An investigator is renting space at an off-campus location to conduct his research which is funded by two separate awards. The rental cost is an allowable expense on both projects. Because of system limitations, the department should provide the University facilities office with a non-sponsored award to charge initially. The PI emails his business office to transfer the rental charges proportionate to the benefit to the projects and includes an allocation methodology supporting the distribution of the rental charge. Is this a permissible cost transfer?
Yes. The PI provided a written instruction to his business office to allocate the charges based on the benefit to each project. In addition, because the system was not able to accommodate multiple charging instructions, the cost transfer is the only way to properly distribute the costs to the projects. However, it is the obligation of the PI and the business office to review all charges regularly and to ensure the transfer occurs within the time limits of the Cost Transfer policy.