Published on 27 November 2014
X5 Training
The Research Operations Office are offering X5 training and would like to invite departmental staff who are required to generate costings for their departments to attend one of these events. The content will include; using the Project Wizard to generate a costing, adding staff and non-staff costs, the differences between copying to a draft or new record, printing reports and other essential knowledge required to produce an accurate costing.
Venue: All training will be held at 17 Mill Lane – UIS Computer Room
Time: 09h30 to 13h00
Dates: Monday 9 February 2015
Wednesday 18 February 2015
Monday 9 March 2015
Wednesday 18 March 2015
Monday 13 April 2015
Wednesday 22 April 2015
Monday 11 May 2015
Wednesday 20 May 2015
Delegates: 9 available places for each session
Prerequisite: Must have attended a Full Economic Costing (fEC) / Income Allocation Policy (IAP) Seminar during the last 3 years. Next fEC/IAP seminars are 12 February & 24 March 2015, 9.30-11am in 16 Mill Lane.
To book a place at one of the X5 sessions or if you have any queries, please email Debbie.West-Lewis@admin.cam.ac.uk with “X5 Training Session” in the subject heading of your email.
To book a place at one of the fEC / IAP seminars, please e-mail Anna.Barham@admin.cam.ac.uk with “fEC & IAP Seminar” in the subject heading of your email.
Places will be allocated on a first come – first served basis.
X5 Updates
1. The New Funder Form has been updated with an additional funder budget heading and is available here.
2. A new line has been added to the warnings section (p6) of the Validation Guide and is available here.
3. UIS are planning an upgrade of the X5 system during 2015 and in preparation for this are requesting that users review their My Tasks section (i.e items in the workflow requiring attention) and action as appropriate.
Research Grants User Group Meeting - 11 December 2014
RGUG is a forum led by the Research Operations Office where research grant administration issues and developments are discussed. The next RGUG meeting will take place on Thursday 11 December 9:30am - 11:00am in Room 4, Mill Lane Lecture Rooms and is open to anyone with an interest in grants administration. The agenda for the meeting is available here.
Interim Financial Reporting
Further to the RGUG discussions held in March and July of this year, we would like to remind all departments that interim financial reports are based on grant expenditure claims which have been made during and up to the end of the period. This means that manual adjustments are not allowed once the Grants Module has closed for that period other than those required by auditors.
This procedure is to ensure that it is clear both centrally and in departments about what costs have been claimed in previous periods. Note that for final reporting, all eligible expenditure will be claimed.
If you have any queries please do not hesitate to contact your Research Support Advisor.
Missing or Unclear Narratives for Expenditure in CUFS
A recent internal audit has found that in some instances the narrative assigned to an expenditure item on CUFS is either missing or unclear. This has also been noticed by a number of sponsors who have conducted audits over the last two years.
Insufficient detail can cause problems for departments and auditors because it can take a long time to investigate and justify the expenditure. Therefore it is recommended that where possible, enough information is included in the comments section to ensure that an independent external body can confirm that the item is an eligible expense.
Furthermore, it is important to allocate costs in the correct cost category in CUFS. As well as assisting auditors in selecting their sample to review, it will help departments and PIs when having to justify expenses. If the cost category is not set up on your grant, please contact your Research Support Advisor who can set this up for you if applicable.
Should you have any queries please do not hesitate to contact Toni Arnott on Toni.Arnott@admin.cam.ac.uk