Accounts

Budgeting is a complex activity best managed with your Business Services or Research Support representative. Please see below for an overview of the process.

Budgeting at ASU is a set of activities, conducted annually, to establish spending limits and authority for the various accounts across the university.  Budgeting at ASU is done for a fiscal year, which begins on July 1 and ends on June 30 the following year.  A budget that is referred to as “FY19-20”, or, more commonly, “FY20,” indicates that the budget year starts on July 1, 2019 and ends on June 30, 2020.

The Associate Vice President for Planning and Budget is responsible for ASU’s overall budget process, but college and department employees contribute to this process by planning and entering budget information at regular intervals, including the annual budget preparation as well as quarterly forecast updates.  Most commonly, the annual and quarterly budget forecasts are developed through communication between the Edson Business Services office and the department account manager responsible for the accounts/budget for that area.

ASU issues instructions and other information regarding budget development.

Certain basic information regarding budgeting include:

• ERE rates – these are costs associated with salaries and wages that are paid to employees.  The specific cost varies and is based on the kind of employee.  Costs are calculated against the total amount of personnel expenses for each employee category.
• Internal ASU fees – these are additional costs that can be found on various ASU accounts.  The most common include the Administrative Services Charge (ASC) and the Risk Management Insurance Assessment and Technology Fee.  These internal costs are often referred to as “overhead” and are how ASU recoups funds to pay for certain university-wide services, such as facilities, human resources, campus security, insurance, technology improvements, purchasing and financial services, and other general administrative activities.

ERE and other internal rates

Budgeting for grants and sponsored projects is managed project-by-project according to sponsor requirements. Your assigned pre-award contact is your best resource for submission budget planning and the post award team is your best resource for managing your budget after award. Both pre and post award teams are happy to draft budgets, explore options and answer questions. 

Depending on the project and sponsor requirements, each budget i s different. There are,however, a few costs that remain the same or must be included in each sponsored/grant budget. Links included below for reference.

ERE (aka fringe benefits)

Tuition remission

Indirect costs (aka Facilities & Administrative costs (F&A))

Your Research Support team knows budgeting for submissions, awards and everything in between and will work with you to create a budget for your project form the ground up. To schedule a meeting, ask a question or get additional information, please contact us at CONHIresearch@asu.edu.

Petty cash or cash funds are small amounts of cash held by a department to pay for low dollar, incidental expenses when another form of payment (procurement card, purchase order, check) is not appropriate or expedient, or to give change to customers when they are paying for goods or services.

The amount of a petty cash fund should be limited to the smallest possible amount necessary that permits efficient used of the cash fund, normally $50 to $100.  The petty cash fund should be kept to a minimum, as excessive balances lead to unnecessary risks of loss.  Each petty cash fund is kept by a fund custodian who has sole responsibility for the security of the cash and related documents.  

Petty cash funds are established by completing the Application for Petty Cash Fund – State & Local Area Orgs. Be sure to read policy FIN 403: Petty Cash Funds for State and Local Accounts for complete information.

As outlined in FIN 420-04: Payment of Awards or Incentives, the university permits small dollar awards and incentives to recognize faculty, staff, students, or others not directly affiliated with the university.  The use of small dollar incentives or prizes to increase participation in university events or to increase student or employee morale can also be an effective means to build a sense of community within the university.  Awards and incentives (monetary and nonmonetary) to employees, students, and ASU guests are subject to approval and may be subject to tax reporting requirements.

Your Research Support representative can assist you with the expense advance process including appropriate paperwork, approvals and account set up if needed.

The gifting of public funds is prohibited by university policy as well as Arizona Revised Statutes (A.R.S.). University funds cannot be used to provide gifts to employees for occasions of a personal nature such as weddings, holidays, or birthdays.  Additionally, use of sponsored or other restricted (e.g., gift) accounts requires pre-approval from the Office of Research and Sponsored Projects Administration or Financial Services respectively. These types of expenses are usually not allowable on a sponsored account.

Note:  Student, faculty, and staff incentives differ from research incentive payments. For more information on research incentive payments refer to FIN 421-05: Human Subject Payments.

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Financial transactions and documentation should be reconciled on a regular basis to ensure the accuracy of those transactions and to provide a record for audit purposes.  ASU has outlined best practices for the various kinds of financial transactions, including recommendations for reconciliation.  Specifics can be found at https://cfo.asu.edu/best-practices.

Fiscal management officially rests with the department director, chair or org manager. Account management, however, is often the responsibility of specific administrative staff, who report on the status of departmental accounts on a monthly basis to the director, chair or org manager. Departments are responsible for reconciling accounts, or proving and documenting that an account balance is correct, at least once a month for the previous month’s activity.

The required reconciliation roles are preparer and approver. The preparer should have familiarity with routine transactions for a department’s accounts. Preparers are normally administrative staff who handle a department’s day-to-day fiscal responsibilities. Approvers are normally the administrative staff who report on the status of departmental accounts on a monthly basis to the director, chair or org manager. Departments with limited staff that do not have a preparer and an approver should consult with their Dean’s office or vice presidential financial administrators to identify how to appropriately handle these roles.

If you have any questions on account, HR, p-card or any other reconciliation topic, please contact your CONHI business office liaison.

The ASU Foundation is a separate entity from Arizona State University. The Foundation is a private, nonprofit organization that raises and invests private contributions for the University. The Foundation manages individual donations and major gifts. Funds raised by the Foundation can be used by the respective ASU units for projects and activities in accordance with donor intent.

Every Foundation account number is made up of eight digits. The first three digits represent the fund of the account:

200 - ASUF Quasi Endowment

240 - ASU Quasi Endowment

300 - Spendable Gift Account

350 - Non Gift Account

400 - ASUF Endowment

700 - ASUF Endowment Spending

The last five digits on spending accounts for endowments are consistent (e.g. 40001234 and 70001234)

 All gifts subject to a 5% fee

A restricted accounts is a type of local account that is restricted for a specified purpose, usually indicated in the documentation or agreement used when the account is first created.  These accounts usually have the number 9 as the third digit in the agency org account structure.

Scholarships are managed by the Scholarship Office at ASU. However, CONHI employees are involved in approving the individual scholarship awards and transferring funding to a student’s account.  The approval process is managed by CONHI scholarship committees, who review and approve awards for individual students.  These awards are based on actual and expected availability of funds, which can fluctuate from year to year.

When the scholarships awards are approved, the CONHI Business/Research office transfers funding for the scholarship award from a Foundation account into a special account called an “item type” at the Scholarship office, which then disburses funds to the student.