Consumable and Capital Items

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About this page
Prerequisites
Layout
Allocate costs for an item
- Consumable and Capital Item Cost Allocation: Fields in the grid
Toolbar options
Navigation panel
Related topics

About this page

This Costing and Pricing Tool page is used to review and allocate costs for consumable and capital items to the relevant funder/s.

Consumables are purchases or expenses that are used for the project, grouped by similarity, such as stationery, equipment, travel and so on. Capital items are high-cost assets purchased or used for the project for over a year that may be considered for tax deduction or depreciation, such as computers, equipment, machinery or cars. Consumable and capital items are configured by your administrator to suit your institution's financial system and reporting requirements.

The page displays items that were selected in the RPR eForm application in the Consumable and Capital Items field control, and the total amount entered in the form for each item. By default, the total item amount is allocated on a pro-rata basis to the Primary fund scheme. When the Primary fund scheme is not available in the eForm, the total is allocated to your institution (Primary organisation in the system).

Standard rule for item amount validation or bypass?

Depending on the CPT Configuration setting for Bypass validation for Consumable and Capital Items in CPT?, different rules apply to this page. It can be either:

a) No - An item amount entered in an eForm is considered as a fixed total amount for that item; the total of allocated item costs must equal this amount (default).

b) Yes - You can enter item amounts that differ from the item total.

This page supports the Costing and Pricing Tool (CPT), which was implemented in version 7.7.0 in mid-2021. Research Costing and Pricing (ReCaP) is a separate tool.

Menu path: Access CPT via a toolbar button in a Project record or button/link in an RPR eForm application

Prerequisites

This page only displays and is editable if all of the following criteria is met:

• Consumable and capital items are selected in the eForm.

• Project type and start and end dates have been entered in the eForm.

• Consumable and capital item groups have been defined for the applied funding rules.

• You have access to the Consumable and Capital Items page CPT016 via either a role or User Page Views. If not, contact your RME administrator.

• The corresponding eForm application is in an editable state for you.
Background: If the eForm is read-only, this is usually because it is in a workflow state that does not involve you. For example, as a researcher, when you submit an eForm for Grants Office or Review, you can still view it but you can't edit it. In this case, when you go to CPT via the Costing and Pricing Tool button in the eForm, CPT pages with editable elements will also be read-only.

Also consider the impact of the CPT configuration setting for Bypass validation for Consumable and Capital Items in CPT?.

Layout

The page layout comprises of a list of groups of similar items, such as equipment, stationery, travel and so on. Items for the group are listed below it. To expand more details, click the arrow to the left of the group or item name.

The Receivable by Year section contains an Override? option to enter annual amounts manually, overriding automatic pro-rata distribution, and a column for each year of the project based on the entered project Start Date and End Date.

The total amount for each item displays in the item header in bold, in the Total column to the right. The total per funder is also shown in this column.

If the table is wider than the page, use the scroll bar that appears when you mouse over the bottom of the table. If the Costing and Pricing Tool panel and/or the RME menu on the left are expanded, you can collapse these to allow more space to display the table.

Long values in the grid: For some values in the grid, if it is longer than the column width, it is truncated with ellipses (...). You can either change the column width to show the full value or mouse over it to view a tooltip of the full value.

Items and totals are read only. To remove items or change the total amount of an item, return to the eForm application, make and save the changes, then return to this page in the tool.

Allocate costs for an item

1. Items are divided into groups. If the group is not expanded to display the items, click the arrow icon to the left of the group name.

2. Identify the item.

3. By default when you first access the tool, the cost of each item selected in the eForm is allocated across the year/s of the project in the Receivable by Year section, on a pro rata basis to the Primary fund scheme or, if no Primary, the institution.

Exception: Items defined as "excluded" in an applicable Fund Scheme rule are not shown. Costs for these items are allocated to the institution by default.

4. Review the cost allocation to suit your project:

Manually enter individual costs per year
If you want to override the pro-rata distribution and enter individual annual costs, tick the Override? checkbox. Enter values in each year column.

Split costs
To split the cost across funders, click the Add icon at the end of the row. This adds another row so you can select additional funder details, including your institution. Use the table below as a guide. Both the group header and the rows for the item are marked with a red exclamation mark to alert you to enter or check the allocation details. Manually enter costs in this new row and adjust the values in the existing row as needed.

