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This help page provides information to guide you in setting up the Costing and Pricing Tool.
For all pages in RME, online help is available via the Help link when viewing the page.
Location: RME > Projects > CPT Configuration
Consider CPT Configuration settings that alter the tool to suit specific scenarios:
• On-Cost Method
• Fund Scheme Rules based on Funding Organisation?
• Use Project Location for Indirect Cost Recovery?
• Project Team Page Layout
• Bypass validation for Consumable and Capital Items in CPT?
Note: It is important to decide whether you want to use the default settings or make changes before defining your funding rules or using the tool as they impact the fields and sections that display in funding rules or CPT pages.
Location: RME menu > Setup > Organisations
Ensure that your institution is set as the primary Organisation record. This will be used in the tool. Only one organisation can be the primary in the system. You can set up internal fund schemes under this primary organisation as required, for example a foundation or centre that is part of your institution.
Set up the required funding organisations as Organisation records to support your costing and pricing processes. These may be external organisations that provide funding, in which external personnel maybe employed, or in which the facilities may be used for research.
An external organisation may have multiple addresses. To ensure the correct addresses are used, for example for invoicing, add all the relevant addresses for each organisation in the Address Details related item (ORG002) related item.
You can capture contact details such as Contact Position, Contact Name, Phone, and Fax at the address level or the organisation level, or both. If you don't want to use contact fields at either level, you can remove them via Page Views and the Page Layout Designer.
If the CPT configuration option Fund Scheme Rules based on Funding Organisation? is Yes, eForm users will be able to select an organisation from the Organisation lookup (ORG_FK) in a Linked Fund Source RIC. The relevant address for the organisation can then be selected via the Address dropdown (ORGADD_FK) in the eForm.
For integration purposes, the RME Web API offers endpoints to expose all the fields of the Address Details related item in the RM_ORG_ADDRESS table. The RME API – Read Only also exposes all elements in the business layer but can only be used to retrieve data (READ).
Location: RME menu > Setup > Fund Scheme > Fund Scheme record
Set up Fund Scheme records so that relevant fund schemes can be selected in funding rules, eForms and throughout the system.
Set up internal fund schemes under the primary organisation as required, for example, for a foundation or centre that is part of your institution.
Location: RME menu > Setup > Categories
Before defining funding rules and other aspects of the tool, set up categories for consumable and capital items and project types used for CPT to match your policies.
• For Consumable and Capital Items, set up required category items in RME > Setup > Categories > Common Categories > Finance Category Types.
• Project type categories are used to indicate the type of project that a Project Type Level rule will apply, for example, Consultancy. Set up required types in RME > Setup > Category > Project Related Categories.
Location: RME > Users menu > Roles > Role record > Page Views, or Users > User record > User Page Views
The following Page Views used for CPT are automatically assigned to some standard roles by default. You may wish to assign access to some of these Page Views to other roles or specific users, depending on your processes.
Note: For alerts configured in CPT024, if you customise, or have customised, any of the CPT pages, you need to add the Alerts field element back into the layout positioned at the top of the page for them to display.
The table below lists the Page Views used for CPT processes and default allocation to system roles:
| Page Views | RME Application Admin |
Grants Admin |
Grants Data Entry |
Researcher |
Funding rules configuration Funding Rules, Institution Level CPT001 Consumable and Capital Item Groups CPT005 On-Cost Percentages CPT022 (for on-cost patterns) AOU Level CPT002 Project Type Level CPT003 Fund Scheme Level CPT004 Indirect Cost Recovery Variations CPT006 Applied Rules CPT007 |
Yes |
Yes |
No |
Read-only access to CPT005 to see consumable and capital items in CPT |
Other configuration CPT Configuration CPT021 Output Configuration CPT020 Alert Configuration CPT024 Consumable and Capital Item Guidelines CPT027 |
Yes |
Yes |
No |
No |
Salary and indexation Salary and Indexation CPT008 (search page) Salary Rates CPT009 Indexation Percentages CPT010 Dates Effective On CPT011 |
Yes |
Yes |
No |
No |
CPT pages Consumables and Capital Items CPT016 Facility Usage CPT015 Funding Rules CPT013 ICR Item Override CPT025 Institution Cash and In-kind Contribution CPT023 On-Cost Percentages CPT022 (for on-cost patterns) Project Cost CPT017 Project Price CPT018 Project Price with adjustments CPT028 Project Summary CPT012 Project Team CPT014 Quotation Builder CPT029 Totals CPT019 Note: You cannot change the order of CPT pages shown in the left navigation panel in the tool. |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Facility Management Facility record FAC001 Documents FAC004 Personnel FAC005 Rates FAC006 Significant Events FAC002 Significant Event > Email FAC003 Org. Unit FAC007 |
Yes |
No |
No |
No |
Project Management Project record PRO001 CPT Budget PRO036 Facility Usage PRO033 New Staff PRO031 Workload Commitment PRO032 |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Project record related items Cost Centre PRO034 Organisation > Disbursement Amounts PRO037 Investigator > Salary or Scholarship Amount related item PRO035 |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
No |
So that users can access the tool directly from either a Project record or the RPR eForm listing page in RME, configure a button to display in the toolbar.
