Award Verification News and Reminders

As announced on April 12, the Award Verification Tool is now live. Principal Investigators (PIs) are required to complete verification at least quarterly for all sponsored awards where they are designated as the award owner. PIs, Program Managers and Research Services Analysts (RSAs) should now be using the Award Verification Tool, available from MyAccess (note that you must first connect to UCSF’s Pulse Secure VPN). Information about accessing and using the Tool is available on the Award Verification web page.

Initial Verification Deadline

At go-live, the Tool displays all active sponsored awards as well as inactive sponsored awards with expense activity from May 2020 through March 2021. Verifying all of these awards is necessary to “catch up” compliance activities from the final UCSF effort reporting certification cycle, which covered the period from January 1 to May 2, 2020. All displayed sponsored awards (except those that began in February or March 2021) currently have a verification status of “Due This Month”.

PIs must verify these awards by 10 p.m. on May 11, 2021. All awards verified by the May 11 deadline will not be due for verification again for three months. Awards not verified by the deadline will progress to the status of “Past Due” at the next monthly data load.

Subsequent Verification Schedule

On May 12, PIs, Program Managers and RSAs will receive an email notifying them once April data has been loaded into the Tool. After this occurs you may see new awards flagged as “Due This Month”. These are:

  • Active awards that started in the month of February, as three months will have elapsed since they originated
  • Any inactive awards not previously flagged as “Due This Month” for which expenses posted in the April 2021 accounting period

These awards, as well as awards from the previous month that progressed to a status of “Past Due”, must be verified before the June monthly data load, at 10 p.m. on June 9.

You can review the escalation procedures for past-due awards on the Controller’s Office website. The Contracts & Grants Accounting (CGA) Compliance Unit is allowing one calendar quarter prior to starting the escalation process so that the campus can get up to date with verifications required for all sponsored awards with activity back to May 2020. CGA will enforce the escalation procedure beginning July 1, 2021.

Support reminders

There are many support resources available to help you get started with the Award Verification Tool and procedure. Consider one of these options for further assistance:

  • Join a Q&A session, held on Wednesdays through May 26. Registration is required.
  • Review the Award Verification page on the Controller’s Office website, and the Award Verification FAQs, which are updated regularly.
  • Access training materials for Using the Award Verification Tool based on your role.
  • Request support from the CGA team – email [email protected] or call 415.476.1462 and leave a message requesting support.
  • When logged into the Tool, click any “?” icon when you need more information about any section.