After consultation with campus stakeholders, the University has decided to reopen the cost recovery funds used for recording activity reimbursed by  the Tower and Research Foundations, effective July 1, 2022. Re-establishing the funds provides a clearer delineation of auxiliary-funded activity from activity supported by the CSU Operating Fund 70000 budget. The cost recovery funds which will be reopened are:

• 78005 – Cost Recov-Research Foundation
• 78006 – Cost Recov-Tower Foundation

Both cost recovery funds are now available in FTS.  Moving forward, departments should direct all reimbursable activity for these auxiliaries to the respective fund. Expenditures in 78005/6 must include a Txxxxxxx or Rxxxxxxx project ID, for tracking and auto-billing purposes.  Each month, the auto-billing process will be run for these two funds, and the auxiliaries will receive an invoice for the expenses charged to the fund.  Departments are responsible for ensuring that adequate and appropriate funding is available at the auxiliary to support the invoice charges; any charges that are denied reimbursement by the auxiliary, for lack of funds or otherwise, need to be moved by the department to another eligible funding source.

In some cases, academic departments will be able to utilize project code 99999 in the cost recovery funds for Release Time Authorizations (RTA) as directed by their division.

Effective for Fall 2018 and beyond, a new process for faculty reimbursed time authorizations.

Definition

Reimbursed Time: Personnel time (typically faculty time) that is reimbursed by a third party, usually the Research or Tower Foundation.

Reimbursed Time Authorization (RTA): the RTA form is initiated by the Foundation and defines the term, reimbursed increment (e.g., 0.20 = one course for one semester), funding source, and other information about the reason for the reimbursement. The form also gathers all necessary authorizations.

Financial Process for RTAs

Once an RTA is fully signed, the initiating Foundation will send a copy to SJSU Accounting. The RTA serves as an “invoice request” and will be used to generate an invoice to the Foundation for the personnel reimbursement. When the bill is generated, credits will post to the SJSU department, which serves as the reimbursement. Two credits will post: account 601817 reflects the reimbursement for academic salary costs, and account 603810 reflects the reimbursement for benefits costs.

Example

In the image below, the Spartan Studies Department received $14,618.40 in salary reimbursement and $4,459.05 in benefits reimbursement for Professor Jesson. Professor Jesson is working on sponsored research (she has a grant), and the grant will pay 20% of her salary for the year. An RTA was processed to reimburse Spartan Studies for an amount equivalent to one course in fall and one course in spring (0.20 Academic Year).

Once the RTA was processed, the reimbursement amounts posted to the Actuals column, and then under the new Centralized Compensation Pool, Budget entries were made to match the amounts in the Actuals column. The Spartan Studies Department now has authority to hire instructors to cover the courses normally taught by Professor Jesson in fall and spring while she is working on her research project. Prior to Fall 2018 RTAs, departments completed an employee profile to split faculty time using funds 78005 or 78006. These profiles are no longer necessary. Please do not send employee profiles to Finance Support that use these funds.

Figure 1 (click on image to enlarge):

Do note, this process does not apply to staff payroll or other expenses (e.g. supplies or travel) being reimbursed by an auxiliary. These expenses should be posted to the appropriate Cost Recovery Fund 7800x for SJSU Accounting to invoice the auxiliary at the end of the month.

If you have any questions, please contact Finance Support at financeconnect@sjsu.edu or 4-1558.