Published March 11, 2022
As discussed at the Research Administrator Forum on March 10, 2022, and several Bi-weekly Workday Grant Issues calls, Sponsored Projects Accounting (SPA) will be initiating a Pilot related to transaction approvals that receive a Budget Check warning message. The designed functionality in Workday will generate this message when the free balance in the related Object Class is insufficient or does not exist in relation to the amount of the proposed transaction.
Since the implementation of Workday, SPA has been running additional reports for transactions with Budget Check warnings to determine if the grant has sufficient free balance in other object classes to cover the proposed transaction. The additional procedures that SPA has been applying for insufficient free balances across all Object Classes (including salary, stipends and fringe benefits) have negatively impacted approval timing, invoicing and reporting. Now that we are eight months past implementation, we need to move forward and use the Budget Check functionality as designed.
As a first step in moving in that direction, the Pilot noted below will run from March 18, 2022, through March 25, 2022. The goal of the Pilot is to determine the effect it will have on the percentage of transactions that are disapproved by SPA. Transactions are currently disapproved by SPA for a variety of reasons (e.g., unallowable costs, cost incurred after end date, insufficient justification/documentation, insufficient budget…). The disapproval rate for SPA transactions was approximately 9% over the last two weeks. Noted below is a description of the Pilot.
Pilot – SPA Transaction Approvals:
- SPA will disapprove transactions that receive a Budget Check warning message
- The transaction will be routed back to Grant Cost Center Manager (or other designated individual in the department) so that a Budget Adjustment can be processed to ensure sufficient free balance to cover the transaction. Once the department has processed a BA, they should add a note in the Comment section that the BA has been processed, include the BA #, and then re-approve the transaction so it routes back to SPA.
- If the grant is on Project Advance, the Comment section should include a note regarding that status so that SPA can continue the approval process.
- SPA will report back the disapproval rate during this time period during Bi-weekly Workday Grant Issue call on April 5, 2022.
- See this training video on submitting a budget amendment.
In conjunction with the Pilot noted above, a new Workday report has been created to identify object classes on grants that have a negative free balance, RPT6845 – WU Grants in Overdraft by Object Class. Via the Organization filter on the report, you can run it for CH, CC, GX, GR. SPA recommends the departments utilize this new report to identify, adjust and resolve the negative free balances (including salaries, stipends and fringe benefits), as necessary for their grants.
Please contact Joe Gindhart (jgindhart@wustl.edu) if you have any questions about this material.