Planning and Managing Research Expenses

Carleton has three different ways to pay “Research Assistants” depending on the employee-employer relationship as defined by the Canada Revenue Agency: The Graduate Job Requisition System, eShop, and Payroll Profile.  Answers to the following questions will define which of these three payment methods must be used:

• Is the “research assistant” related to you, under your academic supervision, business partner or close friend?
• Is the “research assistant” a Carleton undergraduate, graduate student or postdoctoral fellow or someone from another institution and or someone else entirely, such as a recent graduate, consultant, etc.?
• Will you be managing the “research assistant” as a manager would an employee; supervising them in your capacity as an academic supervisor, or are they experts in the “work” that is being performed and delivering a product/service, not unlike a translator who will deliver a finished product?
• How many hours will they be working per week and over how many years?

Need more help defining the relationship to determine eligibility for inclusion in a budget for submission? Contact your Faculty Research Facilitator.

Need more help determining the payment application to use? Contact the Research Post-Award Administrators.

You can make a backdated payment through the Graduate RA system as long as the student was registered as a graduate student during this backdated term. The payment will be issued as a lump sum because it is for work done in the past.

Please notify your Research Financial Services Officer when you submit a backdated payment request.

Please note that lump sum payments are subject to higher statutory deductions – if a lump sum is paid, it is automatically interpreted as a monthly payment and taxed accordingly.

Set up the student as an independent contractor in eShop. Once the work is complete, the student will provide an invoice for payment. Payments to independent contractors can be issued to those located domestically or internationally.

The best practice is to have a written record of the employment agreement. This record can be as simple as an email to the student that outlines the compensation, duration, and scope of work, as well as a statement that the agreement can be terminated if the terms are not met. When hiring a registered graduate student, we advise that the duration of employment is the same length as the semester during which they will be working.

Due to the pandemic, “Type A” RA payments have changed and are being issued as an advanced lump sum directly deposited into the student’s student account. If the student has a balance owing in their student account, the RA payment is put towards that balance. Please have your student check their student balance, and contact Student Accounts if they have any questions.

For “Type B” RA payments – if the box titled “Payment to Include Employment Source Deductions” was checked off in the Graduate RA system, the payment would have been reduced by approximately 14% to accommodate these source deductions. Unlike “Type A” payments, “Type B” payments are put through the payroll system where the student gets paid as per the University’s payroll schedule. If your student hasn’t been paid at all, it may be because they haven’t accepted the job offer in Carleton Central.

An honorarium is a nominal payment made in recognition of a specific activity. An honorarium is not intended to pay for a service; it serves as a token of appreciation.

The amount of the honorarium is not intended to represent the fair value of the contribution made to the university: it should only be a small portion of what the service would normally cost. Honorarium payments greater than $500 are reviewed and confirmed by Financial Services to ensure the payment meets the criteria outlined above. Honorariums are not paid to individuals who are university employees.

There are three options for using PI fees in a grant:

1. Course Buyout: A faculty member wants to be free from teaching a course so they can spend additional time working on the project. The budget will have to cover the cost of a contract instructor to cover the course.
2. Salary Recovery. The University receives compensation for the PI’s time, and the budget is thus based on the PI’s salary plus approximately 18% benefits.
3. PI Fees: These are fees the PI is charging in addition to their normal salary, presumably because the project will require additional work over and above the 40% of time allocated to research in the CUASA collective agreement. The PI can charge whatever they want, but they will need to cover any associated Extended Health Benefits and Workplace Safety Insurance associated with the payment (about 2%) that do not have a maximum limit. The rest of the benefits are based on normal salary and do not scale with temporary increased income.

Note: The PI’s fees cannot be paid into a research account because the Canada Revenue Agency does not allow it.

An Adjunct Research Professor can apply for research funds and will be appointed a grant contract for the grant term period. Please ask for assistance from a member of your Faculty Research Facilitation team for this calculation. The Adjunct Research Professor’s payroll profile needs to be approved by the Department Chair or Director.

Research personnel can receive a stipend or a salary.

A stipend is a fixed payment made to an individual registered in a graduate program to cover their living expenses during a period of training. To be considered in training, the individual must be actively involved in the research of a faculty member in their related area of study and must be gaining experience in this area as a result of their research assistantship. A stipend is not paid in exchange for quantifiable work performed or for financial gain. There are no deductions at the time of payment, and the individual will receive a T4A for the amount paid during the calendar year. Only graduate students and postdoctoral fellows may be paid a stipend.

A salary is paid when an employee-employer relationship exists and a quantifiable amount of work has been performed. Salary payments, whether hourly, recurring, or lump sum, are subject to mandatory source deductions and will include 4% vacation pay. Personnel with this type of income will receive a T4 denoting the total amount of employment earnings paid during the calendar year.

Carleton does not have established maximum rates of pay for research personnel (minimum rate of pay must follow minimum wage).

For all individuals paid a salary, the researcher must budget for additional costs, above and beyond the rate of pay to the individual, which will be charged to the grant.

For example, if an hourly rate of $25/hr is promised to the research personnel, then the researcher’s account will be charged as follows:

• Hourly rate: $25/hr
• Statutory deductions (includes 4% vacation pay): 12%
• Discretionary benefits, if applicable*: 15%
• Amount Charged to the fund: $32.75/hr

* Discretionary benefits may be included at the request of the researcher in consultation with their research personnel. Discretionary benefit rates vary based on the individual’s circumstances but are usually between 15-17%.

This depends on the terms and conditions of the grant. For Tri-Council grants, NSERC and SSHRC permit the transfer of grant funds (accountable cash advances) to co-applicants and co-directors, but not to collaborators. This means that payments to collaborators must operate on a cost-recovery basis.