When assigning the Page Views for the Project record (PRO001) and/or RPR eForm listing page (RPR005M) to a role or user, select the page action Display Costing and Pricing Tool Button (un-ticked by default).
For the Project core record page, a button will display on the toolbar to open the Costing and Pricing Tool if the record has an associated eForm to collect CPT details. The button is not shown on the Project record toolbar if a record does not have an eForm that is designed to collect costing and pricing inputs.
For the RPR eForm listing page, a button will display on the toolbar for an eForm application selected in the grid if it has been created to collect CPT details. The button is not shown if the selected eForm is not designed to collect costing and pricing inputs.
Legacy ReCaP
If also using Research Costing and
Pricing (ReCaP), the button will only display to open ReCaP if a record
has been used with that tool. It will not display in the Project record
toolbar to allow creation of a new eForm or record for costing details
in ReCaP. New projects are handled in CPT.
Location: RME menu > Projects > Funding Rules
Configure funding rules for the following levels in RME: Institution (base), administrative organisational unit (AOU), project type, fund scheme, and also indirect cost recovery variations as needed.
If changes are made to funding rules that were applied to a project when an eForm application was first created, researchers and/or administrators can view and apply new rules in the tool (based on permissions). See: View and apply new rules
Funding rules contain some optional settings that support specific scenarios. These optional settings are outlined below.
A competitive neutrality charge is a charge to bring research project costs up to the full cost that would be incurred without the benefits of public ownership in order to complete fairly in the market, especially against private sector organisations.
If your institution applies a Competitive Neutrality Charge for some projects, follow the steps below to implement this optional system-wide solution:
Assumption: The CNC amount will be entered by RME administrators or office staff, not by researchers.
1. In Institution Level funding rules, change the Include Competitive Neutrality Charge? flag to Yes and save.
2. In an RPR eForm used for CPT, add the Competitive Neutrality Charge field to the Linked Fund Source RIC. Mark the field as Editable by selected participant group and select the relevant group to limit access to administrators or office staff.
3. In Page Views, add the Competitive Neutrality Charge field to the Project record, Fund Scheme Page View (PRO007).
What happens next?
In the eForm, administrative users enter a CNC amount in the Linked Fund Source RIC. The CNC amount entered for the funder will be added to the price of the project. In the Project Price page in CPT, a new line will display as Add: Competitive Neutrality Charge. The Push to Database Tables workflow pushes the value to the Project record, Fund Scheme.
Location: RME menu > Setup > Categories
Salary-related category groups, categories and category items are shown in fields in eForms, core records and the tool.
Set up the following categories used for employment and salaries in CPT:
Category |
Location |
Notes |
Employment Type |
RME > Setup > Categories > Person Related Categories |
Set up sub-groups for internal salary awards. Continuing and Casual are set up by default. |
HEW Levels |
RME > Setup > Categories > Person Related Categories > Employment Type |
Under a sub-group of Employment Type for an internal salary award, add relevant HEW level categories |
Step |
RME > Setup > Categories > Person Related Categories > Employment Type |
Add category items to a HEW level category. |
External Salary Groups |
RME > Setup > Categories > Person Related Categories > External Salary Groups |
1. Set up a sub-group
for the external salary package, for example, NHMRC. 2. Under the sub-group, add relevant categories, such as Principal Research Fellow, and Senior Research Fellow. 3. For each sub-group category, add category items for levels. For example, Level 1, Level 2. |
Person Types |
RME > Setup > Category > Person Related Categories > Person Type > Person or Student |
Provides a list of person types in Linked Personnel RICs, including placeholders |
Staff Type |
RME > Setup > Category > Common Categories > Finance Category Types > Finance Staff Type |
Provides a list of staff types used for finance purposes, such as Academic, Casual, Support |
Note: The existing Salary Award Codes category group, categories and items under the Employment Categories parent group remain to support existing configuration for ReCaP.
