Grants Accounting & Financial Compliance Roles & Responsibilities

Overall Role & Responsibility

The Grants Accounting and Financial Compliance team serves as the financial steward for  the University’s sponsored research enterprise. The team’s primary responsibilities include providing comprehensive post-award financial services, ensuring the financial integrity of funds and regulatory compliance with evolving federal, state, and non-federal sponsor requirements across the University’s entire portfolio of grants and awards. This commitment to responsible stewardship protects the University’s standing by maintaining audit readiness. The team ensures compliance with the federal regulations in the Cost Accounting Standards (CAS) and the Office of Management and Budget Uniform Administrative Requirements, Cost Principles, and Audit Requirements for Federal Awards, 2 CFR 200, (Uniform Guidance).

For detailed lists of specific responsibilities, please click to expand the sections below.

General Administrative

• Oversees expenditures to determine whether the project charges are allowable and allocable in accordance with federal regulations and university and sponsoring agency policies and procedures.
• Verifies the reasonableness and accuracy of expended funds.
• Supports and endorses cooperation with the University compliance and monitoring efforts related to financial management and reports instances of noncompliance to the appropriate office.

Central Finance Administration

• Maintains annual SAM.gov renewal registration for Wake Forest University.
• Manages monthly/quarterly/fiscal year-end accounting processes and provides reports to Leadership on behalf of all sponsored projects.
• Processes cash swaps between WFU and WFUHS.
• Provides comprehensive support and data for the Annual Financial Statement Audit, the Uniform Guidance Single Audit. Also serves as the primary point of contact for other internal and external financial audits of sponsored projects.
• Prepares and submits annual HERD survey.
• Participates in ongoing Workday testing for both system updates as well as grant management specific offerings.

Setting Up a New Award

• Upon receipt of all final and complete new award documents and amendments or modifications to existing sponsored projects, the Grants Accounting and Financial Compliance team will review the award for special terms and conditions, budget period and budgetary accuracy, including indirect cost rate, base and calculation, and notify ORSP of any discrepancies. The team will determine the appropriate billing type and the presence of subcontracts, etc., and after ensuring the availability of the corresponding PI and Departmental Institutional Discretionary accounts, the GR/SG number will be assigned and set up in Workday, the Wake Forest University financial system of record.
• Authorizes the spending plan for the award funds by appropriating the budget associated with the award into Workday. The team also assigns, in Workday, all relevant award information (sponsor, award reference numbers, principal investigator and grant manager roles, associated indirect cost rates, etc.)
• Maintains files that include award, billing, and reconciliation information for each sponsored project.

Post-Award Management

• Reviews all non-personnel financial transactions for sponsored projects for approval to ensure costs are allowable, allocable, and reasonable in accordance with federal regulations (e.g. Uniform Guidance) and specific sponsor requirements, prior to posting in Workday. The team serves as the final authority on the allowability of all expenses charged to awards. 
• Coordinates with GCMs and implements processes to ensure compliance with financial requirements on external awards.
• Ensures consistent application of federal policies related to fiscal matters.
• Serves as a second level of internal control (with the GCM being the first level) to  monitor and analyze award budgets on an ongoing basis to ensure expenses align with approved spending plans and to prevent overspending.
• Prepares invoices and financial reports for awards in accordance with the terms and conditions of each award.
• Performs cash management duties based on the billing type and reimbursement method of each award to ensure timely receipt and application of payments.
• Prepares the effort certification reports (Fall, Spring, and Summer) and coordinates with the GCMs to ensure that salaries charged to a sponsored project are a reasonable reflection of the work performed.
• Provides policies and procedures for cost transfers, overruns, deficit resolution, and other post-award management functions. Also engages in yearly reviews of those policies and procedures to ensure accuracy within the evolving research enterprise.
• Assists GCMs with preparing forms and submitting cost transfer journal entries, and ensures compliance with requirements and timelines.
• Manages the compliance review and processing of grant rebudget requests. This involves receiving the completed forms, and supporting documentation from ORSP, and ensuring the accurate and timely execution of the rebudget within Workday.
• Delivers financial post-award support, consultation, and specialized training to campus partners.
• Identifies, interprets, and manages processing of award’s invoicing and financial reporting requirements. Notifies ORSP of any issues.
• Coordinates with campus units and implements processes to ensure compliance with financial requirements on extramural awards
• Ultimate authority for appropriating and recording extramural funds transactions as part of the university’s budget
• Certifies all expenses charged against extramural funds as necessary and appropriate on all invoices and financial reports. Has final authority on the allowability of an expense charged to an award.
• Coordinates any special invoicing, expense tracking and reporting with GCMs.
• Provides the divisional GCMs interpretation regarding financial and allowability issues. May contact sponsor for guidance and/or consult ORSP.  Has final authority on the allowability of an expense charged to an award.
• Prepares invoices and certified financial reports for awards as per the award’s terms and conditions; performs and monitors collection efforts; maintains balance sheets associated with each fund.
• Coordinates with GCMs, school, department, and central administration personnel to initiate resolution to any cost overruns.
• Subrecipient Management and Monitoring
  • Performs annual subrecipient monitoring via the FDP Risk Assessment Questionnaire and Continuing Assessment Tool.
  • Serves as a second level of internal control (with the GCM being the first level) to ensure that subrecipient invoices comply with Uniform Guidance and contain accurate information.
  • Reports subrecipient information provided by ORSP to the FFATA system within SAM.gov.

Award Close-Out

• Submits accurate and timely closeout documents to applicable Federal agencies, University entities, and the sponsoring agency in accordance with federal regulations and university and sponsoring agency policies and procedures. Submits any required financial reports, including cost sharing, to the agency.
• Works in collaboration with the GCMs on agency final financial reports, , including but not limited to the management of cost overruns, timely processing of all obligations and commitments.
• Verifies all final costs and coordinates or prepares any adjusting entries as needed to ensure accuracy of the final financial reporting.
• Submits all required billing and financial reports to federal and non-federal sponsors. This includes preparing and submitting reports via various federal and non-federal sites and portals.
• Ensures timely closeout of sponsored projects in Workday. This process includes the review and analysis of multiple Workday reports, the final reconciliation of the project and the change of award lifecycle status from active to inactive in Workday.