Grants Accounts Receivable
About Us:
The Grants Accounts Receivable team manages the financial activities that support timely and accurate revenue recovery, resource allocation, and closeout for sponsored awards. We maximize University cashflow by overseeing the collection of past‑due invoices, processing of CR LOC draws, and handling all aspects of invoice maintenance. In addition, we support the institutional award closeout process by completing sponsor refunds and residual balance transfers. Our work ensures that funds are received, recorded, and reconciled efficiently in alignment with institutional and sponsor requirements.
The Grants AR team collects on outstanding grants invoices. The team determines the validity of an outstanding AR balance and then monitors accounts receivable aging to determine when the invoice has reached a past due status. The team contacts the sponsor to collect the valid balances >61 days past due. The team also works with the RGC Operatons team and individual departments/RAS units as necessary in the collections process.
To aid in the collections’ efforts, the Sponsored Research AR Aging Report is available for use in EBI by Grants AR or any department with sponsored AR. It allows the user to track the aging of Grants Accounts Receivables. Any department team member with access to EBI can run an aging report by filtering with their department or operating unit. This will allow them to see all open accounts receivable for their areas. For assistance in running the report, use the following job aid: How do I Run Sponsored Research AR Aging Report?
The team collects on the following contract types:
- SCHED_PAY
- AUTO_SCHED_PAY
- SCHED_PAY_TASK
- CR_NON_LOC
- CR_TO_PREPAID
- HYBRID
- OTHER
The team collects on the following contract types when notified by RGC:
- CR_CONTRACT
- NIH_CONTRACT
The team DOES NOT collect on the following contract types:
- CLINICAL_TRIALS
- DEPT_TO_INV
- Collections are performed by Office of Clinical Research (OCR) and or Research Administration Services (RAS)
The Grants AR team manages letter of credit draws. These electronic draws relate to cost reimbursable awards identified as letter of credit for government sponsors such as NIH, NASA, NSF, and HHS. An invoice is generated in Compass based on expenses on the award. If a LOC draw is rejected by the Payment Management System (PMS), the RGC Operations and/or Award Closeout Team will be notified by email.
The Grants AR team processes RBT requests. These requests are initiated by the department/RAS unit or RGC Award Closeout team when the award is ready for closeout. The RBT is processed to move any remaining funds on the award to a department/Principal Investigator (PI) discretionary speedtype. If the department is within the School of Medicine (SOM), the funds are moved to a SOM central finance speedtype first for further processing before being sent to the department/PI speedtype. The usual turnaround time for an RBT is 10 business days from the date it’s received in the Grant AR Team's queue. This includes review, approval, and AR maintenance. Additional processing by SOM can add additional time.
Any RBT requests received by Grants AR within three business days of the end of month will be reviewed after the fourth business day of the following month (due to month-end close). All Residual Balance Transfer Request forms are completed electronically in Compass Grant Forms. For assistance in submitting a residual balance transfer request, use the following job aid: How do I Request a Residual Transfer? To ensure your request isn’t delayed or denied, follow these tips.
The Grants AR team processes refund requests. Requests can be initiated by the department/RAS unit, RGC Award Closeout or Operations Teams, or the Controller’s Office Cash App Team. There are several reasons for requesting a refund, including overpayment by a sponsor, payment for expenses that have been removed from an award, and payments received in error. The refund is processed to send funds back to the sponsor. The payment can be sent by check, but the preferred method is ACH. Checks are only mailed weekly, while ACH payments go out daily. The usual turnaround time for a refund is 10 business days from the date it’s received in the Grant AR Team's queue. This includes review, approvals, AR maintenance, and additional AP processing. For checks, postal service delivery adds time.
Any refund requests received by Grants AR within three business days of the end of month will be reviewed after the fourth business day of the following month (due to month-end close). All Refund Request forms are completed electronically in Compass Grant Forms. For assistance in submitting a refund request, use the following job aid: How do I Request a Refund? To ensure your request isn’t delayed or denied, follow these tips. Additional forms required for domestic supplier/sponsor and international supplier/sponsor refund request are below.
Domestic Supplier/Sponsor Refund Forms:
International Supplier/Sponsor Refund Forms:
The Grants AR team creates AR maintenance worksheets used to write off small balances on invoices due to bank fees, foreign exchange gain/loss, and other reasons. In addition, AR maintenance worksheets are used to offset invoice balances when necessary.
TOP is a federal program that collects past-due debts that people and businesses owe to state and federal agencies. TOP matches people and businesses who owe delinquent debts with money federal agencies are paying. When a match happens, TOP withholds (offsets) money to pay the delinquent debt. If any department or school under the Emory umbrella owes a past-due debt to a government agency, any payments being sent to Emory for any reason can be offset (taken) to satisfy that debt. Thus, grant payments from federal sponsors are subject to offset by the TOP. When this happens, it leaves an open balance on invoices, preventing the award from being closed out. If you feel a payment that was sent by a federal sponsor was taken by TOP, please notify the Grants AR team by submitting a case through the Finance Support Center.
The clinical trials interface is a link between the Office of Clinical Research’s (OCR) clinical trial system and the Compass Financials system. Invoices created by OCR are sent from OCR’s system through an interface to Compass.
Grant payments are processed by the Cash App team in the Controller’s Office. Grants AR works closely with the Cash App team to apply payments to invoices. Please contact the Cash App team at ogcateam4@emory.edu.