Set up salary rates for your institution. The Salary Rates page is used to maintain the HR pay scales, hourly rates and consultancy hourly rates used in salary calculations in the tool for team members marked as Include in Costing? = Yes in an eForm.
You can create these in RME directly or automatically create or update salary rates in RME from your HR System using the RME Web API, Salary Rates web route (api/SalaryRate({id}).
There is no limit to the number of salary rates you can define, provided they have corresponding categories and category items set up in RME.
Consultancy rate calculations are based on hourly rates, and are stored in the database as hourly.
There are various ways to record rates for different purposes when the Costing and Pricing Tool product key is applied, and if Apply Consulting Rates? is Yes in an applicable funding rule based on project type:
In Project core records, the Chargeable Rate field in both the Investigators and New Staff related items is either populated by the Chargeable Rate value from a RIC in an eForm when the Push to Database Tables workflow activity is executed, or can be used to enter a rate. A previously populated value can be overwritten.
The value from an eForm will be converted to hours regardless of the Rate Type format in which it was entered (daily or hourly) as the system stores and uses hourly consultancy rates in CPT calculations. If no rate details are available, the field will be blank.
Location: RME menu > Projects > Salary and Indexation > Indexation Percentages
Define the indexation percentages used in salary calculations in the Costing and Pricing Tool. For example, you can define values to match salaries to the inflation rate. This is optional; if you do not use indexation in your institution, you can leave these values blank. You can manage page visibility via Page Views.
To create new indexation percentage records, click New on the toolbar in in this page. Existing Indexation Percentage records are listed in a grid by default on this page.
If indexation percentages are defined but you want to exclude indexation from salary price calculations for a particular fund scheme, in the Fund Scheme Level rule, set the Include Indexation for Salary Price Calculation? option to No.
Location: RME menu > Personnel
In the Personnel record, some standard core fields are used to capture employment details that are also used in CPT, as outlined below.
In the Employment Details related item, other standard core fields also capture employment details. Values from these may be used to determine a base salary, as outlined below.
Optional fields can be added to the Employment Details related item for Has Allowance? and On-Cost Pattern to support solutions for specific scenarios, as outlined below.
Location |
Field |
Notes |
Personnel record (PEP001) |
Consultancy Rate |
If a person has a particular hourly consultancy rate to be paid for consultancy work that you want to record and use in CPT calculations, add this field to the PEP001 Page View. Define the rate (hourly) for team members involved in consultancy projects for CPT. This must be a number value; it can be up to two decimal places. It cannot be a negative number. |
Personnel record (PEP001) |
Employment Start Date |
This field is included by default. The date is used to determine the applicable on-cost percentage to apply when the On-Cost Method is Employment Type in CPT Configuration. If using the Employment Type on-cost method, ensure that dates are populated for existing team members involved in projects. |
Employment Details related item (PEP011) |
Employment Type, Academic Level, Salary Award Level, and FTE. |
These standard fields can be used to determine a base salary. Ensure that values are populated for existing team members involved in projects. |
Employment Details related item (PEP011) |
Has Allowance? |
Optional If your institution offers allowances and you want to include allowances in costing, add this flag to the PEP011 Page View. Indicate whether allowances are given to existing team members involved in projects. |
Employment Details related item (PEP011) |
On-Cost Pattern |
Optional If the On-Cost Method is for your institution is On-Cost Patterns, add this field to the PEP011 Page View. Select an on-cost pattern for existing team members involved in projects. |
If your institution offers one or more allowances to internal employees in addition to salaries to reflect the real costs of the project, you may want to consider implementing this optional, system-wide solution.
