Projects, University Research and Individual Awards and Discretionary Funds

What is the current process in Capital Projects?

Capital projects are created and tracked in FAS upon approval.  

• An integration with e-Builder allows Facilities Services to manage projects that flow into FAS for year-end accounting, reporting, and reconciliation.
• When transacting against capital projects, procurement requestors use a combination of the subledger account & subaccount to incur expenditures.
• UChicago will continue to support the integration with e-Builder to account for existing Facilities Services workflows and management processes.

Frequently Asked Questions about Capital Projects

• Within the General Ledger, all new capital projects will be identified with a specific fund in the new Chart of Accounts structure. 
• Within PPM, all new capital projects will be identified in two ways:
  • Capital projects’ numbering will be autogenerated following a combination of a 3-letter prefix + a 7-digit number. Prefixes include:
  • UCP: University Capital Project
  • SCP: Shared Construction Projects
  • UFP: University Capital Facilities Projects
  • Converted capital projects will keep legacy numbering while using the 3-letter prefix.
• All capital project records will have a project type identifier to provide additional distinction for the type of project, such as a Facilities Services construction project vs. an IT project. 

How will capital projects with multiple funding sources be managed in the new system? 

• Instead of tracking multiple funding sources for capital projects, a new fund will function as the sole “funding source” for the project.  
• This fund will be specific to the capital project and relate directly to the fund segment in the new chart of accounts structure. 
• If a capital project has multiple “true funding sources” (gifts, endowments, bonds, etc.), these amounts will be transferred into the new fund at the general ledger level. 

What is the current process in Clinical Research?

Currently, pre-award information is managed in AURA Agreements and ARTEMIS, and pre-award financial transactions are captured in FAS. When a proposal is accepted, the record in ARTEMIS is updated, and an FAS account is created.

Systems such as ACCTS, Epic, and BuySite help the University manage financial activity of clinical research. 

How will Oracle Cloud ERP affect clinical research?

Oracle Cloud ERP provides users real-time post-award financial information, including all clinical research financials. Users will be able to manage the post-award life cycle, including any modifications, as well as access current financial activity via the Orbit reporting dashboard. The tool allows researchers to filter award portfolio and administrators/leadership to a section/department/division portfolio. Both researchers and administrators will have the capacity to find transaction details.

What is changing?

• All purchases, including subawards, will be managed via requisitions and purchase orders. A subcontract requisition will be created with either one or two lines (less than or equal to $25K and greater than $25K), depending on the dollar amount of the subaward. Subawards will be managed under their own task line in POETAF for easy identification and reconciliation.

How will Payroll expenses be reflected?

• Payroll expenses for clinical research studies will not be posted to the individual trials, but instead will be posted to a general ledger program payroll account. In the future, (a) PPM will not show the full expenses incurred for clinical trials, since no labor costs will be posted to individual clinical trials. Reporting, including the Orbit PI dashboard reporting, will not show labor costs for any clinical trials.

What is the current process for individual awards and discretionary funds?

Individual awards and discretionary funds (IADF) are known by different names, such as faculty funds, and managed through different processes in today’s system. Currently, a unique FAS account is used to transact against individual awards and discretionary funds, with units relying on individual identifiers embedded within FAS accounts and offline tracking tools to support individual awards and discretionary funds. As a result, locating and analyzing individual awards and discretionary funds in conjunction with other financial data is challenging.

How will Oracle Cloud ERP affect individual awards and discretionary funds?

When the University implements Oracle Cloud ERP, all units will be required to use Oracle’s Project Portfolio Management (PPM) module to track and manage individual awards and discretionary funds. This will allow individuals to see all available funds (including grants, gifts, and individual awards, and discretionary funds) in one place. At that point, FAS account transactions will use a string of PPM fields known as POETAF to automatically flow into the general ledger chart of accounts. 

Frequently Asked Questions about IADF

What are individual awards and discretionary funds?

• IADFs are institutional funds promised to individuals (not functions, organizations, or roles), to spend at their discretion aligned with the intent and guidelines established by fund source or funder. 

What are the benefits of using Oracle to track IADFs?

• End-users will have increased clarity about commitment balances, including cross-organizational balances. These balances will be displayed on the primary investigator dashboard and contain all PPM projects and awards. Departments will also be able to see their unit’s commitments, which will facilitate multi-year resource planning and simplify efforts to stay within budget. 

What are the key differences and potential challenges of this change?

• Commitments tracked through various other systems will now be visible through one platform.
• Entering transactions may be more complex, but will contribute to robust, highly detailed reporting.
• The learning curve of users in a new system can introduce processing delays as they are trained and become comfortable with the new system.

What is the current process for University Research Administration?

The University captures pre-award information in AURA Grants. Once a proposal is awarded, the record in AURA Grants is updated, and an FAS account number is created. Costs are recorded in systems such as Workday, BuySite, and ACCTS, which integrate with FAS. The invoicing process is then completed offline. Receivable items are neither created nor tracked in FAS, so no real-time accounts receivable aging is generated. Updates to financial activity occur weekly.

How will Oracle Cloud ERP affect University Research Administration?

When the University implements Oracle Cloud ERP, proposal information will continue to be captured in AURA Grants. Once a proposal is awarded, the AURA record will be updated and push information to Oracle Cloud ERP. All sponsored-award financial activity will exist in the Project Portfolio Management (PPM) Module, allowing users to have comprehensive real-time post-award financial information.

• Expenses originating from within Oracle or from third-party systems will post to sponsored projects (equivalent to one or more FAS accounts in the current system). 
• Invoicing will occur in Oracle using the Accounts Receivable module to create and track receivable items. Invoices will exist online for future reference. 
• Revenue entries will be systematically generated from either collected costs or fixed fee invoices. 
• Sponsor receipts will be entered in Oracle Cloud ERP and applied against the invoices loaded into Accounts Receivable, allowing for the generation of a real-time AR aging report. 
• Financial updates will occur nightly, with the possibility more frequent updates. 

Users will have access to current financial activity via easy-to-use dashboard reporting. Researchers will be able to select an award portfolio, and administrators/leadership can find their section/department/division portfolio. Both researchers and administrators will have the capacity to find transaction details.

What is changing?

•   University research will be set up using the Oracle Grants Management structure.
  • Award – An Award is the umbrella record for all demographic and financial information, identifying specific funding sources and funding amounts, and uniting the contract and project(s).
    • Synonymous with “Award” is a Contract. A Contract is the record that governs processing sponsor invoices and revenue accounting according to configured methods and controls.
  • Project—A project is equivalent to one or more FAS accounts in the current system. It contains financial information at a more granular level of detail than the award. A project identifies primary investigators, departments, Finance and Administration rates, or other categories, such as restricted carry forward/supplement funding year, program income, special sponsor reporting, requirements, etc. 
  • Task—A task reflects the most granular level of detail within a project. It exists to differentiate PI-controllable expenses from non-controllable expenses (e.g., subawards, participant support). 

How will grants be structured in Oracle?