On the Account document in KFS, the Account Award End Date field should be completed only when creating an account assigned to an award.
In general, you should enter the end date that is indicated on the Award Lookup in KFS, but there are a couple of notable exceptions:
- Often, awards span multiple years with separate distinct budget periods. Depending on the terms of the award related to financial reporting, the university may be required to prepare a "final" financial report for each budget period. When that occurs, your department should create a separate account for each budget period and enter the Account Award End Date as the end date for that budget period, even though the project period end date is some time in the future.
- When the university prepares the financial report for that specific budget period, the accounts that have end dates matching the budget period are the basis for the financial reporting. Once the financial reporting is completed, the department would start spending from their new account. This process allows us to have clean cut-off of financial data in separate accounts without co-mingling expenses in one account across multiple periods.
- Sometimes a Project Director/Principal Investigator allocates funding to a co-Project Director/Principal Investigator (co-PI) and may limit the time period that the funding is available for the Co-PI to complete the work. Your department can establish an expense account for that co-investigator with an award end date on that account that would indicate when their funding period is ending.
- The Account Award End Date is a critical attribute that allows departments and Contracts & Grants Accounting to quickly see what year the account is assigned to when financial reporting occurs annually during a multi-year performance period.