Create Your Membership Invoice Template for Research and Development Effortlessly

Membership invoice template for Research and Development

good afternoon colleagues i think we can start it's 12 o'clock and i want to say um welcome to today's session of the project budget of the division of research development i'm suzette ells and i'm a project accountant in drd which is the division for research development and it is my responsibility to assist researchers um when they apply for funding to help them compile a budget for the funders and um that is part of my responsibilities and furthermore i also assist in the preparation of the financial reports even when required by the funders in terms of their specific contract or agreements this will only be a short overview regarding the budgeting part um but furthermore it entails a lot uh further down the budget um especially when we need a forested reporting and you will see this slides will also have notes on that and we hopefully might have another session where we can do uh specifically detail on the reporting site but uh the presentation will be sent out to you by whitney after uh after we have done it today so that you can have something to fall back on compiling a um a budget start with a planning um in your uh our research um funding that you want to apply for so first of all you will have um a research concept and then um go and try and find funding for that research concept and then there's also um calls that that send out from research development where you can apply for available funding depending on what you would like to be uh do you to do your research on so the stages in in the planning of the research project is the contacts the funding proposal development budget and i'm going to touch on the first three just quickly and so that we can go over to the budget part which is uh what decision is uh more about so let's uh have a look uh to the context so when uh you plan your project uh there's a few things that you must keep in mind and legal requirements on the contract it must always be a contract in when you start the research agreement between the parties the university and and the funder we have the legal advisors in in drd that can assist with that so um that will help you with with the contract and and all the requirements regarding that and then uh when you apply for funding there's over uh also different types of funding that you get so i'm not going to do the detail of this but this is just a summary of the difference between grounds and contracts but um it can also be discussed on the latest stage uh if if you want to know to know more about this but the type of funding that you apply for will also influence your deliverables and it will influence you your budgeting part so it's important to know what you uh to apply for the proposal development so you have now your research uh concept and you go over to the proposal and when you've done the proposal uh development so that is where you already start thinking about the budget so um it depends on your deliverables you will decide uh we are going to do this in the project and it will entail these costs and these costs we must budget for so the funder will want to see that if you do this research uh specifically uh what will you spend um the funding on so that is uh it actually goes out in hand to have your proposal and your budget at the same time so that you exactly know we're going to do this we will uh need funding to buy these expenses um the same uh if you know that you will attend conferences there will be flight expenses so there will be um allowance expenses whatever those together is social expenses and make sure that you do budget for everything uh that might come into your your proposal of the specific project if you if you do not budget for for something and um those expenses um are incurred during the time of the project and it will be difficult to go back to the fund and say oh we forgot to budget for this and and and then they're not going to allow it so make sure that you budget for all eligible expenses and and rather budget too much then not enough okay we have for to to assist you in the budgeting there's a few templates available just some of the larger funders for their own um budgeting templates but we have a full-course template that's available on a drd website that you can use as guideline to do your budget on so whatever why you you want to do the budget um at least this thing that will make sure that you take into account what is needed for the budget and you only use the applicable lines when you um do a budget for a funder most of the larger funders will have um specific guidelines that go out with with a goal that's available on their website um and these financial guidelines will specifically tell you that they allow these costs or they disallow other costs what type of cost they allow and make sure to in a time that you are preparing your proposal that you make sure what is the funders guidelines what financial guidelines what is the requirements in terms of reporting that is very important and that you have a knowledge of that um so that you will be able to uh comply in everything that they they require most of the funders guidelines will sit out different online items it can differ from from the financial fund but some basic guidelines that that will be applicable um all over uh will be the principle investigate the remuneration in that instance uh when we budget for that we use the brl levels that's our bicycle mineralization level that's available on the hr website you can't budget for less than that you can budget for more than the brl but um not least so make sure that when you budget for any limitation in your project and that it will be above the brl level uh the template the full course template uh is also available with the rights included so it makes it easier to adjust from there some funders will have restrictions on equipment especially uh maximum amount equipment make sure that you are aware of that and uh whether you will need maybe uh additional approval when you have to purchase uh certain equipment that that will be more than the normal when i give when you also do your budget make sure that you are allowed to uh vary a percentage from from your budget lines so as the period of your contract or your project goes and and you need to do some adjustments from one line to the other line that it's um allowable in terms of the fundus requirements and that you can move some of the budget lines uh between each other and what the maximum