Key Dates

Related Announcements

NOT-OD-22-215 - NIH Final Federal Financial Reports (FFRs) will no longer be converted to Interim Annual Reports in the Payment Management System

NOT-OD-22-099- Upcoming Changes to the Federal Financial Report (FFR) Beginning April 1, 2022

NOT-OD-21-138 - NIH Final Federal Financial Reports (FFRs) will be converted to Interim Annual Reports in the Payment Management System

NOT-OD-21-128 - Updated Process for Submission of Federal Financial Reports for Closed Payment Management System Subaccounts

NOT-OD-21-060 - UPDATE Implementation of Requirement to Submit the Federal Financial Report (FFR) in the Payment Management System

NOT-OD-20-127 - Upcoming Mandatory Submission of the Federal Financial Report (FFR) in the Payment Management System Beginning January 1, 2021

Issued by

NATIONAL INSTITUTES OF HEALTH (NIH)

Purpose

The purpose of this Guide Notice is to remind the NIH recipient community of the change in Federal Financial Reporting (FFR) SF-425 submission requirements, and to provide additional implementation details, as referenced in the related Guide Notice.

Beginning January 1, 2021, respective to NIH awards that require submission of an FFR, NIH recipients will be required to submit the FFR in the Payment Management System (PMS). FFRs submitted prior to January 1, 2021, must use the FFR module in the eRA Commons based on the previous requirements set forth by the agency (see NIH Grants Policy Statement 8.4.1.5.2). FFRs submitted on or after January 1, 2021 must use PMS.

This change to FFR submission requirements does not impact the submission timeline. Therefore, FFR due dates, as outlined in the NIH Grants Policy Statement, 8.4.1.5.2 and 8.6.1, remain unchanged.

Background

In alignment with HHS, NIH is implementing this change to allow recipients to report/certify expenditure data once through a single entry point and eliminate the need to report duplicative information across multiple reporting sources.

Additional Implementation Details

Beginning January 1, 2021, NIH recipients must submit required annual and final FFRs in PMS. Recipients who have FFRs that are a work-in-progress in the eRA Commons/FFR module as of January 1, 2021, will need to restart the FFR in PMS.

• Recipient staff responsible for completing and submitting FFRs must register with PMS to obtain log in credentials prior to submitting an FFR.
• Recipients can directly access PMS via the new Manage FFR button in eRA Commons.. This button will take the recipient directly to PMS, where the recipient will log in and be taken to the Federal Financial Report Details screen for the given award in PMS. Once the FFR is completed, the recipient will submit it to NIH in PMS.
• Recipients will still be able to see the current status of their submission in the eRA Commons/FFR module.
• Recipients may also search for and access FFRs directly in PMS in most cases.
• Recipients who need to revise FFR submissions should do so in PMS in most cases.
• Recipients unable to locate FFRs in PMS should contact the eRA Service Desk for assistance.
  Note: Due to data migration considerations and data elements contained in older FFRs, some previously accepted FFRs may not be migrated to PMS. Examples of FFRs that may not be migrated include: FFRs for direct awards to foreign institutions issued prior to October 1, 2012; awards made to PMS pooled accounts; and FFRs reporting more than ten F&A rates.

System Changes that may Impact Recipients as a Result of the Transition to PMS are as follows:

• The FFR form section 11, Indirect Expense, is limited to reporting ten F&A rates. This is a major change from the FFR module in the eRA Commons which does not have a limit on the number of F&A rates a recipient is allowed to report. If a recipient needs to report more than ten F&A rates on an FFR, the recipient must enter the additional rate information in item 12 Remarks. Please note there is a 2,000 character limit.
• Each FFR is limited to report on a single subaccount, corresponding to the award document number in Section I of the Notice of Award. Recipients must complete separate FFRs for each subaccount for which an FFR needs to be submitted.

Resources

Training sessions offered by PMS for recipients will be posted at this link as they become available: https://pms.psc.gov/training/gr-ffr-training.html.

Inquiries

Please direct all systems policy inquiries to:

NIH Office of Policy for Extramural Research Administration (OPERA)
Systems Policy Branch
Email: [email protected]

Please direct all eRA systems-related inquiries to:

eRA Service Desk
Submit a web ticket: https://grants.nih.gov/support/index.html
Toll-free: 1-866-504-9552
Phone: 301-402-7469

Please direct all PMS systems-related inquiries to:

ONE-DHHS Help Desk
Self-Help Web Portal: http://www.psc.gov/one-dhhs
Email: [email protected]
Toll-free: 1-877-614-5533