Monash University: Financial Reports


This page contains tips for balancing a Monash budget and interpreting financial reports. First, I recommend scheduling regular in-person meetings with someone from the finance team.

Fund Balance. Upon request, Finance will send you a "Fund Balance" document, which is not part of your regular Report.

The report shows the finances as of some preparation date. The fund balnce lists your active revenue sources. The last column is the net balance; negative means that you have money to spend. Money in Future Fellowships rolls over for the next year; I assume this is also true of Discovery Projects. In addition to the money that rolls over, there is a new contribution each year, e.g., $9500. If you have start-up, or something else that you are using to pay a postdoc, the money in net balance does not include commitments to pay your postdoc.

Fund Owner Summary. This page is the front of your financial report. It has a different sign convention from the "Fund Balance" document: positive is good, negative is bad.

The front page includes a "project end forecast balnce" column, which does include salary commitments, e.g., to postdocs...at least, this is true for the start-up fund; the FT salary fund does not appear to deduct commitments (everything). This is the key thing to look at to know what you have left over after salaries.

Details by fund. In order to see what you're spending on travel and on salaries--or to see what you have paid so far toward some salary commitment--turn to the "Detailed P and L by Fund" page. There is a different page for each fund.

Postdoc salaries are in the row labeled "Academic." Undergraduates are listed under "Casual and Sessional." There are also rows for "travel" and "infrastructure," which includes things like computers.

Additional transaction details are included below if you ever want to find out exactly how money was spent, item by item.

Other Tips

Future fellowships. If you have a Future Fellowship, do not charge any purchases to the "Salary Fund," use the "Project Fund."

Non-compliant expenses: visas for relocation (not allowed in an FT, but are allowed in a COE), entertainment, membership fees, more than one laptop per two years (FT).



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