percentage of the item is that you can move exchange rates will be applicable where um you have to do your budget in a foreign currency so in the contract and also in the guidelines that i will sit out and in which currency the budget must be it's not normally that it will be in south african rent and when you use exchange rates it's good to be conservative and if it does over a maximum period or a longer period than one year we have also um predictions of the exchange rates that's available from the ber the bureau of economic research which you can request so that you can make sure that you will take into account certain exchange rate differences and by provision for that um i've discussed now that basically measure elimination removal that is fine and you will see in there in a budgeting template we also already have included the lady from the university which is current currently at 20 percent um this uh indirect cost recovery rate that is what rcrr stands from for is um in terms of legislation and and that is where it comes in that your budget must be on full cost that is required by libma if there's any restrictions from the funder's side regarding indirect cost recovery remember that you have to apply secretly for that and you can already do that in the stage of contract finalization um to get approval for any waiver or reduction of the icr and and then when you receive your funding we have to just deploy if the reduction is approved you can just apply for the correction of the rcrr that's automatically taken from your cost center but it's very important to make sure if there's any further restriction on that um there are some funding that is obviously not exempt normally your foreign funding bursaries donations remember that we have specific accounts that we use for uh bursary or donations or in our if income that is bad exam that's in in a car center so when you mark out an invoice please make sure that that the correct account number is used the most important thing to remember is that that is applicable on all local funding but on foreign funding where you have um a supplier that uh render a service outside of the republic of south africa um so it's a foreign supplier renewing a service on your contract remember that it will be subject to that on imported services and you have to budget for a normal 15 that on those services and when subcontracts or collaboration agreements are finalized and this can be taken into account uh because a slight difference in the wording of such an agreement will classify it as either an important service or not it's something that can be discussed with the legal advisors on the financial side finances you are now in uh your budget has been approved by your funder he was remembered to adhere to all financial policies at the university um relating to full cost icrr or all the purchasing and travel financial policies so whenever costs are incurred please remember that that it's all subject to financial policy which is also available on the finance website the risks involved when the budget process is not correct is that this a chance of under budgeting or financial mismanagement cash flow risks exchange rate risks so that is why it's important to to have a proper budget for all new projects so in the past and some funders did not require any uh formal budget you can just apply for uh once upon a month but um in the last year or two we require that that a budget is done for every new contract and it's important for us for the university in in our budget planning and so all contracts must have a budget and to see whether it's on full cost or not it is very important let's go to the next slide and some critical considerations when your budget um obviously uh you have now your your proposal and and you know what you deliver deliverable will be so you can ask yourself questions is the cost of the project justified realistic um will they be in cost cheating so sometimes the agreement with other funders and all these a university contribution that must be taken into account so all of this is part of your whole financial management of the project which will start already on the budget side so it is all things that that's important from a budget side perspective to have the risk of the financial management and to be perfect as perfect as possible some other things that also must take into account especially on larger contracts we've seen in the past that it sometimes take a few months for for a contract to be finalized can be sometimes 12 months plus so when when a budget is done and it's only approved 12 months later there will be a chance that that there's a salary increase or there will be a huge change in in our exchange rate that's very volatile so um it's possible it's it's necessary to take uh those uh variances into account at the end of the day when finalizing um after a long time span between the budget stage and the contracts first stage [Music] this is uh the next slide or two will go more over to the reporting side but one thing that will happen still when you do the budget is that and when a budget is approved by a funder the funding is approved is that you create a new car center for every new project it is very important it's part of our financial policy and that everything that relates to this project must appear in this specific call center from the moment that their funding is received all expenses um everything must appear in a specific car center and it's not only good for audit purposes but it is very important for reporting which are where funder requires a reporting and a specific period reporting you must make sure that that everything is in the correct period and especially um when we get to year end or in the project type please make sure that all expenses go through in the right period and on a great time i'm going to do the detail of of the reporting site and as i said we will do that on a later stage and you will see that on this slide this is a view of the full cost template although it is available on the website and if you have any questions you are welcome to ask me now uh on the last first show that i've gotten so far between the slides but on the last page you have um contact details of the full cost accountants and the project accounting accountants and then also at the idea you will find you can just inquire about any legal advisors if you need legal advice thank you colleagues i hope that this was uh information although it's just an overview but that it it will have some ticked for you in having a budget thank you very much