Article Intended For
All university faculty, staff, researchers with permission to use and/or access Penn State Research Information Systems.
Introduction
Effective 2021 September 15th newly created Internal Approval Forms (IAFs) on this date and forward include a Fabricated Equipment question for the primary investigator’s answering. The IAF enhancement is in response to an ONR audit finding. Under the University’s Corrective Action Plan, Penn State needs to ensure that it is applying consistent principles when accounting for fabricated items.
Colleges are required to complete a Fabrication Expenditure Questionnaire (FEQ) at the award stage. The Applied Research Laboratory is required to complete the FEQ at the proposal stage.
Article Body
SIMSbudgets:
To assist SIMSbudgets users while building a budget, when specific general ledgers (GLs) which are associated with fabricated equipment are selected, an informational note displays in the line item description notifying that completion of the Fabrication Expenditure Questionnaire (FEQ) is required at award stage per CR2020.
Internal Approval Form (IAF):
Fabricated Equipment question has been added to the IAF Investigators tab for the primary PI's answering.
The question/answer to the fabricated equipment question will display under the "Budget" section of the IAF Summary tab/PDF.
If a general ledger (GL) budget is linked to an IAF, the GL budget and the fabricated equipment question's answer must be in sync for the primary PI to approve the IAF. If there is an issue at the time of the primary PI attempting to approve the IAF, a message ("Please contact your research administration office. General Ledger budget and fabricated equipment answer are not in sync.") will display asking them to contact their research administration office. Primary PI cannot approve the IAF until the syncing issue is resolved.
When a primary PI approval fails due to fabricated equipment sync issue, the IAF Summary tab notes section will include an indicator note. When the sync issue is resolved, the PI approval failure note will be removed from the Summary tab notes section.
Should the primary PI change on the IAF Basic Info tab, the Fabricated Equipment question is cleared when new primary PI navigates to the IAF Investigators tab.
SIMSreports:
If fabricated equipment is indicated on the IAF linked to the award agreement, the Award Summary form completed by Central Processing Office staff will auto-populate with the answer indicated in the IAF.
Upon execution of the award agreement (New and Additional Funds Negotiation Manager Actions), award notification email identifies when a Fabrication Expenditure Questionnaire (FEQ) form must be completed and submitted to Property Inventory.
ARL:
AORs for the Applied Research Laboratory (ARL) will complete the fabricated equipment question on behalf of their personnel. The fabricated equipment question will be on the IAF Budget tab for ARL records.
Links
Award Notification Email - Fabrication Expenditure Questionnaire (FEQ)
IAF Data Entry - Investigators tab