Budget & Cost Resources

One of the main functions of the ORA is to review budgets with the federal cost principles in mind. The ORA reviews budgeted line items in concert with a details budget justification. Additionally, ORA provides access to ECU’s indirect cost (F&A) rates.

Budget Resources

The budget estimator is provided as an optional tool for internal preliminary budget development.

ORA Budget Estimator (XLSM)

In contrast to eTRACS, which updates salary and fringe data directly from Banner, there will be delays in updating data in this tool, and the budget estimator may not match eTRACS fringe and inflation calculations.

Differences in totals should be expected as effort on the project is transferred from this tool into eTRACS. eTRACS contains the budget of record, and this tool will not be accepted as a final proposal budget, is not part of the eTRACS proposal, and should not be shared with external parties.

The official proposal budget must be entered in eTRACS following the 10-5-2 guidelines (see 325 – Proposal Submission Timeline).

Fringe Rates

The eTRACS budget calculates fringe automatically using this schema.

Person-Months Calculator

See the Person-Months Calculator page.

Budgeting for Payments to Human Subjects

See the ECU Greenphire Website for additional guidance.

Indirect Cost Rates and Guidance

ECU’s federally negotiated indirect cost (F&A) rates are listed below. The full rate agreement is available for download – see 330.03 – Indirect Cost (F&A) Rate Agreement.

Indirect Cost (F&A) Rates