Administration of external funding

Project creation, documentation and filing

Entry of grant budget in financial management system

The department’s/school’s or faculty’s project finance administrator must enter the budget and expected instalments of payments for each project in the financial management system, Navision.

The budget can be entered as soon as the Projects unit has given the project a case number.

The budget is entered in accordance with the budget submitted at the time of creation and in agreement with the grant recipient. The budget must be distributed throughout the entire project period in relation to the best estimate on when costs must be paid.

The budget must be divided into:

  • Salary – budgeted for either as resource number or financial accounts for salary
  • Operations – budget to be entered in accordance with expected spending
  • Overheads – if there is any OH on the case, OH is calculated and budgeted for
  • Equipment – will be incorporated as budget depreciation and amortisation and any scrap value
  • In connection with accrual and contract lines, refer to local guidelines
  • Grant portions forwarded to partners are budgeted for in financial accounts 934160 and 934161


The budget is adjusted continuously, and as a minimum in connection with the compulsory follow-up with the project owner twice a year.


For further legislative information, please see below:

Ongoing grant administration and grant follow-up

  • The grant recipient is responsible for the overall use of the grant, and together with the project finance administrator, responsible for ongoing project follow-up.
     

  • Administration and follow-up for the grant recipient ant project finance administrator

    • Administration and follow-up for the grant recipient ant project finance administrator

    • Biannual review of external grants with the project finance administrator, including a report on the project budget and any changes thereto. The project finance administrator files the project manager’s approval of the budgets.

    • Ensure that costs incurred relate to the project in question and comply with any special grant conditions as well as the approved budget. Moreover, notification should be given of any planned acquisitions in excess of DKK 100,000 for the project with a view to their inclusion in the university’s investment budget as well as registration as a fixed asset. See Fixed asset registration (in Danish).

    • Ensuring documentation of time consumption for project staff, if this is required under the terms of the grant conditions. Inspiration can be found in the rules concerning EU framework programme projects. When using electronic time records (Promark), these lists must be submitted as documentation.

    • Make sure that academic and financial reports, including any revised budgets, are sent to the grant giver to ensure compliance with the terms of the grant. Financial reports for EU framework programme projects must be signed by the Research Support Office (FSE).

    • Report the project’s publishing results via PURE.

      Specifically for the project finance administrator, the following applies:

    • Ensure that payment requests for funding are issued on time. For further information, see the “Procedure for issuing payment requests for external funding" (in Danish). Issuing payment requests in respect to grants from Aarhus University Research Foundation (AUFF) must only take place via internal invoice, as this is arranged centrally between the Projects unit in Financial Control and AUFF.

    • Ensure that there is no overspending in relation to the total budget or that a loss will be neutralised.

    • Regularly assess whether there are any projects where provisions should be made for losses. A request for provisions to be made for losses should be sent to Financial Control.
       

  • Administration og follow-up in Financial Control

    • Administration og follow-up in Financial Control

      Financial Control carries out the following project follow-up of projects, which does not, however, release the project owner, head of department/head of school or dean from primary responsibility:

    • Submits a control list twice yearly to the Finance Centres containing DFS 4 and DFS 5 projects which:

      1. have a deficit: projects with negative balance greater than DKK 100,000
      2. are inactive: projects without financial movement for at least 12 months
      3. have exceeded the expected end date by more than 3 months
      4. have spent more funding than is available for the project
       

    • Submits a control list twice yearly for the ongoing control of DFS 2 projects. The purpose is to ensure that there is an ongoing registration of revenues and costs in the form of salary, other costs and overheads. Furthermore, the master data is checked. In order to ensure that the checks cover all DFS 2 projects, the checks also include completed projects because a DFS 2 project can be created and completed between the issuance of two control lists.

      The data is stored on a shared drive.

      Carries out an assessment of provisions in collaboration with the Accounts Receivable unit – contacting project finance administrators and finance managers for the faculties to establish whether there are projects where provisions should be made for losses, and assessing material forwarded in this respect.

      Carries out overall reconciliation for all external projects to the case file module on a quarterly basis.
       

  • Administration and follow-up for the Research Support Office

    • Administration and follow-up for the Research Support Office

      The Research Support Office has the following roles in connection with EU framework programme projects:

    • Approving and signing electronic contract preparation documents

    • Approving and signing financial reporting (financial statement and various other forms)

    • Receiving and checking EU audit folders from the project finance administrators for the faculties, and ensuring contact with institutional auditors.
       

  • Administration and follow-up for the department/school

    • Administration and follow-up for the department/school

      As far as the head of department/head of school is concerned, attention should be drawn to the following responsibilities in particular:

    • Ensuring that grants where the grant recipient has left or is on leave are handled and closed in accordance with the university’s rules, see Box 21.

    • Annual review of the department’s/school’s external portfolio in cooperation with the business controller to ensure an overview of the projects’ progress as well as their impact on the department’s/school’s finances.

    • Responsibility for a procedure being drawn up for staff absence registration in the department/school so that up-to-date holiday records are available for the financial reporting in respect of grants or when closing them.

    • Responsibility for the department’s/school’s financial and HR management being organised in such a way that it can handle the department’s/school’s external funding in compliance with the special requirements set by grant givers.

    • Responsibility for the department’s/school’s procedures for registering and retiring fixed assets being organised in such a way that equipment acquired for external funding is recorded correctly and in accordance with the grant approval.

    • Responsibility for external funding being included in the department’s/school’s budget and budget follow-up procedures.
       

Closing of projects

Unspent funds must not remain on project accounts after the project's end date, cf. the contract. 
This must be handled immediately after the end of the project.

The project must be completed in accordance with the Quick guide for case creation (in Danish):

  • Check whether the balance is zero.
  • Adjust the budget before closing so that it matches 100% with the actual spending. Also check that there are no resource allocations and budget lines forward in time (when you continuously prepare accounts at the department/school and faculty level, the budget figures are included for completed projects just like the accounting figures).
  • Adjust gross amount and net disposable amount so that they reconcile with the final result.
  • Projects with a small surplus/deficit, i.e. balance of +/- DKK 200, can be closed immediately without awaiting the next month’s periodic accrual run. Follow this guideline (in Danish). 


Send the project to be closed by the Projects unit by sending an email incl.:

  • DR1: you must attach the project overview from AURAP (R-00012) in the email.
  • DR2-4-5: a link to the project overview from AURAP (R-00012) is required in the closing request.
  • In the subject line of the email indicate the following: Close Case No. + project title, if any