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General Guidelines

Projects that expire with overdrafts or outstanding encumbrances will be handled as follows:

A notification will be sent to the Principal Investigator (PI) and the accounting contact to notify them of the situation one month prior to the expiration date of the award.

A second notification will be sent to the PI if the problem still exists 30 days after the project expires.  A copy of this letter will be forwarded to his/her Dean.

A third notification will be sent to the Vice-President for Academic Affairs, if the encumbrance or overdraft has not been cleared within 30 days of the second letter.  The PI will also receive a copy of this letter.

To enable timely reporting of expenses to sponsors, all documents to charge or correct charges to sponsored projects must be received in the Grant Accounting office 30 days after the expiration date of the project.  If the PI is aware of any costs that cannot be charged within that time period, please contact the Grant Accounting office to explain the problem.  This notification will avoid preparation and submission of the report to the agency before all charges are included.

Generally, all materials and supplies must be received and services must be rendered prior to the expiration date of the project. 

Inventories of supplies or materials exceeding $1,000 remaining at the expiration date of a project must be certified as being needed on other federal projects or the awarding agency must be notified.  The Grant Accounting office should be notified if any inventory of supplies or any single item over $1,000 is on hand at the expiration date of the project.

Most projects require the submission of a final technical report.  Failure to submit this report will result in the University of Houston-Downtown not being paid for project expenses. 

An inventory of equipment is required at the close of sponsored projects.  Usually equipment purchased on grants becomes the property of UHD and will be inventoried with other departmental equipment, annually.  However, if the equipment becomes surplus to the needs of the department or is no longer being used for federal projects, Property Management Accounting should be notified.  The granting agency will be notified about property disbursement/disposal of the equipment.

Patent reports are usually required on sponsored projects.  These reports provide a listing of inventions or new technology resulting from the project.  If there has been none, a negative report should be submitted.

Departmental records are unofficial financial records with the exception of cost sharing reports, time sheets and technical reports.  The official record will be retained for three years beyond the expiration date of the project (five years on some projects)by the Grant Accounting office, the Office of Sponsored Programs and the department.

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