Internal Budget Reminder: Software, Onsite Room Rentals, and Cloud Costs

As a reminder, when using the CALS Internal Budget and Justification templates, found on the CBO Documents and Forms page, please be sure to read the provided guidance in order to appropriately classify software on the Post Award side (if funded). Below is the excerpt included in the Justification template which shows the three different options:

Budgeting for Grants:

Software: Software Licenses: (choose one of the three categories below and add here) ($XXX,XXX total)

• Fixed Charges – Maintenance/Service Contract (54400):  Use if the software will be used as maintenance on equipment.
• Other Fixed Charges – Subscriptions (54920): Use if this is a software subscription.
• Current Services – Data Processing (53800): Use if needed to process data.

Please note that NCSU does not have approved service center rates associated with conferences, meetings, or classrooms. Therefore these costs cannot be included in proposals to federal sponsors or where the federal sponsor is the primary funder (e.g., subaward proposal). This includes all buildings/facilities managed by NCSU, including the Tally Student Union, Plant Science Building, etc. 

Additionally, NCSU does not have approved service center rates for IT and cloud services. Therefore, please work with your Pre-Award Consultant to budget for direct costs and/or look into cloud services external to the University.