for reimbursements or other after-the-fact payments. Since the system is online, the eProcurement tool eliminates the need to collect, manage, and store paper documents in departments and provides greater workflow transparency and order status updates to departments and suppliers.
Forms that may be required for purchases include:
- Decision Table for Vendor Justification and Debarment Forms
- Vendor Justification Form - Harvard University requires vendor/supplier selection justification and price verification for orders > $50,000 purchased with Federal funds (100000-199999 fund range). Purchases made with cost-share funds or journaled onto Federal funds must also meet these requirements.
- Debarment Certification - A signed Debarment Certification Form is required for contract purchases ≥ $35,000 subject to Federal Acquisition Regulations, or debarment language must be included in the contract before Harvard makes a purchase commitment.
- Buy-to-Pay Resources
Concur is the University system for processing employee expense reimbursements (travel, corporate card). For University Resources on Concur, including Concur mobile application downloads, visit the Harvard Travel Services Concur homepage. For FAS Specific Concur user guides and Job Aids, visit FAS Concur Resources & Job Aids.
Grants Management Application Suite (GMAS) is the University's system of record for proposals, awards, financials, and documentation related to sponsored projects. Supports the end-to-end grant life cycle process.
PeopleSoft is the University system to manage and track all aspects of human resources, benefits and payroll including time entry and time approval.
PI Dashboard is a post-award management system that provides financial reporting and projection tools for Harvard's research community with both sponsored and non-sponsored funds. It provides summary information and also allows users to create and save projections, monitor spending, print reports, and manage a PIs full portfolio of funding. It is a pull and display system which means it pulls data from the data warehouse and displays the information in a way that is useful to the user. It does not “push” information to any other systems.
Reports Available in PI Dashboard:
The dashboard’s user interface can be used to access key data points like balances and projected balances on accounts, account end dates, details about spending, fringe rates and object codes, and more. The dashboard also has several downloadable reports:
- Account report which includes actuals vs. budget for the life of an account and can include projections
- Multi-Account report which is a single workbook that includes the 'Totals by month' tab (from the account report) for each account in the root.
- Root report which is a multi-tab report that gives you a wealth of information on all the PIs accounts.
- Multi-Root report which is a root report that can be run to include accounts from multiple roots/PIs.
- Personnel Plan Report which has a costing distribution view of personnel on the root. The workbook includes a list of personnel by person and by account. Current and projected costings (along with projected account balance in direct cost) are included.
- Admin report which can list all the accounts in your portfolio including start and end dates, account strings and balances.
Dashboard Help or Training: Need assistance, user training, or help resolving any issues? We're here to support you—reach out with questions or problems anytime.