Procedure: ARIES record establishment and milestone management

Purpose

This procedure informs the requirements, roles and responsibilities of establishing ARIES records and the management of ARIES milestones.

Definitions

ARIES is the ANU Research Information Enterprise System used to manage the research activities and outputs across the university.

Local Area is the relevant College or Research School, including but not limited to finance, research management and school administration staff.

Milestones are contractual obligations that the University must fulfil. ARIES stores the due date and status of each milestone and generates automatic email reminders based on the data recorded.

Procedure

Establishment of ARIES record

The local area in collaboration with the University’s Research Contracts Office In Research Services Division is responsible for:

creating an ARIES record when an application or proposal for funding is submitted.
creating the ARIES record in accordance with the Mandatory ARIES Grant Checklist
providing the required ARIES data on initiation of project funding including, but not limited to:

Required ARIES data

all related contract dates

all project milestone dates and related requirements

all financial milestone dates and related requirements (the date entered for financial statements should be the date the statements needs to be prepared to, not the date the statement is due)

audit requirements (data entered in the Contract tab against Audit and Reporting Requirement fields) needs to be consistent with milestones entered

HERDC eligibility has been indicated

Further information on establishing a record in ARIES can be found in the ARIES Grant Manual
Research Accounting is responsible for:

entering the relevant income natural account code via the contract tab into the ARIES record.
entering and activating the approved GLC in the ARIES record.
routinely review ARIES records ensuring audit requirements and financial milestones have been entered correctly in the contract tab.

ARIES milestone management

Research milestones

The local area is responsible for:

initiating milestone reports to capture research milestone requirements and take action as required.
adding relevant research documentation to ARIES record, in collaboration with Research Services Division when required.
updating ARIES research milestones with relevant completion dates.
submitting required research milestone (i.e. research report, ethics approval) to funds provider.

Financial milestones

The local area is responsible for:

initiating milestone reports to capture financial milestone requirements and take action as required.
preparing financial statements.
adding relevant financial documentation to the ARIES record.
updating ARIES financial milestones with relevant completion dates, where Financial Shared Services have not taken this action.
submitting required financial milestone (i.e. invoice, certified financial statement) to funds provider.

The FSS Accounts Receivable team in Financial Shared Services (FSS) are responsible for updating the ARIES milestone with the completion date and invoice number. If there is no milestone in ARIES at the time of raising the invoice it is the responsibility of the local area to update ARIES.
Research Accounting is responsible for:

reviewing prepared financial statements.
certifying financial statements.
adding relevant documents to the ARIES record including working papers and final certified financial statement.
sending the certified financial statement to the local area for distribution to funds provider.

Audit milestones

Research Accounting is responsible for:

initiating milestone reports to capture audit requirements.
advising local areas of action required, ensuring sufficient time is provided for local areas to perform their required tasks and meet audit time constraints.
liaising with local areas and the Corporate Governance and Risk Office (CGRO) to achieve completion of required internal audits.
liaising with local areas and the University’s appointed service provider to achieve completion of required external audits.
adding certified audited financial statement and relevant audit documents to ARIES record.
sending certified audited financial statement to local area for distribution to funds provider.

The local area is responsible for:

completing pre-audit checklist
completing Payroll Costing Analysis reconciliation if relevant
providing relevant information requested by auditors.
updating ARIES audit milestones with relevant completion dates.
submitting certified audited financial statement to funds provider.

Financial Shared Services are responsible for

providing financial documentation requested by auditors.

Information	Printable version (PDF)
Title	ARIES Record Establishment and Milestone Management
Document Type	Procedure
Document Number	ANUP_018609
Version	1
Purpose	The Research and Non-Research Funds Management Policy is an overarching policy to inform staff, students and affiliates of the principles for managing internal and external funds for University research and non-research activities.
Audience	Staff
Category	Administrative
Topic/ SubTopic	Finance - Grants

Effective Date	11 Sep 2018
Review Date	10 Sep 2021

Responsible Officer	Chief Financial Officer
Approved By:	Vice-Chancellor
Contact Area	Finance and Business Services
Authority	Australian National University Act 1991 Public Governance, Performance and Accountability Act 2013