Grants and funding

For enquiries about invoicing, and financial statements and reports for externally funded projects, use the email address for your organisational unit or topic.

Projects in UniFi enable income and expenditure to be separately identified in the UniFi general ledger according to contractual obligations. Donation projects are required for the following purposes:

• to ensure donor intent is met when the funding is provided for a specific purpose
• to meet any reporting requirements - matching revenue to expenditure
• to ensure it is recorded correctly in the project modue for the US GAAP categorisation.

For more information on setting up projects for donations, follow the Donation Project Flowchart (PDF, 166.2 KB).

If a grant requires audit certification, Contract and Grants Accounting complete financial statements and submit them to internal and external auditors.

Providing documentation before each audit streamlines the process and meet tight deadlines for preparing and submitting these financial statements.

Before an audit, your organisational unit must provide:

• confirmation of all staff engaged on the project for the period of the financial statement, plus your workings to reconcile the time to the ledger costs
• supporting documentation and explanations for each salary journal entry
• supporting documentation, including adequate explanations and approvals (for example, an invoice) for each significant expenditure journal entry above materiality level (5% of total grant expenditure for the financial statement period)
• details of all other in-kind expenditure (where applicable)
• original grant budget, plus any subsequent amendments
• statements reflecting the acquittal of collaborator payments for the period.

Confirmation of all staff engaged on the project

You must provide confirmation of all staff engaged on the project for the period of the financial statement, signed off by the chief investigator.

Use the:

• example research hours chief investigator confirmation (DOCX, 136.3 KB) as a template for submitting the confirmation.

You must detail:

• total number of hours charged per casual employee
• position costing profile, %FTE and duration engaged for each continuing academic and professional employee
• in-kind amount paid (where applicable)
• severance or other non-standard amounts charged to the grant.

The time confirmed by the chief investigator must reconcile to the actual salary expenditure costs (after salary journals) charged to the UniFi general ledger. Internal Audit will check this. You must provide any workings you use to reconcile these numbers.

Collaborative payments

Where collaborative payments are made in:

• an interim grant period, you must provide statements from a senior accountant of the recipient, reflecting the acquittal of the collaborator payments for the period
• the final grant period, you must provide statements signed off by the auditors of the recipient, reflecting the acquittal of funds for the total grant period.

Finance Managers and Professional Services Advisory teams can access reports on the UQ Reportal to see project financial information. 

To access reports:

1. Log in to the UQ Reportal.
2. Go to 'Standard Reports' > 'Finance' > 'Projects'.
3. Select one of the following reports:
   • Project Details – project details, invoices created and yet to be created, and financial statements to be completed by Contract and Grants Accounting
   • Research Income Forecast – future research income data for use in forecasting and budgeting
   • Project Closeout – projects that have ended or are due to end in the next 30 days.

Each month, Finance Managers, Management Accountants and Senior Management Accountants (Advisory staff) receive a reminder about projects that have ended or are due to end in the next 30 days, with a link to the Project Closeout report. 

Finance Managers also receive a monthly scheduled report of high-risk projects.  

See the project reports guidelines (PDF, 288 KB) to find out more about the information included in reports.

All UQ staff can access contract and grants forms on Finance forms and resources (UQ staff login required). 

Research contracts and grants financial management training resources for Finance staff are available on Workday:

• Research Contracts and Grants Financial Management - Overview
• Research Contracts and Grants Financial Management - Accounts Receivable
• Research Contracts and Grants Financial Management - Professional Services Advisory teams
• Research Contracts and Grants Financial Management - Professional Services Transactional team