Washington State University
BUSINESS POLICIES AND PROCEDURES MANUAL

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Expenditure Transfers Between Funding Sources

To help assure proper documentation and certification of expenditures, faculty and staff are to apply the following procedures when requesting transfers.

• Department chairs, principal investigators, and account administrators are responsible for monitoring expenditures and account balances.


• Account administrators and principal investigators correct errors or clear overdrafts by requesting transfer of direct charges between funding sources. The following procedures require prompt correction of the errors or overdrafts. See also 30.21.

Use an Expenditure Transfer Request form to make an expenditure transfer that does not involve salaries.

Use an Expense Assignment Action (see 58.03) or a Position Action (see 58.02) to make a salary transfer.

Transferring charges from or to state accounts.

State accounts include accounts in programs 01 through 10 and programs 15 and above. (For a definition of program see 30.05.)

Initiate a nonpayroll transfer request within 90 days of the original charge's date as shown in the online Account Balances/Detail Application. Expenditures incurred in a given fiscal year cannot be transferred after the July cutoff date following year-end.

Payroll must receive a wage transfer request within 30 working days of the charge's date as shown in the online Account Balances/Detail Application. NOTE: This time limit applies to transfers involving state accounts in programs 01 through 10 only.

Transferring charges from or to sponsored accounts.

Sponsored accounts include accounts in programs 11 through 14.

Departments should avoid frequent, late, or inadequately explained transfers to sponsored projects. Personnel are to ensure that expenditures are initially assigned to the correct account. Sponsored Programs Services will not transfer a given expenditure more than once.

Do not transfer expenditures from one sponsored account to another for any of the following reasons:

• Clearing an overdraft. (NOTE: A transfer between a home account and a subaccount may be acceptable.)
• Avoiding restrictions imposed by law.
• Avoiding restrictions in a sponsored agreement.
• Convenience.

Such expenditures may only be transferred to a state-supported account in programs 01-10 or to other appropriate nonfederal funding sources.

NOTE: The above requirements are from Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Circular A-21, Section C.4.

Expenditure transfers are allowable between closely related projects when the transfer meets all of the conditions specified in the sponsor's policies or guidelines or award terms and conditions. The following conditions are typical for an allowable transfer:

• The projects are scientifically and technically related, and


• The projects are under the direction of the same principal investigator, and


• There is no change in the scope of the individual projects involved, and


• The transfer is not detrimental to each individual project, and


• The transfer is not used to circumvent the terms and conditions of an individual award.

On occasion, one of the following situations occurs, causing a sponsored account to be exceeded. Overdrafts happen while awaiting supplemental funding, awaiting expenditure transfers to nonfederal funding sources at account closeout, and/or awaiting expenditure transfers from subaccounts to home accounts or home accounts to subaccounts. Refer to overdraft procedures in 30.21 for additional information.

Departments may transfer overdrafts from terminated sponsored accounts to state accounts or other appropriate nonsponsored accounts by using object-subobject 03-WV.

When using this object/subobject, it is not necessary to itemize each direct cost transaction. Under Justification enter explanation #1. (See below for a description of justifications.) In such cases, Sponsored Programs Services should be contacted prior to coding the account since a transfer may impact sponsor billings.

Sponsored Programs Services must receive the request within 90 days of the transaction date of the original charge as shown in the online Account Balances/Detail Application.

Route deadline exception requests to the Sponsored Programs Services Officer for approval. Explain why the transfer was not initiated in time to meet the 90-day deadline and what internal control procedures have been implemented to reduce the risk of reoccurrence.

If a sponsor's final expenditure report is upcoming, submit a transfer request in time for the transfer to be posted at least 30 days prior to the due date. See also 40.03 for expenditure deadlines.

Obtain supplies of the paper form from University Stores (US item #49882), complete and/or print the PDF form on 30.25.9, or obtain an approved electronic form template from Procedures, Records, and Forms.

Instruction numbers correspond to numbers on the samples. Sections without numbers are considered self-explanatory.

See the PDF version of 30.25.4-5 for examples.

Indicate the request's destination. Check only one block.

Send all requests involving accounts in programs 11 through 14 to Sponsored Programs Services.

Send requests to transfer wages (object 01) to Payroll Services. EXCEPTION: Send transfer requests involving wages in programs 11 - 14 to Sponsored Programs Services.

Send requests to transfer travel expenditures (object 04) to the Travel Division. EXCEPTION: Send travel transfer requests involving accounts in programs 11 - 14 to Sponsored Programs Services.

