JIT and Modular approaches sound like time savers... BUT:

Some accounting systems require a fairly detailed budget, in order to work,
and some auditors are very upset without detailed approval from the
sponsor.  These problems may be worse in some state systems than other places.

Post award administration requirements have not yet recognized the
flexibility that certain former NIH officials saw in these "budgetless"
awards, so most of the detail now required (i.e., at least major
categories) is necessary to meet them.

Even projecting F&A for both the award in question and across all awards
requires at least major category budgeting.  As a practical matter, less
experienced PI's need to perform a budgeting exercise just to be sure they
have covered all their costs.

Fot these and similar reasons, I cannot think that we can afford NOT to get
more detailed budgets -- but they can be prepared using round numbers.
They can even be revised somewhat time of award receipt -- no different
than any revision under expanded authorities.

Just a "fer instance" of long standing:  FIPSE preliminary proposals want
only a budgetr estimate -- but exceeding that budget will be very harmful
to your final proposal.  For those, we require, internally only at
preliminary proposal time, a plausable working budget.

The decision of when the budget is prepared and in what detail will vary
from institution to institution, depending on various site-specific
business-environmental factors.  Relief from some post award controls can
reduce the detail we'll need.

As usual, there's no single best answer!

Chuck

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