Help – Budget Rounding Error

There is a rounding error in eTRACS that will occur in proposals >$1 million that are utilizing the System-to-System (S2S) feature.  If it occurs, the error is being caught during the review of the proposal by the ORA Pre-Review officers if/when they notice that the budget justification is a few dollars off from the total budgeted amount in the final submission document.

The rounding error can cause a difference in the bottom line budget amount by about $1 for every $1 million budget dollars.  Usually, the rounding issue is occurring in the personnel section when fringe is applied.

Verification 1 – At any point in proposal development, the proposal budget can be built and viewed on the Finalize tab.  The “view” link will populate the R&R Budget and the budget amounts can be verified.  If possible, it is often advantageous to “Complete” just the budget tab in order to save the latest version to the code.

Verification 2 – All budget information is converted to XML before it is submitted to Grants.gov.  On the Finalize tab, at any time during proposal development, you can check the XML code by clicking on the orange XML validation button.  That button will run a validation and then populate XML code specific to the R&R budget.  Next, click on the XML button next to the “RR_SF424” section.

A new window will pop up with the XML code.  Use your browser search feature (CTRL-F) to search for the word “total.”  The very first appearance of the word “total” will show the bottom line budget amount that will be submitted to the sponsor.