As of May 15, 2018

Most important

• Keep all communication as written documents.

• When you call or walk into someone's office, send email immediately and reconfirm if your understanding is correct.

Flow of money and special words

• Flow of grant/money (How we get a grant from the government)

Gov. --> NASA --> SRS --> FAMIS (Grand accounts) --> Account Payable --> Employee/Participants 

• Flow of expenditure approval (It takes a month)

Expense report --> SRS --> FMO (approval auditor) --> Account Payable --> Grant accounts 

Technical Terms:

    SRS: Sponsored Research Service (They administrate the grant money)

    FMO: Financial Management Office (They administrate the actual payment)

    Participants: Nin-TAMU employee (but they are somehow paid by TAMU)

    Employee: Faculty, graduate students, postdocs, etc

    "Arrival": the NASA --> SRS process is completed

    "Budget (verb)": SRS puts money on the grant account

    An expense report (on Concur): needed to pay participants from grant account

    Travel card: Gray card you have under your name

    Pro Card: Blue cards the ATMO department has

Note:

    All processes for expenditure approval take a month. The grant account does NOT reflect the transactions until when the processes are completed. We should keep both Current grant balance and ACTUAL grant balance.

Regarding expense report

    Only ATMO business staff can submit the expense report fir participants. This means that you should NOT pay in place of participants before your travel. If you need to buy something (e.g., train ticket in foreign country), you must ask ATMO business office for a help. 

Name of people to talk to

• Emily Krajewski     ATMO Business staff (Expense report)

• Theresa Morrison   ATMO Business staff (Grant account balance)

• Jessica Radnitzer   GEOS travel office staff (general travel questions)

• Debbie French       GEOS travel office staff (more knowledgeable)

• Jennifer Owen       Reviewer in SRS (case-by-case travel questions)

• Kendra Reed         Project administrator in SRS (grant specific rules)

When you email to Jennifer or Kendra, make sure that you cc the message to Theresa and Dr. Yang.

How to use the excel sheets (Accounting)