Grants SF-425 Federal Financial Report (FFR) Integration into the Payment Management System (PMS) FAQs
General Questions
All financial reporting for recipients of Health and Human Services (HHS) grants and cooperative agreements will be consolidated through a single point of entry, which has been identified as the Payment Management System (PMS).
The SF-425 initiative ensures all financial data is reported consistently through one source; shares reconciled financial data to the HHS grants management systems; assists with the timely financial monitoring and grant closeout; and reduces expired award payments.
HRSA will not accept FFR submissions through the Electronic Handbooks after Sept. 25, 2020. The FFR will be available for recipients to prepare, certify, and submit starting Oct. 1, 2020.
No. Recipients will use PMS to report all financial expenditures, as well as to drawdown funds; HRSA recipients will continue to use the HRSA Electronic Handbooks (EHBs) for all other grant-related matters including submitting progress and/or performance reports, requesting prior approvals, and accessing grant documents such as the Notice of Award.
All FFRs that are in a “Not Started,” “In Progress,” or “Change Requested” status in the HRSA EHBs as of Sept. 25, as well as any future FFRs, will be submitted through PMS. Recipients will receive a notification when the FFR is available and is ready for submission within PMS.
This change applies to all Health and Human Services (HHS) grants and cooperative agreements.
Payment Management System
Upon receiving a HRSA award, new recipients are provided with instructions for how to establish a PMS account. If you have questions about how to set up a PMS account for your organization, please contact the PMS Help Desk at PMSSupport@psc.hhs.gov or 1-877-614-5533.
Recipients who do not have access to PMS can submit a new user access request to PMS. Instructions are available on submitting a new user access request.
Recipients who currently have access to PMS and are submitting or certifying the FFR on behalf of their organization, should login to PMS and update their permissions to request access to the FFR Module. Instructions are available on requesting access changes.
PMS does not prevent any user from requesting access to the FFR Module in PMS. However, recipients should follow their organization’s internal controls policies and procedures to determine who should request access.
Recipient organizations will be able to combine authorities on the same PMS account. For example, depending on your organization structure, the Business Official or Administrative Official (who is generally the individual responsible for “preparing” the FFR) may also be the signing official (who is generally the individual responsible for “certifying” the FFR). However, these responsibilities do not have to go to the same individual at the organization. Recipients must follow their organization’s internal controls policies and procedures.
It can take up to three days to process the user access request.
To deactivate a user, follow the instructions on the PMS website.
If you are unable to locate the PAN for a grant, contact the PMS Help Desk at PMSSupport@psc.hhs.gov or 1-877-614-5533.
FFRs are reported separately by the grant document number in PMS. However, recipients will be able to use the group functionality to report multiple FFRs with different document numbers at once.
HRSA will not accept FFR submissions through the Electronic Handbooks (EHBs) after Sept. 25, 2020. The FFR will be available for recipients to prepare, certify, and submit in the Payment Management System (PMS) starting Oct. 1, 2020; HRSA recipients will not be able to view or complete FFRs in PMS until after this date. HRSA will send PMS the data for all FFRs that are in a “Not Started,” “In Progress,” or “Change Requested” status as of Sept. 25, as well as any future FFRs. Recipients will not be responsible for “adding” FFRs into PMS.
PMS will send notices to recipients when the FFR is submitted, but not certified, and when the FFR is certified and sent to the agency for review.
Cash basis of accounting refers to the accounting method in which expenses are recorded when they are paid. Accrual basis of accounting refers to the accounting method in which expenses are recorded when they are incurred.
PMS Disbursements are the amounts paid for goods and services. Normally, federal funds are considered disbursed when funds have been released to pay for program or project costs.
The Federal Share of Expenditures, on the other hand, are the charges (i.e., cost incurred) made to the federally-sponsored project or program. They may be reported on a cash or accrual basis.
We still expect recipients to submit the quarterly Federal Cash Transactions Report through PMS. Starting October 2020, the FFR consolidation is simply bringing the annual expenditure reporting, which has been submitted to awarding agency systems, into PMS.
The cash receipts and cash disbursement fields on the interim financial reports are editable. However, these fields will not be editable on the Final FFR, as it will be based on live data in PMS.
No. Recipients must only ensure that Cash Receipts (line 10a) reconcile with Cash Disbursements (line 10b) and the Federal Share of Expenditures (line 10e) prior to submitting the Final FFR.
PMS has business rules in place that prevent recipients from submitting Final FFRs with a positive cash on hand value. For interim FFR reports, the system data validation will require recipients to put a comment in the Remarks for positive cash on hand values.
Recipient generally have 90 days after the budget period expires to liquidate funds for costs incurred. For recipients reporting on a cash basis, unliquidated obligations represent costs that have been incurred, but not paid. For recipients reporting on an accrual basis, unliquidated obligations represent incurred costs, but an expenditure has not yet been recorded.
