Award Setup

Advance Accounts

Advance accounts can be requested prior to the University's receipt and acceptance of a sponsored award to allow the Department the ability to incur allowable costs to an appropriate account, reducing the need for cost transfers upon award acceptance. All expenses on an advance account are "at risk" with the Department assuming all responsibility.

No agreement in place but need to start spending

Advance accounts, where the agreement has not yet been received are noted with an account status of "A" in the financial system (FAS). To request an advance account, please submit a Service Now Advance Account request form. Form instructions are also available at the link above. Reasonable documentation from the Sponsor that shows and agreement is pending is required.

Waiting on an agreement to be finalized

Awards that are received but are pending final negotiation and execution, are noted with an account status of "N" in the financial system (FAS). This account will be created by the Award Intake Team (AIT), upon receipt of an award agreement and required account set up information from the Department. These accounts will be created to allow the Department to allocate expenses during award negotiation prior to the distribution of the award. 

The advance account policy is available here: https://ura.uchicago.edu/page/policies

Unilateral* Awards:

Award Intake staff will monitor awards received via the current central e-mail (io-ura@uchicago.edu). AIT staff will intake award, create account (communication with department will be via ancillary review requesting information detailed here), obtain any protocol information, and confirm COI. Once complete the award record will be moved to Final Review for the Post Award RA to review and activate. Departments will receive their account number within the activated distribution e-mail via AURA.

Bilateral** Awards:

AIT staff will intake awards. Once identified as bilateral, the AIT will create a bilateral advance account (communication with department will be via ancillary review requesting information detailed here) obtain any protocol information, and confirm COI. Once complete the award record will be moved to Final Review for the Post Award RA to review, negotiatie and accept the award. The Post Award RA will activate the account in FAS once the award is activated in the system. Departments will receive their account number within the activated distribution e-mail via AURA.

*Unilateral Accounts require no signature nor negotiation of terms and conditions

**Bilateral Accounts require signature to acknowledge acceptance of terms and conditions and may require negotiation.