Allocating Multi-Campus Awards

Find out how to allocate incoming and outgoing multi-campus awards (MCAs) formerly known as “intercampus subawards.”

Prime campus and recipient campus

Multi-campus awards are used when a sponsored project involves more than one UC campus. The campus receiving an award from an external granting agency is the prime campus, and the other participating campuses are recipients of Multi-Campus Award(s) from the prime campus(es).

• Complete description: Multi-campus awards for Sponsored Projects

Procedures

The procedures for allocating multi-campus awards vary slightly from normal allocation procedures and use unique accounting codes:

General guidelines

• A multi-campus award is not an intercampus recharge or an expense transfer.
• Payment is received or transmitted via a financial journal process between campuses, not an "interlocation transfer of funds" or a check.
• Payment entries are recorded financially in a transfer account for each recipient campus (102xxx).
• The allocation debit entry is to the respective campus transfer account (72xxxx), not revenue. The credits to expenditure accounts remain the same.

Resources:

• UC Memo 14-08: Multiple Campus Awards
• To check the status of a Multi-Campus Award, contact the Office of Contract and Grant Administration or your Office of Post Award Financial Services award accountant 

UCSD as prime campus

When UCSD issues an MCA to another UC campus, make sure the ledger reflects that a specific dollar amount is set aside for use by the other campus. To do this, create a budget entry to the transfer account for the other campus:

• Determine the amount to be awarded to the recipient campus.
• Follow the instructions in How to Prepare a Sponsored Project Award Allocation.
• If you are allocating an award that includes a Multi-Campus Award, include the following in your allocation journal:
  • A debit to a revenue account for the full amount of the award from the funding agency (increase/ +)
  • Credits to the respective budget expenditure accounts and indirect cost account for the amounts specified in the award budget to be spent at UCSD (increase/ +)
  • A credit to the respective intercampus transfer account (725xxx) for the total amount of the Multi-Campus Award (direct and indirect) to the other campus (increase/ +)
• If you need to amend an existing allocation to allocate a Multi-Campus Award, include the following in your allocation journal:
  • A debit for direct and indirect costs to your budget expenditure account for the amount of the Multi-Campus Award (decrease/ -)
  • The expenditure accounts should be those being reduced at UCSD in order to make funding available for the Multi-Campus Award to the other campus.
  • A credit to the respective intercampus transfer account (725xxx) for the total amount of the Multi-Campus Award (direct and indirect) to the other campus (increase/ +)

UCSD as recipient of an MCA

Allocation procedures are the same as standard awards except that:

• Some account codes will differ because the award is from another campus and not from an external agency.
• There is no debit to revenue. The debit side of your journal is to an intercampus transfer account (724xxx).

 In general, your allocation should include:

• A debit to the respective intercampus transfer account (724xxx) for the total amount of the Multi-Campus Award (direct and indirect) from the other campus (decrease/ -)
• A credit for direct and indirect costs to expenditure budget accounts for the amount of the Multi-Campus Award per the budget (increase/ +)

List of intercampus transfer and financial control accounts