FAQs

Mandatory committed (required by the sponsor in the proposal solicitation or in the award negotiation): The DLCI pays direct costs; MIT pays F&A costs.

Voluntary committed (committed in the proposal but not required in the proposal solicitation): The DLCI pays both direct and F&A costs.

Please refer to the Project Monitoring section for a complete explanation.

Some sponsors include a line item budget in the award document, while others reference the budget from the most recently submitted proposal. You may also have permission to adjust your budget depending on the terms of your award. See the Kuali Coeus Award module under “Terms” to see what restrictions your account may have on rebudgeting.

SAP did not know which Fund Center to use. Please ask your RAS Representative to add the appropriate Fund Center to the account.

When new accounts are set up, SAP compares the Supervisor and Profit Center information with other existing accounts. If a PI has one or more accounts in a Profit Center, but only has one Fund Center for those accounts, then that Fund Center will be added by SAP.

However, in cases where a PI has more than one Fund Center for a given Profit Center, one will need to be chosen. Spending may be problematic if the wrong fund center is chosen. Similarly, if there are no prior accounts for a PI in a Profit Center, then SAP will leave the Fund Center blank. Spending will be problematic or not authorized by SAP until this is corrected.

In either of these cases, ask your RAS Representative to revise the Fund Center to ensure that the appropriate people in your DLCI are authorized to spend. For additional information on Fund Centers and how they are assigned see the Roles Database or Roles and Authorizations on AdminConnect.

The data warehouse has a Brio Report which will display all cost-sharing commitments in a DLCI. 

MIT budgets for personnel using man-months or percent effort, not man-hours. If the sponsor’s solicitation requires man-hours, include an estimated man-hours conversion rate with the following statement:

"MIT’s accounting system does not support estimating, accumulating, billing and reporting personnel costs on a man-hour basis. Estimated man-hour conversion information is provided for sponsor proposal evaluation purposes only. If an award is made, costs will be accumulated and reported on a man-month basis."

^{Updated January 27, 2025}

Please refer to the standard contract terms and conditions section of the website.

This RAII Accountability Matrix (November 2012/2020) shows the roles and responsibilities for each phase of a project.

When your DLCI has a new hire, an important part of their on-boarding is providing access to MIT systems. This includes assigning roles in Kuali Coeus (KC) for proposal and awards. Similarly, when an individual leaves the DLCI, their KC roles and abilities for your DLCI should be removed.  For some of these tasks, adding and removing access to KC this is accomplished through the Roles Database by the department's Primary Financial Authorizer or by emailing business-help@mit.edu.  

For DLCIs with sponsored awards, there is functionality in KC that determines the recipients of notifications related to awards. Notifications related to training requirements for personnel charged to sponsored projects, requests for approval of Human Subject protocols; receive SAP 001 notifications for sponsored projects, outstanding Conflict of Interest disclosure notifications, late reports, and more. For these KC updates, you need to ask Research Administration Support [email]. We can help you review and update the notification recipients for your unit.

KC Unit Administrator Table and SAP -001 Reports

The daily feed from KC to SAP generates the SAP 001 Report.

• There are only two (2) recipients of the SAP 001 Report: “Addressee” and “Supervisor.”
• The Supervisor is the PI on the KC Award
• The Addressee in SAP is the Administrative Officer in KC
• The exception to this is when there is someone named Other Individual to Notify; then they receive the SAP 001 rather than the AO.

There is a different place in KC where RA Support can update approvers for KC proposals. These are the KC proposal approval maps called KC People Flow. 

If you are unsure of whom to contact when it comes to accessing and updating your staff’s access to KC, here is a quick list:

A WBS (Work Breakdown Structure) element is a cost objective in SAP that collects expenses and revenues related to sponsored projects. WBS elements are both research and fund accounts. Projects often include several WBS elements forming a WBS hierarchy.