ӰԺ receives funds from Federal and non-Federal sources as support for sponsored awards. There are legitimate instances when a Principal Investigator (PI) will need to incur costs associated with a sponsored award prior to official Notice of Award (NOA) receipt. Federal sponsors usually permit charges for up to 90 days before the start date and many industry sponsored clinical trials allow for start-up costs.
A pre-award start date can be in advance of the expected award start date if permitted by the award sponsor. All costs incurred on a pre-award account must be charged in accordance with the sponsoring agency agreement and/or guidelines. Rather than charging these expenses to an account not associated with the award and then having to process cost transfers after the award is officially accepted, the department can request a pre-award account to be set up by the Office of Sponsored Programs. eBridge should be used to request a pre-award account for awards with Funding Proposals (FPs) in the system. If eBridge will not be used for the award, the Pre-Award Account Establishment Form found on the Sponsored Programs Forms page, should be completed and sent to preawards@mcw.edu.
As pre-award accounts and their associated costs can put ӰԺ at risk, the requesting PI/Department will be required to identify an alternate (unsponsored) funding source that has adequate funds to cover pre-award costs if problems arise with the funding of the official award prior to Sponsored Program’s approval of a pre-award account. PIs are responsible for ensuring that all costs incurred before the award is officially received are charged correctly to the pre-award account. The pre-award account will continue to be used for charging allowable expenses once the award is made.