Overview

Some NYS agencies do not receive Federal Grant Award Documents (GAD) from the Federal government at the start of the grant period. However, agencies may have a programmatic need to spend against an award prior to receiving the GAD.

Pre-Award Project Setup

For these specific situations, the agency can establish pre-award projects for awards that agencies receive on an ongoing basis (e.g. annually, quarterly allocation, see: Chapter XIX.2 Project Costing - Establishing a Project of this Guide for guidance on establishing a project. These projects will accumulate costs until the GAD is received.
 
Any such need for establishing a pre-award project, should be clearly demonstrated to OSC on the AC-3286-P and attached to the project upon setup. This form makes reference to prior year awards to demonstrate the ongoing federal funding. Agencies should also provide an expected timeline for receipt of the new award.

Upon creation of the project, agencies can create and post project child budget journals. For more detailed information about the project budget process, see Chapter VI, Section 5 - Project Budgets.

Agencies should only spend legitimate federally reimbursable charges to federal funds and pre-award projects. Under no circumstances should agencies be using federal funds and pre-award projects for any charges not specific to the specific federal program for which the pre-award project is intended to represent.
 

Monitoring Pre-Award Project Spending

OSC will be monitoring SFS for federal spending on projects without a Customer Contract/Federal Grant Award attached.

Additionally, it is the responsibility of the agency to monitor pre-award spending to ensure all charges are appropriate and billable once the GAD is received. The agency should email [email protected] to inform them that a contract has been created for an existing pre-award. The following public queries are available in SFS for agency pre award monitoring:

NY_PC_QRY_PREAWD_PRJ_ACTIVITY

Contact your agency's ASA to acquire the proper security roles if you are unable to view or run these queries.

Grant Award Document Received

Upon receiving the GAD, agencies should immediately reconcile any automated FBIC charges to ensure compliance with Grant Regulations. Any adjustments should be made prior to requesting OSC to link the project to a contract and award. Any updates to waivers or redirects to ensure future charges are consistent with GAD rules and regulations should also be made.

Once the GAD is received and the agency has ensured only federally reimbursable costs remain on the project, they should establish a customer contract via the Federal Grant Request Guide (Section 3 of this chapter Establish & Maintain Federal Grants in SFS for Non-Onboarding Agencies) and link it to the existing pre-award Project ID. The contract will automatically be routed to OSC for approval. Upon approval, accumulated costs will then be submitted to the Billing Module and be available for draw in accordance with Federal reimbursement regulations.

An email to OSC BSAO ([email protected]) should also be sent to let BSAO know that this contract is being linked to a pre-award project. It is essential that the pre-award Project ID previously created be communicated to OSC to ensure all costs are accounted for on the Grant and ultimately reimbursed.

If the award is cash managed by OSC, any charges made to the project will be drawn upon linking to the contract and award and BSAO manually running an SFS Pricing job to bill the previously collected costs.

All pre-award projects must be associated to a contract and grant record in SFS by the end of the state fiscal year. It is the responsibility of the agency to ensure that the request to approve the customer contract and grant records in SFS be submitted to OSC timely to ensure compliance with this policy.

If the anticipated Federal Award does not materialize, all charges must be moved to a state funded source, or another federal award if acceptable, immediately. Under no circumstances can non-federally reimbursable costs remain in a Federal Fund.

Guide to Financial Operations

REV. 05/09/2023