Budget, overhead and reporting. These are just some of the things that need to be taken into account when applying for and administrating external funding obtained through projects. We in the project finance team are ready to help the department’s employees with everything from applications to reporting and organizing events such as conferences. Our work philosophy is that researchers should spend as little time as possible on administration – and as much time as possible on their research.
In the project finance team, we primarily handle accounting and financial tasks in all phases of project management – from budgets for applications through project start-up and in-process budget follow-up and to completion and closing.
In order to make everything run as smoothly as possible, we have drawn up a few guidelines that will ensure the best possible completion of each task, smooth work processes and minimal peak loads.
Project finance
Project guidelines
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Get approval for applying for the project
When you are about to apply for funding for a project, you should well in advance – and no later than six weeks prior to the application deadline – fill out an approval form and thereby secure the Head of Department’s approval for applying for the project. This ensures coherence between the efforts spent on project applications and the department’s overall strategic focus.
Link to THE phase one APPROVAL FORM
How to fill out Phase one of the approval form:- Enter the applicant’s name, project title, partners, funding provider, call (if any), application deadline, expected date of reply, date of project start-up and closeout, as well as a short abstract.
- Submit the form to the project finance team, who will add the budget information.
- The project finance team asks the Head of Department to sign and approve the application.
- Once you have your approval, you can start writing the application itself. This is usually done through a web portal such as e-grant. Inviting your contact in the project finance team to use the portal will be an advantage, as this enables us to help you draw up and upload the budget to the application.
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When you have been granted your project
Congratulations – you have been notified by the funding provider that your project has been approved.
If you haven’t already invited your contact in the project finance team to use the web portal, this is the time to do so. We can then help you get any necessary signatures on legally binding co-operation agreements and grant contracts and ensure that the project is set up with project number, etc., in ØSS for book keeping in terms of grant/budget, earnings and expenses.
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During the project: Time recording in ERP and budget follow-ups
Many questions may arise over the course of a project. You can find a lot of information on the website for Finance and Accounts at Aalborg University. but you are always welcome to contact us, for instance if you wish to know how the work hours of your project have been distributed, or how many funds have been allocated to travels, purchasing equipment, etc.
Time recording in ERP
AAU employees must use the ERP system for recording hours worked on grant-financed projects (UK 95/97), revenue-funded projects (UK 90) and AAU-financed projects (UK 10) as well as on projects that are partially grant-financed and partially AAU-financed.
Furthermore, you can find more information on ITS' Oracle ERP website
Guidelines
You should only record productive hours, that is, the hours you actually work on each project. You may not register hours for vacation time, sick leave or other absences on projects. The recorded work hours on each project, along with an automatic calculation of the hourly rate, form the basis of the bookkeeping entry of the wage costs that are registered on each project per month.
You can find more tips and guidelines for time recording in ERP below:
- Registration of own hours in the time registration system (Desktop/Laptop)
- Registration of own hours in the time registration system (App)
If you have any questions about time recording, please contact Susanne T. Larsen who is responsible for the day-to-day operations of our time recording in ERP.
Financial reporting
The reporting of external projects differs depending on the grant provider in question. However, it is always the project finance team who handle the financial reporting in externally funded projects, while the project participants handle the scientific reporting.
Budget follow-ups
At intervals, you as project head will be invited to short follow-up meetings with your contact in the project finance team. At these meetings, we will review the project status and budget in order to ensure correct recording of costs and earnings on each project, as well as completing any required invoicing and submission of accounts in correspondence with the co-operation agreement/contract.
The project finance team are always ready to help you with any overviews and financial reports you might need. As project head, you may also ask one of the employees in the project finance team to present the accounts and/or budget at project meetings. -
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Project closure
Once the scientific activities and financial reporting of a project have been completed, the project finance team ensures that the project has been administratively closed by submitting an electronic request for closure to AAU Project Finance.
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Need assistance for other things?
Even though we in the project finance team primarily work with numbers, we are also happy to help you with other aspects of project administration.
Conferences
One example of this is conference planning, where we can assist you with for instance hotel and venue bookings, conference materials and various practical tasks.
Project disseminationWe are also happy to help with project dissemination/communication, including the development and operation of project websites – in collaboration with the department’s communications officers/external collaborators.
ASK US!
Prioritized staff list
Staff lists are temporarily unavailable. We are working on a solution. For the time being, employees can be searched for here: https://vbn.aau.dk/en/persons/
Prioritized staff list
Staff lists are temporarily unavailable. We are working on a solution. For the time being, employees can be searched for here: https://vbn.aau.dk/en/persons/