Deficit Clearing Process

Overview

Contracts and Grants Accounting (CGA) is responsible for handling the Deficit Clearing Processes for all Contracts and Grants (C&G) awards. The Campus Budget Office is responsible for the Deficit Clearing Process for all non-C&G funds. The C&G Deficit Clearing Process supports proactive management of awards and complies with the campus’ deficit clearing policy, sponsor and federal guidelines, and internal and external deadlines.

Research Administrators, Fund Managers and CAOs should be monitoring and reviewing their awards and promptly transfer any deficits to the appropriate fund to ensure compliance and adhere to award closeout deadlines. In the event that a deficit is not transferred, the Contracts and Grants Deficit Clearing Process will clear the deficit.

Monthly C&G Deficit Clearing Process (updated January 2021)

The Monthly C&G Deficit Clearing Process, which is normally run on the 6th business day of the month, will clear deficits on awards with a closeout completed in the prior acounting period or earlier. For example, during the January 2021 month-end close, deficit awards that were closed on or before December 31, 2020 will be cleared in the deficit clearing run. January closed awards will not be subject to deficit clearing until the February month-end close, and so forth.

The Deficit Clearing process calculates the deficit at the award level, and clears balances (deficits or surpluses) not equal to zero at the full chartstring level (excluding account and function codes) in the C&G fund.

Chartstring

The full chartstring for these purposes is defined as:

  • Business Unit-Fund-Dept ID-CF1-CF2-PC Business Unit-PC Project-PC Activity

Deficits are transferred from C&G awards via journal entry to designated fund (69900), created specifically for C&G deficit clearing, using the deficit clearing account code 57710, and the award’s primary department ID. The origin of the deficit entries in fund 69900 can be tracked via the chartstring information in the journal line description and reference fields of the deficit clearing entry.

Year-End C&G Deficit Clearing Process

The Year-End C&G Deficit Clearing Process on Open awards also calculates and clears deficits, as of June 30th, at the full chartstring level, however, note that the following are exempt from the Year-End C&G Deficit Clearing Process:

  • Open awards with final Financial Reports due after May 31st and before January 1st
  • Awards for which the deficit clearing waivers have been approved by the Vice Chancellor of Finance
  • Open awards with an Anticipated Funding Amount recorded in BFS that exceeds the total actual expenses as of June 30

The Anticipated Funding Amount for awards is found in the BFS fund panel on the Award Info page.

For the Year-End Deficit Clearing Process, BFS users can submit the C&G Deficit Clearing Waiver Request Form through the RA Grant WorkCenter (the form is available in the first week of June). Access to the RA Grant WorkCenter is obtained by submitting a request via SARA.

Available Reports

BFS users can run the following deficit clearing reports in the RA Grant WorkCenter by going to Reports/Queries, then Award Information:

  • Summary Report by L3 or L4
  • Summary Report by Award
  • Detailed Report by Award

For questions about deficit clearing of non-Contracts and Grants please refer to the Deficit Resolution Policy provided by the Campus Budget Office.