Running Indirect Cost Calculations

GrantLink can calculate indirect costs from effective grant-expense allocations, preserve draft and approval history, and enforce non-overlapping periods and a life-to-date cap.

Current limitation: GrantLink cannot currently post an indirect-cost journal entry to QuickBooks. The Post to QuickBooks action is visible for an approved run, but the backend blocks the legacy writer. Clicking it returns an error and leaves the run approved. Record any required journal entry in QuickBooks through your accounting process; do not describe the GrantLink run as posted.

Before You Start

Confirm that:

• The grant is Active or in Closeout.
• The grant has a positive indirect-cost rate, or its associated funder has a positive default rate. The calculation uses the grant rate first and falls back to the funder rate.
• The grant's indirect-cost base and optional cap are correct.
• Direct costs have effective GrantLink allocations in the intended period and their budget categories have correct indirect-base groups.
• The date range is inside the grant period and does not overlap another non-voided run.
• Your Clerk organization role is not Viewer.

The configuration card currently enables Calculate New Period only when a rate is stored directly on the grant, even though the backend can fall back to the funder rate. If only a funder default exists and the button is disabled, add the intended rate to the grant rather than assuming the fallback is available through this screen.

Understand the Bases

Indirect-cost allocations themselves are excluded. Uncategorized costs have no indirect-base group and therefore fall into TDC, MTDC, and Custom unless another exclusion applies; categorize costs before calculating if that is not intended.

For MTDC, the calculator accumulates Subaward-category costs by QuickBooks vendor across earlier grant activity. It uses $25,000 for a stored Awarded timestamp before October 1, 2024 and $50,000 for a timestamp on or after that date; a missing timestamp defaults to $50,000. Rows without a vendor share an unknown vendor bucket. Verify both the award timestamp and vendor coding against the award's actual terms.

Calculate a Draft

1. Open the grant and select Indirect Costs.
2. Select Calculate New Period.
3. Choose the start and end dates. The dialog proposes a calendar-quarter range clipped to the grant dates, but you can choose any non-overlapping range inside the grant period.
4. Optionally edit the period label.
5. Select Calculate.

The calculator uses current effective operating-expense allocations whose QuickBooks transaction date falls in the selected range. It applies the percentage at source-currency precision and then limits the result by the remaining cap. Approved and posted prior runs consume the cap; drafts do not.

A period with no eligible costs still creates a $0 draft. A cap-exhausted period can show a calculated amount and a $0 capped amount. GrantLink rejects mixed-currency cap histories and calculations beyond its supported 500-run or 500-effective-allocation limits.

Review the Draft

Review the run's:

• Period and label
• Base type and rate
• Base amount
• Calculated indirect amount
• Capped indirect amount and remaining cap

The calculator stores exclusion totals for equipment, excluded categories, and subaward thresholds, but the current run table does not expose that itemized exclusion detail. Reconcile the displayed base to the underlying categorized allocations before approval rather than assuming the screen provides a complete calculation workpaper.

The saved run is a snapshot. Later allocation corrections do not silently update it. Delete the draft and calculate it again when the underlying expense population changes. The current screen does not expose the backend's same-period recalculate option.

Approve, Return, Void, or Delete

Open the run's action menu:

• Approve moves a draft to Approved and records approver and time.
• Move to Draft returns an approved run to draft and clears its approval metadata.
• Void marks a draft or approved run voided and requires a reason. Voided runs no longer block overlapping periods or consume the cap.
• Delete permanently removes a draft after writing a deletion activity event. Use Void instead when preserving the run itself matters.

These actions require organization membership but do not enforce a separate IDC approver role or separation between preparer and approver. Apply any required secondary approval outside GrantLink.

QuickBooks and Error Handling

Do not use Post to QuickBooks as a working posting workflow. Current behavior is:

1. The approved run remains Approved.
2. No QuickBooks journal entry is created.
3. The UI displays the backend error.

There is no separate retry button; choosing Post to QuickBooks again repeats the unsupported request. Enabling Post indirect cost journal entries in QuickBooks Permissions or configuring debit/credit accounts does not remove the backend block.

If you manually post an entry in QuickBooks, GrantLink does not provide a field to attach that manually created JE to the run. Reconcile it outside the run and retain the QuickBooks reference with your close documentation.

Audit and Reconciliation

GrantLink writes activity for calculation, approval, return to draft, void, deletion, and posting failure. Review organization activity under Settings > Activity & audit log. The run table also retains its period, rate, base, result, status, creator, and approval metadata.

At close:

1. Reconcile the base to effective grant allocations.
2. Verify exclusions, vendor accumulation, rate, and cap.
3. Approve the GrantLink run under your policy.
4. Record and approve the accounting entry separately in QuickBooks.
5. Reconcile the manual QuickBooks entry to the approved GrantLink amount and retain both references.

Indirect-cost recovery and releases from donor restriction are separate accounting events. See Understanding and Using Restriction Releases in GrantLink for the release schedule workflow.