Manage Award

The CHS Research Advancement team provides support to investigators by helping them to navigate the purchasing process. The following 4- steps was developed for this purpose. Please check out the CHS Purchasing section for additional guidance. In all cases, grant purchases are approved by the research advancement team.

If a situation arises when a staff person trained in Workday is unavailable to assist with a purchase, please use this powerform to send a request to the research advancement team. We can assist with your purchase.

STEP 1 – Determine if the expense is appropriate

It’s important to understand that there are many policies, protocols, and regulations involved with grant funding. The main consideration for all grant purchases is to ensure that expenses adhere to federal regulation by being deemed reasonable, allowable and allocable.

Reasonableness

“A cost may be considered reasonable if the nature of the goods or services acquired or applied, and the amount involved, reflect the action that a prudent person would have taken under the circumstances prevailing at the time the decision to incur the cost was made.” A good question to ask yourself is would I pay that amount if it were my money?

Allowability

Is the cost in compliance with the terms and conditions of the award, the sponsoring agency policy, Circular A-21, and University policy? You must check with the RA or review the agreement to ensure the expense is not labeled as unallowed.

Commonly unallowable expenses:

• Alcoholic beverages
• Entertainment
• Fines and penalties
• Fundraising/alumni activities
• Internal interest charges
• Subscription
• Advertisement and public relations costs
• Travel tickets in excess of coach

Allocability

1) Is the cost benefiting the sponsored project? The best way to determine if it benefits the project is to read the budget justification. In most cases, the PI will describe in detail the project-related expenses. The PI must also provide a statement of the expense’s benefit to the project as part of the purchasing process. This is typically listed on the purchase requisition form.

Other considerations:

• Purchasing American-made goods- Federal law requires that, to the greatest extent possible, all equipment and products purchased with Federal funds should be American-made. Therefore, PIs with Federally sponsored projects must make a reasonable effort to ensure that whatever they purchase on the project is made in the United States.

• Furthermore, they must adhere to the Fly America Act when making airline reservations.

Fly America!

• Purchasing made during the end of the project will be highly scrutinized. It’s imperative to ensure that purchases are not being made to spend down the unobligated balance.

STEP 2 – Determine the appropriate way to make the purchase - Process

1. Sunrise Order – For purchases under $10,000, SunRISE is a web-based application for ordering ASU supplies and equipment. With the new FMS system, end users must access Workday to conduct shopping in SunRise. This can be achieved by logging into the Workday Homepage by following this path: Purchases Worklet, Connect to Supplier Website, Connect...
2. Purchase Requisition – This option is for paying single invoices of a supplier (good already received) or for requesting a purchase order for larger volume expenses. A purchase order is required if the expense will be over $10,000. A legacy purchase requisition form should be completed with the PI’s approval unless you are requesting assistance from the Research Advancement Post Award team. In this event, a link to the purchasing powerform will be provided to the purchaser. In all cases, the supplier must be set up in as a vendor in the Workday system for a payment to be initiated.
3. Purchasing Card – For purchases under $10,000, a PCard can also be used. The PI must apply for and use a grant PCard for all grant-related purchases. It is not appropriate to use any other type of PCard (Program, Gift) for grant purchases...

STEP 3 – Make the purchase – Work Instructions

PI/PDs and support staff who are fully trained in the use of Workday, will be able to complete tasks and purchases in the system. Work instructions are provided for common tasks and are linked below. Newer support staff may need guidance and support of the Research Administrative team. Regardless of which category you fall in, we are available to help you:

• Sunrise Order
• Pay a single invoice
• Request purchase order (required over $10K)
• Purchasing Card

It’s important for you to check if the supplier is set up in the Workday system. They will need to complete a registration process and submit tax-related information.

To check if a supplier has an active account in Workday, enter the name in the supplier name field and click okay. If an account is active for the supplier, it will show up. Otherwise, they will need to register.

Select the appropriate link from the two options:

Domestic: If your tax status is: U.S. Citizen, Permanent Resident or Resident for U.S. tax purposes, view instructions here and use this link to register.

International: If you are an international citizen and have not yet passed your residency test for U.S. tax purposes, view instructions here and use this link to register.

The Research Advancement team is here to help so please reach out to us if you run into any issues.

STEP 4 – Reconcile the expense – Final approvals

Once the purchases have been made, there may be a final step before the charge is allowed to hit the grant accounts.

Sunrise Order – The expense will route through Workday and ultimately be approved by a grant manager

Purchase Requisition – For each invoice that is paid, a receipt will need to be entered that the goods or services were received. The purchasing team will typically be the ones to enter the receipt and then send the invoice to Accounts Payable for processing. In order for the invoice to be paid, the PI must sign the invoice that it’s okay to pay or send an email to that effect. The PO number must also be included on the invoice.

Other questions to consider when submitting an invoice for payment:

• Is the invoice for services within the period of performance of the grant?
• Is the cost reasonable, allowable and allocable?

Purchasing Card – A PCard can be requested for a grant by completing the PCard application. Once a PCard has been issued, it may be used ONLY for the specified grant. It's also imperative for the Pcard to be updated if a new account number has been assigned for a subsequent grant year. If it's not updated, new expenditures will continue to hit the old account. This could result in additional effort to transfer the costs onto the correct account. For more information about PCards, please review the following resources.

• Finance - PCard
• ASU PCard Guide and Training