Further, SSHRC stipulates that “with the exception of certain travel- and subsistence-related expenses, SSHRC does not cover expenses that research collaborators incur in the conduct of research or research-related activity.” It is thus important to carefully consider whether an individual should be a co-applicant or a collaborator on your project.

NSERC only permits the transfer of grant funds to NSERC-eligible institutions (i.e., only to Canadian post-secondary institutions). All other costs would be treated on a cost-reimbursable basis.

Yes, you need to meet with Graduate Studies.

For Domestic Postdoctoral Fellows (PDFs): Graduate Studies requires a minimum of 1.5 months advance notice of the PDF’s start date to ensure they are registered on time. This also ensures that their first payday is not missed.

For International PDFs: Graduate Studies requires a minimum of 3.5 months advance notice of the PDF’s start date so the PDF has time to apply for a work permit.

Yes. The Collective Agreement stipulates minimum gross salary/stipend for unionized post-doctoral candidates.

Also, note that on May 1st of each year of the current collective agreement, unionized PDFs receive a 2% annual salary increase. Please ensure that you budget for this amount.

All postdoctoral fellows are eligible for benefits; however, they are not automatically enrolled in the plan. If your PDF is in the union and they opt into the benefit plan, you will be responsible for paying 70 per cent of the monthly benefit premiums. If your PDF is not in the union, then they are required to pay 100 per cent of their monthly benefit premiums.

Not all postdoctoral fellows are unionized at Carleton. Unionization depends on the funding. Your PDF is in the union if you are contributing at least half of the minimum hosting salary.

Research requires both direct and indirect investments. Operational maintenance of research infrastructure requires reinvestment on a significant scale. The indirect costs listed below are expenses that must be included in budget requests to external sponsors of research:

• Space and Utilities
• Laboratory and Office Furniture
• Library Services
• Research Financial Services
• Research Ethics, Animal Care and Biohazards
• Payroll
• Liability Insurance
• Occupational Health and Safety

Learn more by referencing Carleton’s Indirect Costs Policy (found in Policies Listings).

Search for these policies on the University Secretariat’s Policy Listing:

• Gifts, Recognition, & Donations
• Carleton University Research Centres
• Conflict of Interest and Commitment
• Indirect Costs of Research Policy
• Payments to Individuals and Business Entities
• Procurement Policy
• Signing Authorities Policy
• Travel and Related Expenses

The relevant sponsor’s policies and those associated with research activities, such as but not limited to:

• Agreement on the Administration of Agency Grants and Awards by Research Institutions
• Guidelines and Tools to Implement Research Security
• Tri-Council Policy Statement: Ethical Conduct for Research Involving Humans

The RPA service can help determine if an expense is eligible to be charged to your index (fund). Please email us with details including:

• what product or service you would like to purchase;
• how much it will cost;
• how it relates to the research; and,
• which index (fund) you would like to use.

Please complete the P-card application and submit it to your department’s head for approval. Once signed by your department, you will need to submit the application to the designated Procurement Officer, who will contact you with more details.

Given that Carleton’s Procurement Policy stipulates specific requirements for equipment by total cost, the method of purchase depends on the expense amount. For general assistance in complying with the university’s procurement policy, contact Procurement Services and for research post-award expenses, contact the Research Post-Award Administrators.

Any research funding issued in a foreign currency will be converted to Canadian dollars, and the spending power in the fund will be assigned based on the exchange rate used at the date of fund creation. Researchers are thus encouraged to build their budgets in Canadian dollars to ensure that sufficient funding exists to conduct the work.

The exchange rate is determined on the day the payment is made. Therefore, a calculation made at the time of application is likely to have a variance from that which will be processed.

For example, if 1.00 CAD = 0.78 USD, at an exchange rate of 0.7808 (using nominal rate). In this case, we recommend assuming a 1.00 CAD = 0.68 USD to ensure that sufficient funding is requested in case the exchange rate fluctuates over the course of the project.

Note: Researchers are encouraged to use the Bank of Canada rate and then apply an additional reduction (usually 10¢) to the rate of exchange.

1. When will my research account be opened?
   • You will receive an email notification from Research Financial Services that your fund has been opened. The message will contain critical information about your funding, so please read it carefully.
2. How can I find the balance?
   • Check your research fund and its balance in FAST.
   • If you have questions, please email financial.systems@carleton.ca. Training is available for the Finance Reporting application, Budget Adjustment and Forecasting (BAR), and Journal Voucher applications.

Procurement provides eShop assistance and resources for using the application on their eShop page. In relation to research funding, the Research Post-Award Administrators can also help you complete and submit the questionnaire. Prior to contacting them, please have the following information ready:

• What is the name and position of the person you are hiring?
• Have you worked with this contractor previously?
• What is the scope of the work?
• How does their work relate to the research?
• Which index (fund) are you planning to use?

The Financial Administration Community Training and Solutions website has self-help sheets for navigating FAST MyResearch, specifically for finding financial transaction-level detail for a fund. The Research Post-Award Administrators can also help you locate the specific expense if you provide them via email with the following information: the index (fund) on which the expense was incurred, the financial application used to submit the expense, when you incurred the expense, and a copy of the receipt.

First, it is highly recommended that you review the nature of your relationship with the individual you want to pay to ensure the Payroll Profile is the correct application to use. The Payroll Profile is used to authorize payment for casual employees. If the employee has never been paid by Carleton, have them visit the New Employees site for further details on our documentation process.

Account Codes describe the nature of transactions for Financial Services’ reporting purposes. As such, please consider the person you are hiring and the scope of the work being performed, as it will dictate the code to use. Commonly used account codes can be found on the Financial Services website. Need more help in post-award budget management? Contact Research Post-Award Administrators.