Sponsor Approved Budget (SAB) and Child Account Budgets

The total of the Sponsor Approved Budget (SAB) entered for each award in Kuali Coeus corresponds to the Authorized total that feeds to SAP. Therefore, to distribute funding to a child account, we must distribute it from the categories and periods that are defined in the parent SAB.

  • Distribution by Category: When requesting that funds be distributed to a child account, the funds must come from the categories already defined in the SAB at the parent level. The sum of the parent and child accounts for a particular budget category must be equal to the total for that category in the SAB. As a reminder, approved budget categories themselves cannot change from parent to child.
  • Distribution by Budget Period: An SAB may consist of multiple budget periods. When distributing to a child that also covers multiple periods, a separate child account distribution is required for each budget period.

Example 1: Distribution by Category

Professor Jane Jones receives an award for $45,404 from the NSF. Professor Jones wants to establish a child account for a piece of Fabricated Equipment estimated at $6,000. However, the SAB only shows $5,000 for Equipment. The NSF does not require prior approval to increase the equipment budget, so she can distribute budget from other categories in order to cover the increased cost of the Fabricated Equipment. Professor Jones decides to use some M&S and the associated F&A to meet the shortfall. Note, even though the Fabricated Equipment child will not incur F&A, the budget distribution still needs to include the F&A that would have been incurred if these funds had been spent on M&S.

Expense

Original SAB

Distribution Request

PI salary

$15,000

None.

Fringe Benefits

$3,900

None.

Equipment

$5,000

-$5,000

Travel

$2,000

None.

Materials/Supplies

$5,000

-641 

F&A

$14,504

-359

Total

$45,404

-$6,000

Now the fabricated equipment account has an authorized total of $6,000, and the parent has an authorized total of $39,404.

Example 2: Distribution by Budget Period

Professor Eddie Haskell has received an R21 award from the NIH, which has a modular budget for two years. A modular budget contains only two items: Direct Costs and Indirect Costs:

R21 Modular Budget

Year 1

Year 2

Total SAB

Direct Costs

$125,000

$150,000

$275,000

Indirect Costs

$70,000

$84,000

$154,000

Total

$195,000

$234,000

$429,000

Professor Haskell wants to distribute $50,000 in direct costs per year to his Co-PI, June Cleaver. Therefore, we need to create a child account distribution for each budget period for the direct costs, and the associated F&A:

Distribution Request

Year 1

Year 2

Child Budget

Direct Costs

$50,000

$50,000

$100,000

Indirect Costs

$28,000

$28,000

$56,000

Total

$78,000

$78,000

$156,000