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Undergraduate Research Endeavors Competitive Awards
URECA! Polices & Procedures for Processing Student Payments
Policies
- Students’ URECA! faculty mentors are ultimately responsible for all charges expensed to the URECA! project chart string. Budget managers must seek approval from students’ faculty mentors before allocating any PurCard expenses, or requesting reimbursements or cash advances.
- All expenses must be incurred within the project’s start and end dates.
- Students may be reimbursed from their URECA! project chart string, with approval from their faculty mentors, for expenses they may have personally incurred. Reimbursements must be based on original receipts. (See procedure A below.)
- Reimbursements may only be made to the student assigned to the URECA! project chart field, and not to any other individual or entity that may have incurred URECA! expenses.
- Departments may incur URECA! related expenses on behalf of students via PurCard, with approval from faculty mentors, and allocate the expenses directly to the students’ URECA! project chart string. (See procedure B below.)
- Students may receive cash advances, with approval from their faculty mentors, but will be required to repay any unused portion of said advance. (See procedure C below.)
- Students who travel must keep track of all of receipts, and follow all applicable University Travel Policies regarding allowable expenses.
- Faculty mentors, or their designees, must finalize all URECA! transactions by the project end date per URECA! guidelines. Failure to do so may result in the absorption of URECA! expenses by faculty mentors’ departments.
- Any over-spent URECA! project chart strings will have overages billed directly to the faculty mentors’ departments.
- URECA! funding shall be considered a form of “scholarship” (in order to comply with the University’s Policy on Awarding Scholarships/Prizes) which must be captured on students’ financial aid accounts before the close of the final semester of their projects, or the date of their graduation (whichever comes first). This will not affect students’ financial aid or billing records, but will be reflected on their IRS form 1098-T (Tuition Statement Form) at the end of each tax year(See procedure D below.)
Procedures
A. Reimbursements to Students for Out of Pocket Expenses
- The student's faculty mentor, or his/her designee, shall submit a check request form through Procurement Services with a memo explaining the request as a reimbursement for URECA! project related expenses.
- Original receipts must be attached to the memo
in order to justify a reimbursement.
- The chart string indicated on the check request should correspond to the student’s URECA! chart string with project #.
- Reimbursements via Check Request Forms may only be made to the student assigned to the URECA! project chart field, and not to any other individual or entity that may have incurred URECA! expenses.
- Checks must be requested at least seven (7) to ten (10) business
days in advance.
B. Reimbursements to Departments for PurCard expenses Incurred on Behalf of URECA!
- The student's faculty mentor, or his/her designee, shall allocate the PurCard expense directly to the student’s URECA! chart string with project #.
C. Cash Advances to Students out of URECA! Accounts
- The student's faculty mentor, or his/her designee, shall submit a check request form through Procurement Services with a memo explaining the request as an advance for URECA! related expenses.
- The memo should contain an itemized list of anticipated expenses in order to justify a cash advance.
- The chart string indicated on the check request should correspond to the student’s URECA! chart string with project #.
- Cash advances via check requests may only be made to the student assigned to the URECA! project and chart string, and not to any other individual or entity that may require an advance.
- If not enough cash is advanced to the student, reimbursement of additional expenses may be sought (see procedure A above).
- Checks must be requested at least seven (7) to ten (10) business days in advance.
- If more cash is advanced to the student than is necessary, the faculty mentor, or his/her designee, should send a memo to Student Financial Services (SFS) indicating the dollar amount of funds needed to be recovered from the student’s personal account. SFS will bill the student through his/her student account for the amount indicated in the memo. The memo must include the students’ name, UVM ID (beginning with 95), and the amount of funds to be recovered.
D. Scholarship Accounting
- At the end of each semester and after students’ project completion date, Student Financial Services, in conjunction with the Controller’s Office, will automatically update URECA! recipients’ financial aid accounts to reflect the amount of money they have utilized for their projects. As stated in the above policies, this will not affect their financial aid or billings records, but will be reflected on their IRS form 1098-T (Tuition Statement) at the end of each tax year.