Each month, Janice will circulate a report listing all the expense charges that have hit Diego’s funds in the past month. Each RA reviews it to make sure all of their spending is listed correctly.  Here are the things to check for:

1. Are there any expenses that we don’t recognize? When you are the primary RA for a project, review every charge against that project to make sure they make sense because some other group might have charged our funds by mistake.
2. Did any expenses get charged to the wrong project within our lab? We might have charged something incorrectly.
3. Are there any expenses that didn’t show up when you expected them? Maybe it was charged to another lab by mistake and we need to find out quickly. Or, maybe the finance group didn’t send the check yet and the vendor will call us to complain.
4. Are the amounts correct?

It’s very important that any corrections or transfers are completed by the end of the month, so let Janice know if you see any.

Transferring between Funds

Janice is able to transfer a charge between funds within a certain time frame, so it’s critical to let her know as soon as possible when you notice a mistake. It’s extremely difficult to make a correction to a Federally funded grant such as an R01 or K23 if it’s not done right away.

Sometimes you will use a different fund on purpose. For example, not every project has its own credit card, so a Craig’s List ad for those studies would use the Sundry card.  A second example would be when you want to split the cost between two projects (e.g. 50% to RDoC and 50% to ELS).  A third example is for a new project that doesn’t have a fund number yet.

In these cases, let Janice know in advance that the charge will need to be transferred.   Always use a sundry fund as the temporary source, because it is much harder to transfer an expense if it was made to an NIH grant. because these changes are audited by the NIH and extra documentation may be needed.