Section E, continued

Next we must group costs together within categories which are alike in nature - such as supplies with supplies, and salaries with salaries.  Of course we must take into account some general considerations for us to group costs.  Care must be taken when purchasing supplies or paying utility bills to ensure they are coded to the correct project.  This will be used by the appropriate office when allocating to the cost pools for the indirect cost rate development.   When you develop your budgets, get with your support staff people to be sure you are in line with generally accepted university practices and have provided for everything you need.

The essence of this section is to outline the definitions of an F&A cost, to figure out exactly how you will account for these in your budget and to guide the institution in developing categories  and groupings within categories for these costs.  Remember - the goal of the Federal Government is to be sure they don't get charged too much for the Facilities and Administrative costs. However, the institution wants to ensure that all research sponsors, including the Federal Government pay their fair share of the institution operation costs.

With the understanding that you are not totally lost, lets move on to Section F to find out how to identify and assign these costs.

Click the right arrow below to proceed