GRANT MANAGEMENT

The upcoming programs release for June (scheduled for the evening of 6/27/2013) includes extensive enhancements for Grant Management. ?_These enhancements are predicated on the use of the existing Grant Identification file (that is accessed via Setup, Financial Reporting) in the Financial Management module. ?_Once Grant Identifications are created, they can be assigned on an individual basis to expenditure and revenue account codes or in mass (using new reports that are dynamic to your organization’s expenditure and revenue account code structure). Grant Management is a standard feature of OpenRDA for Enterprise customers. ?_It is an optional software bundle for OpenRDA 101 customers.
Grants (especially federal grants) frequently cross fiscal years (and may also be for a 15-month period, providing a three-month overlap for expending and reporting the funds). ?_A Grant Year field has been created and added to the file definitions for vouchers in the Vendor Payments module; receipts, journal entries, expenditure activity, and revenue activity in the Financial Management module; and to the pay master in the Payroll module so that the year of the grant can be indicated?_in the voucher, receipt, journal entry, or pay master.?_ This allows the activity (that is created during distribution of the records) to be in the correct fiscal year so that OpenRDA’s fund accounting isn’t compromised while allowing the activity to also reflect the correct grant year for reporting purposes.
When adding a voucher (whether direct, from a PO, or recurring), the grant year will automatically (and initially) default to the selected fiscal year when the expenditure (or revenue account) has an assigned grant identification. ?_You will then be able to change the Grant Year as needed. ?_Should you have two vouchers using the same expenditure account (or revenue account) code for which two different grant years are assigned, separate activity will create in Financial Management when the vouchers are distributed. ?_Adding receipts and journal entries (as well as applying recurring receipts and/or journal entries) use the same concept. ?_
Implementation in Payroll had to be done differently to avoid the necessity of constant changing of job and/or position accounts. Additionally, display of grant year in payroll is controlled by a new generic setup variable (on the Flags tab). When this flag is on (checked), the grant year field will display in the Pay Master Maintain Screen (as well as when creating a pay identification). When you elect to Display Grant Year, the fiscal year that initially defaults for the pay master will also default for the grant year but can be changed to a different grant year. ?_When a payroll is distributed, the activity that results from the distribution process will include the grant year (from the pay master) for expenditure accounts that have an assigned grant identification. ?_The payroll distribution report will list the grant year to the right of the account code on the totals line should you need to use journal entries to reclassify some of the expense to a different grant year. When feasible (i.e., different employees are involved), you may wish to create separate pay identifications for separate grant years. ?_Otherwise, journal entries can be made as mentioned in the previous paragraph.
The various activity reports, journal entry reports, and receipt reports?_in Financial Management?_and the voucher reports in Vendor Payments have been modified to allow ranging on Grant Year (as well as Grant Identification). ?_Additionally, grant year and grant identification have been added?_to maintain, define list, and search browse screens (for expenditure and revenue activity, journal entries, receipts, and vouchers). ?_Future programs releases may include additional reports (for sorting and totaling by grant identification and grant year).
Expense and revenue that has already occurred for a particular grant year can be reclassified via journal entries (if desired and if the associated fiscal year is still active/open).
As always, your comments are appreciated.