Expenditures should include all costs incurred through the reporting period end date specified on the FFR.
Recipients can use the FFR Remarks to provide additional information about the FFR, including reporting additional indirect cost rates.
If the project period of a grant is extended, the recipient will submit an annual FFR at the end of the original period, and an additional FFR at the end of the extended period. Please contact your Grants Management Specialist if you have questions about the creation of FFRs, or the FFR requirements.
While the PMS system does have the functionality to allow FFR attachments, the feature will be turned off for HRSA grants until PMS is able to send the documents attached to the FFR to HRSA for review. For the time being, recipients will be asked to use the FFR Remarks to communicate additional information about the FFR to HRSA. Recipients may also send an email to their Grants Management Specialist.
PMS has an FFR User Guide that provides instructions on how to access, complete, and submit the report in the FFR module in PMS. After logging into the PMS, select the PMS menu heading "Disbursement" and select "FFR Grantee User Guide.”
PMS allows users to create and run ad hoc inquiries. You can save and retrieve these inquiries for later use. Instructions are available for running ad hoc inquiries.
Additionally, a manual is available to provide a high-level overview of how to access and run the newly developed Oracle Application Express (APEX) reports in PMS.
Recipients can register for standard FFR trainings applicable to all HHS grant recipients on the PMS website.
Instructions on how to drawdown funds can be found on PMS website.
For technical or system issues with accessing or submitting the FFR in PMS, contact the PMS Help Desk:
- Submit a ticket via the PMS Self-Help Portal
- Phone 877-614-5533
Most grants in PMS are in sub-accounts and have a one-to-one correspondence between the Document Number and the funds drawn down. On occasion, however, an individual organization may receive more than one award (i.e., Document Number) under the same Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO). This creates a "mini-pooled" account in PMS, whereby an organization uses the same PMS Account Number and Sub-Account Code to draw funds and thus prevents the individual tracking of funds drawn by a Document Number. PMS uses an algorithm to distribute the funds requested from the mini-pooled account among all open documents using the same Sub-Account Code; because of this, the funds displayed on the Cash Receipts line may not be accurate for the Document Number.
For organizations that have multiple grants using the same PMS Account Number and Sub-Account Code, PMS will temporarily change the report type from Final to Interim; this change is administrative in nature and is only intended to allow recipients with grants in mini-pooled accounts to bypass the business rules for Final FFRs (where the Cash Receipts, Cash Disbursements, and Federal Share of Expenditures must match) and submit the report. EHBs will continue to reflect the report as Final. Once the FFR has been approved by HRSA, the report status will be changed back to Final in PMS. Please allow one week for this change to occur.
Please note that HRSA will begin using the Document Number as the Sub-Account Code for all new and competing continuation awards issued after October 1, 2020. This will allow for the better tracking of grant funds by the Document Number. Notice of Awards (NoA) with a Project Period of October 1, 2020, and after, will display the 'Document Number' within the 'Sub-Account Code' field. Recipients will continue to use the PMS Account Number and Sub-Account Code to draw down funds from PMS; however, the Sub-Account Code will be the Document Number for new awards. Please check your HRSA NoA to ensure you are using the correct Sub-Account Code to access your grant funds.
You should contact your grants management specialist (GMS) regarding any inaccuracies displayed on pre-populated data fields in the FFR header section; this includes the Report Type, as well as the Organization Name, EIN, or DUNS number.
In April of 2022, the Federal government will stop using the DUNS number. It will be replaced with the Unique Entity Identifier (UEI). For more details on this transition, visit the General Services Administration's Unique Entity Identifier Update.
The "Total Federal Funds Authorized" field is pre-populated on the FFR and is not editable by the recipient. If you need to make changes, contact your HRSA grants management specialist. They will investigate the issue.
Payment requests that are made more than 90 days after the project period expiration (i.e., the liquidation period) are sent to the awarding agency for approval before being released to recipient. Once we receive the request, and a decision (approval or denial) will be provided within three business days.
You should be prepared to answer the following questions when submitting a request to draw funds beyond the liquidation period:
- When the costs were incurred?
- What the costs were for?
- The reason the funds were not drawn timely.
The "Federal Grant ID" field on the FFR Module search page requires the full HRSA grant document number (e.g., *21*H80CSXXXXX). This can be found on your Notice of Award (NoA) on the NoA Extension page (section 39). Ensure there are no spaces or extra characters before or after the HRSA grant document number.
You should make changes to prior year expenditures in the cumulative expenditure field of the most current FFR available in PMS. You will use the Remarks to specify:
- the value;
- the budget period the change corresponds to; and
- the reason for the change.
The FFR may be rejected if you do not provide sufficient information regarding the change.
HRSA Electronic Handbooks (EHBs)
Please visit the EHBs Knowledge Base for registration and user account information, including instructions on how to create a user name and password. You can also view an interactive video on how to create an EHB account.
