At the University of Massachusetts-Amherst we bill according to actual
fringe charges as shown on our accounting system.  Many federal grants
allow flexibility in that the actual fringe charged may be different than the
budgetted amount.  Any under-expenditures in fringe - we usually allow the
research department to expend that in other categories if it is not a
significant amount of money.  Any over-expenditures need to be covered by
the research department.  So they'll have to cut their expenditures in
other areas to make sure they don't spend more than allowed in total direct
costs.

When billing a sponsor, we are required to bill based on actual expenditures.
Auditors would really jump on us for billing expenditures that are now actual
and/or not on our accounting system.

Robert J. Kazalski,
xxxxxx@umassp.edu