Monitoring Expenses - Determining Inter-campus Sub-award balances

Last Updated: December 22, 2025 2:06:29 PM PST

Find out how to determine balances for Multi-Campus Awards (MCAs, formerly known as “intercampus subawards”).

General Guidelines

Payment is received or transmitted via a financial journal process between campuses, not an "interlocation transfer of funds" or a check.
Payment is not made via an intercampus recharge or an expense transfer.

Multi-Campus Awards (MCA)

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 sub-awards from the prime. Payment procedures for intercampus sub-awards vary from normal procedures and use unique accounting codes.

UC campuses may engage in sponsored projects involving 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 considered "recipients."

Incoming MCA (UCSD is the recipient campus)

To monitor expenditure balances, review the budget balance in each respective direct and indirect expenditure account.
To monitor payments from the awarding campus, review the trial balance for the award:

Other UCs send copies of their journals to UCSD BFS FinOps team
UCSD FinOps Department creates a receipt and applies the payment to the related IRR (invoice)
If departments ever receive notice of payment that does not include accountsreceivable@ucsd.edu, please forward to that contact email.

Outgoing MCA (UCSD is the prime campus)

To monitor expenditure balances, review the budget balance in each respective direct and indirect expenditure account.

To monitor payments to the recipient campus, review the intercampus transfer account budget and financial entries:
- The financial debit entry reflects payments to the other campus.
- The credit budget balance reflects either an unspent balance or payments owed to the other campus.

The MCAs will have unique Subaward numbers (PO number)
Other UC Campuses have to submit their Intercampus Reimbursement Requests (IRR) through Payment Compass:

Payment Compass requires at least 1 login per campus (supplier).
Users are able to create their own login and password with an invitation
UCSD will send 1 invite to the listed emails of each sub award
UCSD IPPS Department will process the payment for IRRs.
Payment notifications will be submitted by UCSD AP system. UCSD SPF accountant no longer will create/submit a journal.
SPF accountant will process the EIA journal for items greater than 100k or higher and email it to the other UC Campus

Obtaining an award and project for a Multi-Campus Award

SPF sets up the initial award and project number for an MCA after receiving the information from OCGA. If you are waiting for an MCA and haven't received the award and project number, first confirm that has received the Notification of MCA from the prime campus. If OCGA has not received the notice, contact the prime campus and request that the notification be sent to UCSD. For awards that aren't processed through OCGA, such as gifts, contact Gift Processing.

Notification

The official Notification of Campus Subaward is generally processed by the prime campus Office of Contract and Grant Administration (OCGA) to the recipient campus's OCGA. This includes federal and privately funded grants, contracts, and agreements. For gifts and fellowships, contact the Sponsored Project Finace (SPF) for instructions.

Allocating Multi-Campus Awards

Prime campus and recipient campus

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 Sponsored Projects Finance 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. If the MCA is a part of the base budget, SPF will automatically allocate the direct and indirect cost split to the sponsored project. Departments can then:

Determine the amount to be awarded to the recipient campus.
Add a budget resource line under the desired task for “Intercampus Subcontracts”
Add in the amount reflected on the MCA
Ensure you have deducted this amount from the existing budget resource lines (typically operating and indirect)
The total budget amount should be equal to the original amount as you are moving budget between categories, not adding new budget.
Save and submit the budget for SPF accountant approval

SPF Will use the financial conrol location, account and award when recording payments to/from other UC campus(es)
The UCSD operating ledger will reflect the transfer account codes

list of transfer accounts for UC campuses