Standards for financial management systems.

§ 34.11 Standards for financial management systems. (a) Recipients shall be allowed and encouraged to use existing financial management systems established for doing business in the commercial marketplace, to the extent that the systems comply with Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) and the minimum standards in this section. As a minimum, a recipient's financial management system shall provide: (1) Effective control of all funds. Control systems must be adequate to ensure that costs charged to Federal funds and those counted as the recipient's cost share or match are consistent with requirements for cost reasonableness, allowability, and allocability in the applicable cost principles (see § 34.17) and in the terms and conditions of the award. (2) Accurate, current and complete records that document for each project funded wholly or in part with Federal funds the source and application of the Federal funds and the recipient's required cost share or match. These records shall: (i) Contain information about receipts, authorizations, assets, expenditures, program income, and interest. (ii) Be adequate to make comparisons of outlays with budgeted amounts for each award (as required for programmatic and financial reporting under § 34.41. Where appropriate, financial information should be related to performance and unit cost data. Note that unit cost data are generally not appropriate for awards that support research. (3) To the extent that advance payments are authorized under § 34.12, procedures that minimize the time elapsing between the transfer of funds to the recipient from the Government and the recipient's disbursement of the funds for program purposes. (4) The recipient shall have a system to support charges to Federal awards for salaries and wages, whether treated as direct or indirect costs. Where employees work on multiple activities or cost objectives, a distribution of their salaries and wages will be supported by personnel activity reports which must: (i) Reflect an after the fact distribution of the actual activity of each employee. (ii) Account for the total activity for which each employee is compensated. (iii) Be prepared at least monthly, and coincide with one or more pay periods. (b) Where the Federal Government guarantees or insures the repayment of money borrowed by the recipient, the DoD Component, at its discretion, may require adequate bonding and insurance if the bonding and insurance requirements of the recipient are not deemed adequate to protect the interest of the Federal Government. (c) The DoD Component may require adequate fidelity bond coverage where the recipient lacks sufficient coverage to protect the Federal Government's interest. (d) Where bonds are required in the situations described above, the bonds shall be obtained from companies holding certificates of authority as acceptable sureties, as prescribed in 31 CFR part 223, “Surety Companies Doing Business with the United States.”