5. When you have finished allocating costs for all items, click the Save button in the toolbar.

Consumable and Capital Item Cost Allocation: Fields in the grid

Default Field Label (in alphabetical order)	Description
Add icon	Add a new row for an item
Allocation Surplus/Deficit	Only displays if CPT Configuration: Bypass validation for Consumable and Capital Items in CPT? = Yes and the sum of allocated amounts for at least one item does not equal the item Total Difference between the sum of allocated item amounts and the read-only item amount in the Total column • If the sum of item allocated amounts is less than the item Total, the deficit shows as a negative value. • If the sum of item allocated amounts is more than the Total, the surplus shows as a positive value.
Comments	Optional notes about the item
Delete icon	Only displays when more than one row exists for an item Delete a row for an item
Funded By	Fund scheme or your institution to allocate the cost If the primary fund scheme is not displayed for the item it means that the item is excluded in the applicable Fund Scheme Level rule. Costs are allocated to the institution by default. Each excluded cost can be re-allocated to any other fund scheme, if there are any, except the primary. If a fund scheme is changed, for details about the impacts, see: Changes to costing details - Primary fund scheme replaced.
Funding Type	Default: Cash Dropdown to select the type of funding, either Cash or In-kind In-kind is a contribution that is not made directly in cash but that has a monetary value. Source
Open eForm Page	Displayed if you have read-only access or higher to the relevant page in the eForm Link to open the relevant page in the eForm application for the project to make any required changes This will open the first page in the form that you can access (i.e. not hidden by a visibility condition) that contains a Consumable and Capital Items control. If the page is hidden due to visibility conditions applied in the eForm process, it will open the first page that you can access. To return to CPT from the eForm, use your browser Back button.
Organisation Name	Only if the Fund Scheme Rules based on Funding Organisation? setting in CPT Configuration is Yes. Organisation linked to the fund scheme, as selected in the eForm
Receivable by Year	Section to indicate the amounts each funding body will fund per year of the project Administrators: You can personalise this label in Global Label Preferences.
Override?	Default: Un-ticked Tick this checkbox to enter individual costs for the item in each of the Year fields. See: [Year] below. Previous pro rata values still display but you can edit them.
[Year]	Pro rata allocation by default; only editable when the Override? checkbox is ticked One or more columns for each year of the project, in ascending order Enter a cost in the relevant year fields. Costs can be different per year. You can add or delete rows for each item using the Add or Delete icons (see above). If there is more than one funder row for an item, and the Override? checkbox is not ticked, the pro rata values will be split equally across funders and the years for the project. Due to rounding, there may a slight difference in the last year column. Rules Depending on the setting in CPT Configuration: Bypass validation for Consumable and Capital Items in CPT?: • If the standard rule is applied (No), the total of all year amounts allocated for an item must equal the amount shown in the read-only Total column for the item header. • If the standard rule is bypassed (Yes), you can enter item amounts that differ from the item total. Changes can be saved successfully but to alert you of the difference, the line item and page are marked as Invalid and a warning displays. Cost and price are calculated with amounts entered in the tool. In the Form, a button may be provided that you can click to update it with item amounts from CPT to bring them both in sync.
Total	Read only Total cost of the item as entered in the eForm application The value can be 0 if unknown when completing the form however you will not be able to enter any allocation of cost values. To change the total amount, return to the eForm application. If CPT Configuration: Bypass validation for Consumable and Capital Items in CPT? is Yes, a button may be provided in the eForm that you can click to update it with item amounts from CPT.

Toolbar options

Options	Description
Save	Saves your changes made in this page
Outputs	Costing and pricing outputs available for the project and your role Outputs with CPT data are created and managed by your RME administrators or office staff. They can be provided for different purposes, funders or stakeholders. For output filter configuration, see: Output Configuration
Close	Returns you to the eForm costing and pricing summary page that has the button/link to open the tool

Navigation panel

The panel on the left includes a list of the pages available. Page status indicators are used to inform you about the status of each page.

The Totals section at the bottom of the panel displays an overview of the project totals (read only). See: Project Summary, Totals