Please visit the EHBs Knowledge Base for information on managing your EHB user profile, including updating permissions, changing contact information, and deleting users who are no longer at your organization.
You can also view an interactive video for an overview of the EHB user permissions.
All expenditure reporting previously submitted to HRSA via the Federal Financial Report (FFR) is being consolidated into one form (SF-425) and will be submitted through the Payment Management System starting October 1, 2020. This means that recipients will no longer submit financial expenditure data through awarding agency systems such as the HRSA Electronic Handbooks.
HRSA FFRs are currently aligned with the PMS quarterly reporting due dates and are as follows:
- Budget Period ends August, September, October: FFR due January 30
- Budget Period ends November, December, January: FFR due April 30
- Budget Period ends February, March, April: FFR due July 30
- Budget Period ends May, June, July: FFR due October 30
Questions about the FFR due dates should be directed to the Grants Management Specialist.
If your budget period has ended, and your organization is prepared to submit the FFR early, you may. All FFRs submitted prior to September 25, 2020 will be submitted through the HRSA EHBs.
The SF-425 initiative only applies to financial reports. All other reports (e.g., performance, progress, etc.) will continue to be submitted through EHBs.
You will continue to receive email notifications from the EHBs regarding the FFR. These include a notice when the FFR becomes available in PMS, as well as reminder notifications to submit the FFR before the due date and delinquent notifications if the FFR is not received before the due date passes. Additionally, you will receive an email notice when the FFR is returned for changes, and starting in October, you will receive notices when the FFR is approved.
Although you will submit all FFRs through PMS starting in October 2020, you will see a read-only version of the FFR from the EHBs.
The Financial Reporting Administrator (FRA) role in the EHBs will no longer be supported. Recipients responsible for submitting, reviewing, or approving the FFR will need to request access to, or update permissions in, PMS. Other financial roles in the EHBs, including the Business Official and the Authorizing Official, will remain to allow users the ability to continue to view the FFR status, as well as access a read-only version of the completed report through the EHBs.
PMS will have a business rule in place that prevents recipients from submitting the final FFR without it fully reconciling. In other words, line 10a (cash receipts), 10b (cash disbursements), and 10e (Federal share of expenditures) must all match before the Final FFR can be submitted.
The ability to “Request an Extension” to the FFR within the EHBs will no longer be available. While PMS is working on an enhancement to allow extensions to be requested through the system in the near future, you should make every effort to submit FFRs by the deadline. If unforeseeable circumstances arise that prevent you from submitting your FFR on time, please reach out to your Grants Management Specialist. You will still be able to request extensions to other submissions (e.g., progress reports) from the EHBs.
The “This Period” field, as well as the “Previously Reported” field on the FFR will not be available on the form once the integration into PMS has taken place because they are not a part of the standard form. You will be expected to report your cumulative expenditures for the document number.
You will continue to submit an official request to carryover unobligated balances through the HRSA prior approval module in the EHBs within 30 days of submitting the FFR, unless covered by expanded authority.
Recipients should submit prior approval requests to carryover funds after the FFR has been submitted. Please note that if the prior approval request is submitted before the FFR has been approved, the recipient may have to make changes to the request, in addition to revising the FFR.
Recipients are permitted to request the carryover of an unobligated balance from any year; HRSA staff will review, and the recipient will be notified if it is approved. Recipients should contact their Grants Management Specialist regarding the permissibility of carryover for the specific program.
Recipients can review the HRSA Notice of Award (NoA) to determine if the grant is covered by Expanded Authority. Recipients may also contact their Grants Management Specialist.
Recipients covered by expanded authority are generally permitted to carryover up to 25% of the funds awarded in the budget period, or $250,000 (depending on the program) automatically. If the unobligated balance is over the threshold, the recipient would be expected to submit a carryover request through the HRSA prior approval module in the EHBs for the entire amount. Please review your HRSA Notice of Award for the expanded authority requirements for your specific program (including the threshold allowed) or contact your Grants Management Specialist.
The Carryover Request Decision page will not be available in the EHBs after the migration. PMS is working with the Department to add questions to all HHS FFRs regarding the intent to carryover funds. You should use the FFR Remarks regarding the intent to carryover funds, including the use of any expanded authority.
Yes. The Payment Management System (PMS) includes a supplemental form where HAB RWHAP Part A and B recipients must report the breakdown of the UOB by sub-program into the PMS system. In the "Federal Financial Report - Details" section of PMS, select the "Supplemental Info" tab. Here, both RWHAP Part A (H89) and Part B (X07) grant recipients must enter the UOB information. Note, as of April 22, 2021, HAB recipients can no longer provide this information via the "Request for Information" feature in the EHBs.
If you have questions about the information collected on the HAB supplemental form, please reach out to your HRSA Grants Management Specialist or HAB Project Officer.
You should continue to send program-specific questions about completing the FFR to your HRSA Grants Management Specialist.