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[cobol]

(Apologies if this has been covered in the forums, I couldn't find anything)

Can anyone recommend software to manage grant costs / expenditures? Mostly in my dept. the way people manage grants is asking the administrative staff, "How much money do I have left?"

I'd like something that lets me do commitment accounting - so I've allocated $X for this student for three years, $Y for this equipment, spent this much to date on travel, etc.

Thanks in advance.

[mleok]

If you're just handing your own grant, presumably this could all be done on a home grown spreadsheet, using something like Excel. You just need to know things like your overhead and benefit rates to do that.

At least where I'm at, the departmental grants administrator provides me with balance projections based on student/postdoc/summer salary commitments, and there is some sort of centralized accounting software our university uses to allow us to track each line item.

Having competent staff to handle such issues is important for efficiently scaling up your externally funded research program, and you should first talk to your administrative staff to see if they have the capability/willingness to do this for you.