Assumption: Allowances given to an investigator should not be stored in RME due to the confidential nature of this information. So that allowance amounts can be included in costing and pricing calculations, administrators/office staff will manually input allowance values in the eForm on a page with limited access.
To implement the solution to include allowances in CPT, follow these steps:
1. In Page Views, add the Has Allowance? flag to the following pages (not included by default):
- Personnel record, Employment Details related item
- Project record, Investigators related item
2. In Personnel records, Employment Details related items, indicate whether allowances are given for existing team members.
3. In the eForm Linked Personnel RIC for existing internal team members, add the Has Allowance? flag.
4. In the eForm template, add the Allowance Amounts RIC on a page with page level access set to limit access to administrators and office staff only, so they can view it and enter an amount.
What happens next?
In the eForm, the Has Allowance?
flag will be automatically populated from the Personnel record for the
employment record selected in the RIC.
Result: When marked as Yes for
a team member, this can be used as a trigger for RME administrators to
manually enter the allowance amounts in the Allowance Amounts RIC in the
eForm. CPT will include the entered values in salary cost and salary price
calculations.
The Push to Database Tables workflow activity will push the Has Allowance? flag value of Yes or No to the Has Allowance? flag in the Project record, Investigator related item.
Location: RME menu > Setup > Facilities > Facility record
To be able to capture the facilities used for a research project, and include the cost in calculations, set up or use existing Facility records. You can also define usage rates in RME, although there is an alternative solution if you choose not to.
To set up Facility record data for use in CPT, follow the steps below, saving your changes as you go:
1. In the Facility record FAC001 Page View, add the Unit of Measure field. You can optionally add the Capacity field if required. These are hidden by default.
2. Set up Facility records for the facilities at your institution. You can also import data from an external facilities management database using RME APIs to create records.
3. In each Facility record, record details about the unit of measure (defaults: Daily, Hourly, Terabyte). If you need to add items to the Unit of Measure category, go to RME > Setup > Categories > Common Categories.
4. Define rates
for the use of the facility in the Rates related item. Enter a numeric
value based on the value in the Unit
of Measure field. For each rate, define the effective date.
If you choose not to record facility rates in RME, see: Option:
Enter costs if rates are not stored in RME below.
5. Add other details as required for facility management in other related items, such as: Documents, Org. Units, Personnel, Significant Events and emails.
If your institution does not wish to record facility usage rates in RME but still include the costs of facility usage in calculations, follow the steps below to implement this optional solution.
1. Add the Cost of Usage field control to the Linked Facility RIC in an RPR eForm template. Do not include the Facility Usage RIC in the template as this is an alternative to using the Facility Usage RIC, which relies on rates set in RME. If both are included by mistake and values are entered, CPT will only use the values in the Cost of Usage grid in calculations, and ignore any values entered in the Facility Usage RIC.
2. In an eForm, users select one or more Facility records in the Linked Facility RIC.
3. For each, users enter the cost of usage for each year of the project in the Cost of Usage grid. The grid includes columns for Year (defaults to each year of the project) and Amount. If amounts are left blank, CPT considers the cost value to be zero (0).
What happens next?
The Facility Usage page in CPT will reflect the cost of usage entered in the Cost of Usage field in the Linked Facility RIC and use facility cost details in calculations. The Push to Database Tables workflow activity pushes facility cost details from the Cost of Usage field to the read-only Costing and Pricing Tool Budget Related Item (CPT Budget tab) in the Project record. Other data from the RIC is pushed to the Project record, Facilities related item.
Outputs are configured as reports in the Report Designer function of RME Designer. Refer to the RME Report Designer guide.
In the Output Configuration page, configure filters for Costing and Pricing Tool (CPT) outputs. You configure filters based on the project type, fund scheme and/or org. unit (AOU) and select the outputs for each filter to control the outputs shown for selection in a project in CPT. You can also set outputs to display for all projects.
In the Alert Configuration page, set rules for alerts that display in CPT pages to notify chief investigators, project managers or office staff when specific conditions arise so that issues can be addressed.
Location: RME menu > System > System Preferences
Standard audit settings in RME System Preferences can be configured to capture a range of general user activities. By default, only the basic activities are captured; when users create, update or delete a core record or eForm.
