PI Budget Template

Recently, I organized a "Resource Fair" for our Principal Investigators and Research Administration staff. During our fair, we held short workshops for different topics, one of which was about PI Budget. I created a budget template for our PIs and integrated the accounts that our post-award office use. 

I have created a link so you may download, edit, and use in your institution. Below are a few things to note in this spreadsheet.

1. The spreadsheet includes commonly used accounts. You may edit the spreadsheet depending on the accounts you use in your post-award office.

2. You may change the indirect cost (IDC) rate depending on your institution's IDC.

3. If an award is less than proposed amount, you can use the spreadsheet to work your way backwards. You can enter the award budget on the top and when you enter amounts in the different categories, the total remaining amount will be reduced until it goes down to $0.00.

4. You can put cost of living adjustment (COLA) rate on R1 and the spreadsheet will calculate it on all fulltime and faculty accounts (601510 and 601530).

5. Fringe rate will automatically calculate as stated below: (1) Personnel accounts highlighted in yellow will have Rate 1; (2) Personnel accounts highlighted in orange (or salmon, not sure what that color is) will have Rate 3 on the first 2 years and Rate  on years 3 to 5.; and (3) Personnel accounts not highlighted means salary/wage benefits should be added together in the cell.

6. IDC for subawards must be manually calculated.

7. All descriptions highlighted in blue will not be included in the IDC calculation.

8. On major capital equipment row, if you enter an amount less than $5,000.00, the cell will turn red. It means the amount must not be in that cell and must be either expendable or minor capital equipment. The rule may be edited to accommodate your needs (if you need assistance with this, please let me know).

9. Notes section to be used by PIs to put details of the budget.

Here's the link to the PI Budget Template. I welcome any feedback and suggestion for improvement.