Grants & You: Fall 2025: Scholarly Innovation & Grant Resources

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The Division of Research, Grants & Scholarly Innovations (RGSI) consists of an administrative core and 3 departments: Sponsored Programs, Research Support, and A.T. Still Research Institute. RGSI is dedicated to nurturing a strong and supportive environment for research and scholarly activity at ATSU.

Sponsored Programs Coaching Memo: Allowable Grant Expenditures 

A grant expenditure is considered allowable if it complies with the award’s terms and conditions, is allocable to the work being purchased by the sponsoring agency, is necessary to carry out project objectives, and is reasonable under public scrutiny. Allowable costs are treated consistently with the use of Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) in alignment with the White House Office of Management & Budget’s Guidance for Federal Financial Assistance.

Compliant: Expenditures abide the institutional/funder guidelines and approved budget.

• Expenditure meets the most restrictive of institutional or funder requirements; and
• Expenditure follows all institutional policies consistent with non-grant use of funds (meaning, it is subject to the same policies, approvals, oversights, and monitoring activities as institutional funds).

Allocable: Allocability considers the process of portioning a cost or a group of costs to one or more projects/sources based on the benefit provided to each project/source. This simply means charging the appropriate shares to the appropriate parties/projects.

• Expenditure clearly supports or advances the project’s objectives.

Necessary & Reasonable: An expenditure must be based on current market value.

• Cost must withstand public scrutiny in that a prudent person not affiliated with ATSU would agree the nature and amount of expenditure is reasonable for circumstances. 

Conclusion

All grant expenditures must meet the standards of allowable (as approved in your grant budget), reasonable, allocable (easily assigned to the grant objectives) and necessary to complete the project.

ATSU Departments that Can Help

Please check in with Sponsored Programs or the Finance Office if, during the implementation of your project, you encounter a grant expense that may not meet one of the tests mentioned above.