You can select additional user activities to capture, including when users view a record or eForm, or perform a workflow action.
The audit function does not capture administrator activities completed in RME Designer, such as creating or editing an eForm template or workflow, as this component is installed separately on each user’s PC.
In the Account Codes page, map the various costing and pricing elements to natural account codes to establish integration with your finance system. In the Type dropdown, select the Finance Category to map existing account codes. The Account Code Category dropdown displays. Enter the financial account category for the account.
Location: RME menu > Projects > Projects record > Cost Centres
Cost centres are usually unique codes created in the finance system for each funding organisation in reference to a project. One or more cost centres can be assigned to a project. If using cost centres for your CPT processes and finance activities to integrate with an external finance system, complete these steps:
1. Go to the Project record, Cost Centres related item.
2. Select the fund scheme and organisation from a list of those linked to the project, then define the cost centre.
3. Save your changes.
You can integrate the tool and RME with your other systems using RME APIs to share data, reduce the need for data entry, and enable higher visibility and alignment of research expenditure to the budget as well as individual research activity.
For example, salary and indexation rates in your HR system can be imported into RME via the RME Web API to enable the tool to calculate the salary of the project team and reduce data entry.
Employment details for personnel can be imported from your HR system into Personnel records via either the RME Web API or HR feeder.
Details from your facility management database can be imported into Facility records, including facility rates.
Once the RME account codes are mapped to the natural account codes used in your finance system, finalised budget details can be consumed by the finance system via the RME Web API. Similarly, you can input project transaction details into RME core records via the RME Web API or Project Finance feeder.
For more about APIs, refer to the 'APIs for ResearchMaster' technical document provided in the package.
Location: RME Designer - eForms and Workflows
When the Costing and Pricing Tool product key is applied, purpose-built fields and RICs to support data gathering are available in the RPR domain.
eForm templates to support your costing and pricing processes are created in RME Designer. While you can choose elements to use in the eForm template and its linked workflow, there are recommended elements designed specifically to support the process. Standard RPR eForm templates and accompanying workflows are provided. You can use these as a starting point to make is quicker and easier to create your own eForm templates and workflows. Import and copy a standard template and workflow in RME Designer then adjust it to suit your needs.
Optional solutions that can be configured in eForm templates to support specific scenarios include:
• Fields to support project inputs
• Employment record selection if you choose not to use the Primary? flag to indicate primary employment records
• Disbursements of non-salary project-related costs to external organisations, for example, for the use of the organisation’s facilities or equipment
• Ability to manually edit annual salaries that are automatically calculated from external salary package rates
• Ability to manually override the indirect cost recovery (ICR) percentage for cost items - see: ICR Item Override
• Ability to add placeholders for external team members or students
• Manual salary entry for externals and students instead of using internal salary rates
For details, refer to the RME eForm Designer User Guide, Costing and Pricing Tool.
Location: RME menu > System > eForm Email Templates
You can use standard functionality to create eForm email templates to use in CPT RPR workflows. Emails can be sent automatically from a workflow action.
In the List of Items in the eForm Email Templates page, the Costing and Pricing Tool URL item will add a link to open the tool in the body text of an email generated from the workflow, provided the recipient has the required access to the tool. Similarly, the Costing and Pricing Tool item will add a button to open the tool.
The RME Report Designer is used to create reports in RME. Reports are generally accessed via module search pages or eForm domain listing pages.
Reporting Views are used as a reference to create reports. For details, refer to the RME Report Designer Guide.
To enable users to view reports, assign access to relevant roles per report. See: Report Role Access
Page changes: You may change the field labels in the default label to suit your needs. Do not change a CPT page layout via the Page Layout Designer without consulting the ResearchMaster team. While the system allows you to change the layout, these pages involve complex calculations and dependent functionality so guidance is needed to prevent impacts to key functionality.
You can also change some global labels to suit your needs.
Note: For alerts, if you do customise, or have customised, any of the CPT pages, you need to add the Alerts field element back into the layout positioned at the top of the page for alerts to display in the page.
• CPT Configuration - page for specific CPT settings
• Costing and Pricing Tool pages
Product Key: Costing and Pricing Tool
Page ID: CPT_configuration_guide.htm