RFA Guidelines

A Retroactive Funding Adjustment (RFA) situation is created when an employee was paid on the correct position number but from an incorrect Account Code (i.e. funding source) for one or more pay periods.  After reviewing the information below, if you need additional assistance, please contact Wayne Spellman 864-5991 (wspellman@ku.edu) or Penny Kellum 864-5995 (pkellum@ku.edu).

RFAs should not be requested as part of a regular business process.  Departments are responsible for insuring they are accurately funding employees before they begin to work and to process timely Payroll Forms to modify the funding.  It is realized that in some cases that this may be unavoidable; in those cases there are two options:  Processing a Budget Transfer Form (BTF) or Requesting an RFA to the Payroll Office.  RFAs will not be processed from student non work-study funding to work-study funding (fund 709) and for employer fringe cost for GTA/GRA student insurance.

The Budget Transfer Form (BTF) is available at www.budget.ku.edu/.  This form allows you to transfer appropriations from a department/cost center, position or pool to another department/cost center, position or pool.  In this case, it may be done to allocate funding to cover an existing incorrect expenditure.  You cannot transfer allocations across funding sources (i.e. 003 into 099 and vise versa), in such cases you will need to consult with your budgetary channels to see if they can “trade” your funding.  This transfer replaces the need for an RFA.

Requesting an RFA should be the final solution to an incorrect charge and may only be allowed when a BTF cannot be processed.  Some of the examples of when an RFA may need to be requested to the Payroll Office:

1. When the funding source is strictly prohibited from having the expenditure.
2. When a BTF would not be allowed such as in the cases of:
• Between grants/project accounts as you cannot trade funds in and out of individual awards.
• Between grants and non–grant funding as you cannot trade funds in and out of grants and non-grants.
3. When there is no one in the budgetary channels that can “trade” funding on a BTF.

If you need to request the RFA you must follow the procedure below in order for the request to be considered:

1. Submit a Payroll Form with the correct information, sample payroll form
2. Attach the (HRSA or DEMIS) Payroll Report of Gross and Fringe for each payroll period being adjusted.
3. Either on the Payroll Form or on a separate attachment you need to include the following:
• The original funding (Account Code and if applicable Pool ID)
• Payroll Period(s) affected (begin and end dates)
• Gross dollar amounts for each payroll period and overall total.
• The request for an RFA should be explained in the “Transaction Comments” located on the right hand side of the payroll form. Please use as many of the “Transaction Comments” boxes as needed, if these boxes do not provide sufficient room to justify the situation, we ask that you include a separate page to explain the situation. This documentation is required for the approval and is kept on file for auditing purposes.  The Payroll Office does have the authority to request additional information to substantiate the request.
4. The above documentation should be sent directly to your budgetary channels that will forward to the Payroll Director for final approval and processing.