Setup Considerations: Award Costs Processing
You can use this topic to help make decisions when planning your configuration and use of award costs processing. It explains:
- Why to set it up.
- How it fits into the rest of Workday.
- Downstream impacts and cross-product interactions.
- Security requirements and business process configurations.
- Questions and limitations to consider before implementation.
Refer to detailed task instructions for full configuration details.
What It Is
Award costs processing in Workday calculates the facilities and administration (F&A) or indirect costs, and revenue recognition related to award spending. Workday initiates award costs processing only for spends on cost reimbursable and fixed amount award lines.
Business Benefits
Award costs processing:
- Calculates F&A costs automatically when your spend against your awards.
- Creates cost reimbursable spend lines from your direct spends to bill to your sponsors.
- Creates the accounting for F&A costs and revenue recognition for your award spending.
Use Cases
You can configure award costs processing rules to:
- Generate F&A and award revenue recognition journals.
- Create accounting for costs that fall outside the award line dates.
- Override the spend category and object class for F&A costs to separate the indirect costs from direct spending on your award.
Questions to Consider
Questions | Considerations |
|---|---|
What is the line type on your award line? | When your award line is of the line type:
|
When do you want to calculate the F&A costs for your award spending? | You can configure the award costs processing rules to have Workday calculate award costs and generate operational journals at either:
Workday recommends that you configure your award costs processing to occur at the completion of a business process. |
How do you calculate award costs for spend transactions that occur outside of the award line dates? | Award line dates represent the budget dates that fall between the From Date and To Date on the award line. By default, Workday only processes award costs for spend transactions that occur within the award line dates.
To process award costs for spend transactions outside of the award line dates, you can configure your award cost processing rules to ignore award line dates. When you incur spending outside of your award line dates, Workday calculates the award costs and generates the F&A journal lines for the spending. You can then use these journal lines to balance your award revenue recognition. |
How do you process award costs in multicompany awards? | In a multicompany award, if the company on the award header is different from the company on the award line, Workday uses the company on the award line associated with the spend to derive the award costs processing rule for processing award costs.
You can set individual award line dates and object class-mapping rules for each affiliate company. |
Recommendations
- Workday recommends that you generate award costs at the completion of the spend transaction business process. It enables you to account for F&A costs and award revenue recognition as you incur them, streamlining the reconciliation.
- To ensure that Workday doesn't calculate F&A costs on previously calculated F&A costs, exclude the F&A object class from the F&A cost basis type.
Requirements
- When you switch award costs processing from occurring at settlement to occurring at business process completion, specify a future effective date. Workday continues to generate award costs at settlement for all your spend transactions before this date.
- Include grants associated with an effective award line as worktags on the spend lines that you want Workday to generate award costs on.
Limitations
- You can't change the effective date of award costs processing rules that are in use.
- You can only override 1 F&A spend category and 1 F&A object class in the award costs processing rule.
Tenant Setup
Maintain your account posting rules and set up the ledger accounts for Workday to post the F&A and revenue recognition journal lines in these posting rules:
- Facilities and Administration Cost Expense
- Facilities and Administration Cost Revenue
Enable award costs processing for non-Workday delivered journal sources by accessing the
Maintain Journal Sources
task and selecting the Process Award Costs
check box for the journal sources.Configure your award costs processing rules by selecting from the related actions menu of the company.
Security
To create award costs processing rules, you need security access to the
Set Up: Grants Management
domain in the Grants Management functional area.Business Processes
To reprocess award costs after a change that affects the F&A cost calculations, configure the
Reprocess Award Costs Event
business process and security policy.Reporting
To see the cost reimbursable spend lines that Workday generates, use the
Cost Reimbursable Transaction Lines
report data source in your custom report.To view the accounting for F&A and revenue recognition, go to the related actions menu of the original spend transaction, and select . You can find the accounting for F&A and award revenue recognition on these tabs:
- Facilities and Administration
- Award Revenue Recognition
Integrations
No impact.
Connections and Touchpoints
Touchpoint | Considerations |
|---|---|
F&A Journals | Award costs processing interacts with these features to calculate the F&A costs:
|
Award Revenue Recognition Journals | Award costs processing interacts with these features to calculate award revenue recognition:
|
Workday offers a Touchpoints Kit with resources to help you understand configuration relationships in your tenant. Learn more about the Workday Touchpoints Kit on Workday Community.