Send requests to transfer interdepartmental expenditures to the IRI Desk of the Controller's Office Revenue Section. EXCEPTION: Send interdepartmental transfer requests involving accounts in programs 11 - 14 to Sponsored Programs Services.

Send other requests to Accounts Payable.

Direct questions regarding the request to the indicated office.

Enter the coding for account(s) which originally incurred the expenditure. Account coding includes: program, budget, project, object, and subobject. Also enter other requested information regarding the transaction, i.e., document and reference numbers, the amount, vendor number, and vendor name. This information is available from the online Account Balances/Detail Application or the Budget Statement.

Enter gross pay under Amount when making wage transfers. Refer to the Budget Statement, the online Account Balances/Detail Application, or the Payroll Expenditure Audit Report (PEAR) for gross pay. (See 55.22 for a description of the PEAR.)

For work study transfers, enter only the departmental charge in Amount.

Do not include charges for benefits in Amount. Benefits are automatically calculated and included by Payroll.

Enter the coding for account(s) which will assume the expenditure and enter Amount for each account. The remaining fields on this line need not be completed.

Enter the requested information for the employee. Transfer wages for only one employee per form. Transfers involving multiple employees require multiple forms.

Enter the dates (begin and end) of the period worked by the employee. Costs of hours worked during this period are to be transferred.

Enter the number of hours worked.

Enter the number of the explanation that best describes the reason for the expenditure transfer. The transferred expenditure must be an allowable, allocable and reasonable expense for the account receiving the expenditure. NOTE: The originating department must retain sufficient documentation to support transfer allowability to future auditors.

The purpose of the expenditure transfer is one of the following:

1. To remove an overdraft of a terminated sponsored project by transferring expense(s) to a state or local project. (Use object-subobject 03-WV.)


2. To move an expense from one state or local project to another state or local project. Example: To equipment replacement funds, Virtual University funds, a gift account. Additional justification is not required.


3. To correct a typographical error. Example: A data entry error caused the wrong account code to be entered. The error was found when the principal investigator reviewed periodic accounting reports.


4. To correct an account coding error. Example: A principal investigator has multiple awards and the wrong project number or object code for this expense was given to the account administrator. The error was found when the principal investigator reviewed periodic accounting reports.


5. To redistribute a high number of low cost individual or minor charges. Example: Copy machine rental, paper costs, telephone charges, mailing charges, or office supplies were billed to departmental accounts, but a portion of the total applies to a sponsored project. (NOTE: Telephone, mailing, and office supply costs must be in the proposal budget as approved by the sponsor.)

If an expenditure is identifiable as an entry in Account Balances/Detail, a reference is required. If not identifiable, departments must maintain internal records/logs of such usage to support the adjustment. Provide details on the Expenditure Transfer Request.

6. To record a change in the original decision as to the use of the goods or services. Example: A case of beakers originally charged to a teaching program are subsequently transferred to a research project. The requestor is certifying that the expenditures are appropriate charges to the recipient account.


7. To record a transfer between interrelated accounts. These expenditures are being transferred between interrelated accounts. Sponsor guidelines and procedures have been followed in determining interrelatedness. (NOTE: The process for establishing interrelatedness varies among sponsors.)


8. Other reasons. Explain how the error occurred, and how the costs will benefit the funding source.

The above explanations are not all inclusive. If the reason for the transfer is not adequately described in the first seven explanations, include a detailed explanation indicating how the error occurred and how the costs will benefit the funding source receiving the expense. An explanation which merely states that the transfer is being made to "correct an error," or to "transfer to the correct account," or "to correct costs that were inadvertently charged to an incorrect account" is not sufficient.

The principal investigator responsible for the sponsored project which will receive the expenditure signs the request. This line is usually left blank when transferring expenditures to state accounts.

An authorized departmental or administrative representative from the department which assumes the expenditure signs the request. This representative must have been delegated expenditure authority for the supporting account. See 70.02 for an explanation of expenditure authority.

Complete this section when transferring a temporary employee's wages to an account in programs 06-14.

The certification statement is signed by a supervisor or administrator who signed the employee's Daily Activity Report and who has firsthand knowledge of the expended effort.

See 40.34 for a description of Effort Certification.

The department from which the expenditure is transferred retains a copy and routes the original to the department which will assume the expenditure.

After approving the request, the recipient account's department retains a copy and routes the original to the designated administrative section in the Controller's Office.

Refer to 90.01 for records retention requirements.

Departments are to retain sufficient documentation to adequately explain and justify expenditure transfers to auditors.