NOT-OD-14-093: Administrative Changes to NIH Domestic Awards Transition to Payment Management System Subaccounts

Administrative Changes to NIH Domestic Awards Transition to Payment Management System Subaccounts

Notice Number: NOT-OD-14-093

Update: The following update relating to this announcement has been issued:

May 28, 2015 - Reminder of Timeline for Administrative Changes to NIH Domestic Awards to Transition to Payment Management System Subaccounts. See Notice NOT-OD-15-105.
July 11, 2014 - See Notice NOT-OD-14-103 - Revised Timeline for Administrative Changes to NIH Domestic Awards to Transition to Payment Management System Subaccounts.

Key Dates
Release Date: May 16, 2014

Issued by
National Institutes of Health (NIH)

Purpose

This Notice provides administrative information regarding the transition to new U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) payment policies Payment Management System (PMS) subaccounts for domestic, non-competing continuation awards, announced in NOT-OD-13-120.

Implementation for Domestic, Non-Competing Continuation Awards (updated)
Implementation for domestic, non-competing awards will occur between October 1, 2014 and September 30, 2015. NIH will make this transition as seamless as possible for grantees and NIH staff. NIH will transition payments for all continuing domestic awards (i.e., Type 5 and Type 8) that have not yet transitioned to subaccounts from PMS pooled accounts (G accounts) to P subaccounts during fiscal year (FY) 2015. For these types of awards, PMS will establish subaccounts for each NIH award made on or after October 1, 2014.

Detailed Process for Non-Competing Continuation Awards

For domestic grants with a non-competing continuation year of funding in FY 2015 (October 1, 2014 September 30, 2015), NIH will use a technical process to shift the funding from PMS G accounts to PMS P subaccounts by issuing all FY 2015 non-competing continuation awards that have not yet transitioned to subaccounts as Type 4 awards (funded extension awards). This means that all domestic Type 5 awards (non-competing continuation awards) and Type 8 awards (non-competing continuation awards with a change of awarding Institute or Center) that have not yet transitioned to subaccounts, will be issued as Type 4s during the transition period. This enables NIH to separately track obligations and payments for grants that span the Federal FYs 2014 and 2015.
In addition to changing the record Type and the document number for the FY 2015 award, NIH will change the project period end date of the FY 2014 award when the FY 2015 award is issued. The project period end date will be changed to the budget period end date. This effectively breaks the single competitive segment into two shorter "administrative segments." The change will be reflected in the eRA Commons; however, NIH will not issue a revised Notice of Award (NoA) for the FY 2014 award.
Therefore, the FY 2014 award becomes the final year of the first "administrative segment" and requires Federal Financial Report (FFR) expenditure data, which is a subaccount transitional FFR.
Records for non-competing continuation progress reports (Type 5s), or in rare instances Type 8s, that have not yet transitioned to subaccounts will be converted to Type 4s. The conversion will be processed internally by NIH.

Applicable Policies for Non-Competing Continuation Awards

Due Date for Subaccount Transitional FFR: the due date for these Subaccount Transitional FFR expenditure reports is no later than 90 days after the end of the calendar quarter in which the budget period ended.
Unliquidated Obligations on the Subaccount Transitional FFR: if there are unliquidated obligations at the end of the first "administratively shortened" competitive segment, these may be reported on the subaccount transitional FFR expenditure data report.
Subaccount Transitional FFR for converted SNAP awards: If the award is under Streamlined Non-competing Award Process (SNAP), the grantee will be required to submit subaccount transitional FFR expenditure data that covers the project period from the original start date through the new project period end date.
Due Date for Progress Reports: There will be no change to the due dates, submission, or review of progress reports for domestic awards for FY 2015.

In response to feedback from the grantee community regarding implementation of this transition, NIH continues to seek some relief from the Department of Health and Human Services, Division of Grants by requesting an additional year for grantees to have adequate time for system developments necessary to manage this transition for non-competing awards. However, absent any HHS approval of that request, grantees must continue to prepare to make the transition effective with FY2015 awards.

Frequently Asked Questions
NIH will post updated answers to frequently asked questions on the transition to PMS subaccounts on the following site: https://grants.nih.gov/grants/frequent_questions.htm under the Other Policies/Resource heading, Payment (PMS Subaccounts).

Inquiries

Please direct all inquiries to:

Division of Grants Policy
Office of Policy for Extramural Research Administration (OPERA)
Office of Extramural Research
National Institutes of Health Telephone: 301-435-0949
Email: [email protected]