Transaction controls

So we've talked about funds checking, and as I mentioned to

you, it not only checks for the
actual funds, which is known as

budget control, but it also checks to see whether what

we call transaction controls
actually also pass muster. So

these with these transaction controls you will get an exception [error]. In other

words, a funds check failure for a number of reasons, and they are

listed here on this slide. So either the Project and the Award

doesn't exist. The project, or the Award isn't active. The

date falls outside of the
project dates.

The expenses type is invalid.
The award doesn't correspond to

the project number. In other
words, you've got mixed up

between your award and your project  number  - they won't work here as

they're not actually linked, and employee might not be active in

the HR table yet and you're trying to pay them.

So these are some of the
reasons that you might find

coming through on your
exception reports, and then

you'll know that it's actually a transaction control 

speaking to you. If it says insufficient funds, then it's

a budget control speaking to
you.

So you need to be able to go and
check on what these controls are

and you will need to either run your Award status or

your Project status enquiry, or, as I said, you can run a report

if you want to.

And just bear in mind that the Project status

and Award status reports are only updated overnight.

So. The types of budget
controls that you might have

are Absolute, Advisory, or none. Absolute, as the name

implies, means that you may
not spend 1 penny more than

whatever the limit has been
set at.

Advisory on the other hand,
means that it's a warning. This

is what was budgeted for, but
you can still actually spend

more than what you budgeted for. So, in other words, you can

what we call "vire", that is you can move between the budgetary groups

wherever the budget is set, as
long as it doesn't ever go over

the whole amount of the award,
and then occasionally you'll

find that the budget control is set to None. Typically it will

be set at None for your resources.

Those are the actual bottom [most granular] level of your spend when

you buy anything. Another words

specifically, you can have a resource group, which may be your

Travel and Subsistence, and then you will have a resource which

is Travel and Subsistence Local or Travel and Subsistence

Airfare. So it's the actual breakdown and as I said, that's

usually where you'll spend
occurs, and that will typically

be None. The budget is done at a higher level, i.e. at the actual

resource group level.

You will find that these budget controls can be set at Award

level so that is at the very highest level and and typically you

would expect your Award to be set at Absolute, because obviously

you can't spend more than your
funder has given you to spend.

Unless you get extra budget added along the way! It might

be set at a project level which you can't actually see, if

you're looking at your Award status. Then you've got your task level,

which means that it's set at the [various] tasks. It could be set 

at [any number]. You could have budgets set for task 1, task 2, task 100, or whatever

however many tasks you've got.

So you need to be able to go in and check that and the last 

level it might be set at, is your Research Group level.

So the first thing that one
would typically do is check to

see whether there's funds

available. And then you would just do a simple Award

status enquiry or project status enquiry and just see how much

budget you've got left to spend.
And if it's pulling through a

decent amount, that should cover what you

trying to spend and you're still
getting some sort of funds check

failure, then you know you need to dig deeper and this is where

you would actually go in and check your budget, i.e. what your

budget control is set at. You need to go into, if you're using

the Award status. You'll need to go into the Award Status Award enquiry,

And find the budget control tab.

OK, and that's where you're going to find it, and if you're

not sure about that, it's
covered in grants 3 and you can

also obviously access our Grants 3 manual if you need to

check it. [Available] from the website.

So what would you do if they are

no funds? You can obviously check if it's coded correctly.

You can move budget from one resource group to another if

it's Advisory.

You need to check your commitments. Remember that 

if you've got you anything that is a commitment, it's

actually holding your budget in
there, so you can't spend it,

and you'll need to do that from the Procurement module. Run an

Open PO report and just check your inquiry, sorry, your commitments

and get rid of them if in fact they are not necessary, or

you find that the invoice has been paid but not matched, and

then you still need to get rid

of the iProcument commitment.

If you know that you got more
money coming in, you might be

able to ask the Research Operations Office to lift the

budget control just until/while the money comes in.

Otherwise, you need to go back

to you PI and actually get them to find some other

sources of money, or else, obviously your final option is

not to buy it at all. So this is the end of Section 2.

Section 3 covers the Tools Transfer function in the

grants module.