Subrecipient invoice payments: Interview with Ken Sandel and Susan Corwin

Each year Purdue’s Sponsored Program Services team helps research teams across the university process hundreds of millions of dollars in research funding and expenditures involving partners, vendors and subrecipient organizations. Two Office of Research leaders, Ken Sandel and Susan Corwin recently shared important policy insights around these procedures and what principal investigators and research administrators need to know.

Q: Virtually everybody in the Purdue research community has worked with the Office of Sponsored Program Services (SPS) in applying for grants, contracting, post-award administration, PERA and more. Today you are sharing important information about another area people may be less familiar with.

Ken Sandel: That’s correct. SPS processed more than $83 million in subcontract payments to our partner universities, businesses and entities this year. We want to take this opportunity to highlight the importance of adherence to the university’s subrecipient invoice payment policies when these show up in your inbox for review and processing. Our policies are specifically designed to comply with federal regulations that require payments to subrecipient organizations to be made within 30 calendar days of us receiving an invoice.

Why is this topic being spotlighted at this time? 

Susan Corwin: As a recipient of federal research awards, we must undergo a Single Audit of our financial statements and federal awards.  It is in these audits that our auditors are required to test or sample transaction including the processing time of our sub-recipient payments.  We have not faired well in our recent audits.

What risks does noncompliance pose for Purdue and researchers?

Susan Corwin: First, it can affect our relationships and reputation. As a research institution and individual researchers, we interact with and depend on hundreds of organizations for services as well as research collaborators. Late payments can damage relationships with subrecipient institutions as well as disrupt important services supporting our research. 

While Purdue routinely performs well in these audits, for the past two fiscal years, we have had a number of invoice payments that have exceeded the 30- day compliance threshold resulting in a “significant deficiency finding”. This has resulted in a doubling of the number of transactions the auditors are required to review.  We need your help and attention to reduce our future audit exposure.

Navigating invoicing and payment processes can be complicated. What should individual researchers do?

Ken Sandel: Our focus of this communication is to raise awareness.  It is crucial that any PI or research administrator notifies our SPS team (subaward@purdue.edu) of any situation that could cause payment delays. Knowing problems or risks of delay beforehand will allow us help address any issues.  It is important to note that some delays are necessary to ensure appropriate vetting, follow-up and information gathering.  This additional time does require documentation and record keeping for the situation to qualify for an exemption from audit findings.  You must communicate and work with the Post Award – Sub-Award Team for these actions and appreciate documentation.

Susan Corwin: SPS has also updated training for our team to better enable them to support PIs and research administrators through the subrecipient invoice process. To identify any issues early, our team is also increasing follow-up on outstanding invoices and working with other central offices to improve processes that may add time to invoice processing.

We’re asking all researchers and administrators to proactively communicate with SPS if there are any circumstances that could delay invoice approval. This kind of collaboration is key to staying compliant and protecting our research mission.

Where can research teams get more information on this?

Susan Corwin: The SPS website has information for researchers to better understand this. Those include: subrecipient monitoring, research quality assurance and compliance, and federal payment regulation.

Researchers can also contact our team (subaward@purdue.edu) with any concerns or updates about invoices. 

Do you have any final thoughts for research teams?

Ken Sandel: I just want to say Thank you for your attention and assistance with these invoice reviews.  The impact that Purdue researchers have on the world is enormous, and our reputation for world-class research is invaluable. To protect that reputation, protect funding, and help research teams, the SPS team is here to help. Please reach out if you need help navigating the administrative landscape and understanding the invoicing process and the timelines involved. 

Early communication can prevent a lot of problems down the line.

Ken Sandel is Associate Vice President, Sponsored Program Services, Senior Intellectual Property Officer.

Susan Corwin is Director of Post Award with Sponsored Program Services.

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