Kuali Proposal Development - Budgeting

CREATING A NEW BUDGET

Kuali ZenDesk Budget Overview

• When creating a budget you have a choice between selecting a Detailed or Summary budget. In a Summary budget you only record the total direct and total indirect costs for each budget period. The Office of Pre-Award Services (OPAS) strongly suggests using a Detailed Budget whenever possible.
• Kuali also has the ability to create an NIH Modular Budget: The option to select Modular appears after you elect to build a Detailed budget. You can also select this option later in the process under “Budget Settings.” If you are working on a Modular Budget you can check each period’s Modules and Direct Cost LESS Subrecipient F&A (Indirect) Costs in the “Modular” budget tab along the left hand menu.
• Personnel Costs
  • Project Personnel: When the budget is initially created, it grabs data from the “Key Personnel” of the main proposal and inserts the personnel into the Budget. Each Key Person will have at least 2 Personnel lines to start, one (1) of which will have a $0.00 Base Salary. Best practice is to delete any $0.00 Base Salary lines for the key personnel. These are just duplicates and are created because it is pulling in PeopleSoft account numbers for faculty departments in the credit allocation section of the proposal. Please note that if you see a “Stipend” line for any of your Key Personnel, this is the system’s way of letting you know that this Key Person’s base salary has a stipend included. The total salary shown includes the listed stipend. Please do NOT delete the stipend line. If you do by accident, you can re-add the key person and the information will be reloaded to Kuali. 
  • Personnel salaries are pulled from PeopleSoft HR as a one-time static upload. These amounts do not automatically refresh when a person's salary increases or appointment changes. 

• Budget Versions can be created as needed to test different budgeting scenarios. Kuali does not permit budgets to be deleted or renamed.

BUDGET SETTINGS

• Click Budget Settings in the top horizontal tabs before you add budget items.
• Total Direct Cost and Total Cost Limits are not mandatory but can be used to alert you when exceeding any solicitation budget limit.
• Select On/Off Campus whether your proposal is all on or all off campus. If blended, select default and you can decide on a line item basis whether it is on or off campus.
• Unrecovered F&A and F&A Rate Type:
  • Will always default to Standard Federal MTDC. Users must select the appropriate rate based on solicitation specific requirements and type of sponsored activity.
  • Should be the same unless the PI has been approved to use a lesser rate than the sponsor allows OR when using sponsor F&A restrictions as a cost share source.
• Modular Budget: This box should be checked if you are working on a modular budget.
• Submit for Cost Sharing: This box defaults to being checked. This should only be “unchecked” for NIH Salary Cap proposals or other one-off S2S proposals where there is a situation when there is “Cost-Share” that will not be reported to the sponsor.
• Exclude Subaward F&A: You can check this box to help calculate budget limits for both NIH modular and NIH detailed budgets that include a Direct Costs limits but also include subawards. NIH allows applicants to budget beyond direct cost caps by the amount of indirect costs budgeted by subawards.

CHANGING RATES & COST OF LIVING (COLA)

Kuali ZenDesk Proposal Budget - Rates

• These actions can be performed in the budget module under the “Rates” tab in the left hand menu.
• Before adding any budget line items you MUST check to make sure you are using the proper COLA allowed by the sponsor. 
• Update the COLA rate for EVERY period.
• Kuali defaults to the campus standard COLA of 3.5%.
• Notable 3.5% COLA Exceptions:
  • NIH is usually set at 2%
  • NSF is usually set at 5%
• See also: Proposal Preparation Guide: Cost of Living Adjustment 

ADDING PERSONNEL

Kuali ZenDesk Proposal Budget - Project Personnel

***Also reference the UMass Kuali Salary Guide for information on adding and budgeting personnel***

• Employee: Use this option to search for and add named UMass employees. This data is pulled directly from the UMass HR System.
• Non-Employee: This option in used to add Non-UMass Co-PIs (Subaward PD/PIs) for S2S proposals. This function provides a search of the current Kuali Address Book (persons maintained for use in Kuali Research that are not employees). If your Non-UMass personnel is not returned by the search, that means they are not currently in the system. In such an instance, simply click on the “Add New Address Book” button and fill in the person’s personal information. Once the address book is filled out, run a new search and their information will now populate.
• To Be Named: This option is used to add “To Be Named” positions to the proposal such as Graduate Student Research Assistants, Postdoctoral Fellows, Undergraduates, Technicians, etc.).
• Graduate Students: Due to how Kuali budgets fringe and accounts for effort, UMass Amherst graduate student employees need separate entries for Academic and Summer effort.
  • Example: If you are budgeting one graduate student for both academic and Summer effort, you must add two graduate student lines, one academic line and one summer line.
  • Example: If you are budgeting for one graduate student with only Academic effort you only need to add one graduate student academic line.
  • Example: If you are budgeting three graduate students with both Academic and Summer effort you need to add six graduate student lines.
• Adding To-Be-Named personnel requires the addition of a Base Salary in order to budget their effort. This is also true for Graduate Students. Use the UMass Kuali Salary Guide to calculate graduate student base salaries.
• Once you have finished adding personnel, click on each line’s Details to add base salary.
• In personnel details, select the appropriate Appointment Type.
• Salary Effective Date: For ALL named Faculty and Staff, along with ALL Graduate Students, you must change the “Salary Effective Date” to the date you are building the Proposal. This is crucial, as it ensures that we are not under-budgeting by applying all COLAs between now and the start of the project. For all “To Be Named” personnel (other than Grad Students), the “Salary Effective Date” should remain as the default setting, which is to match the proposal start date. Please note: The effective date will not automatically update if the project dates are changed. These must be manually updated to avoid calculation errors.

ASSIGNING PERSONNEL

Kuali ZenDesk Proposal Budget - Assign Personnel to Periods

• Remember: Depending on the start date of your grant, you may need multiple entries – See “EXAMPLE SCENARIOS” above for details.
• Object Codes drive the fringe benefit calculations. Users will need to select the appropriate code depending on the person being budgeted.
• Use the UMass Kuali Salary Guide as needed to convert months to % effort.
  • AY- # of months divide by 9 months
  • Summer - # of months divided by 3 months
• Enter % of effort into the Effort field
• If you are NOT cost sharing salary, then enter the same % of effort in the Charged field.
• Select the appropriate Period Type (Academic, Calendar, or Summer).

ASSIGNING NON-PERSONNEL

Kuali ZenDesk Proposal Budget - Non-Personnel Costs

• Go straight to Object Code Name and select a line item title from the dropdown menu
• Once assigned click on Details. Here, you can decide whether you would like to apply inflation to that item. Please note that system will automatically defaults to add inflation on Non-Personnel items. Therefore, you will need to uncheck the “Inflation” box if you would like to remove COLA from Non-Personnel items.
• Use the UMass Kuali Salary Guide to add the appropriate amount of Tuition Charge.