Award Burn Rate Dashboard

Overview

The Award Burn Rate Dashboard provides University of Nevada, Reno researchers and administrators with a clear, data-driven view of grant financial performance. It enables users to monitor budget utilization, expenditures, obligations and remaining balances across active awards, supporting responsible stewardship of sponsored funding.

The dashboard is designed to provide an overall view of award financial health and current spending across grants. It is intended for high-level monitoring and trend analysis. For detailed information on specific obligations or expenditures, users should refer to Workday financial reports.

The dashboard integrates award budgets, actual expenditures and obligations to assess burn rates and track financial progress relative to project timelines.

Access the Award Burn Rate Dashboard (login with your NetID)

Why it matters

Effective management of sponsored funding is critical to sustaining research excellence. The Award Burn Rate Dashboard helps users:

• Monitor spending patterns throughout the award lifecycle
• Ensure alignment between financial activity and project timelines
• Detect early-stage deficits before they lead to budget overruns
• Identify late-stage underspending to support full utilization of funds, including timely No-Cost Extensions
• Strengthen accountability and transparency in research administration

Key features

• Financial overview: View total budget, expenditures, obligations and remaining balance
• Burn rate analysis: Budget utilization compared to overall budget
• Trend analysis: Analyze cumulative and monthly expenditure patterns
• Detailed breakdown: Explore expenditures by ledger categories such as salaries, supplies, travel and sub-awards
• Search and filtering: Quickly locate awards by PI, grant title, award number or Grant ID

The dashboard provides both high-level summaries and detailed views, allowing users to move from portfolio insights to budget to expenditure analysis.

Who can access

The dashboard uses role-based access aligned with institutional responsibilities:

• Principal Investigators (PIs): View their own awards (Workday-based access)
• Chairs: Department-level visibility
• College coordinators: Access to college-level portfolios
• Deans: College-level visibility
• Research & Innovation: Broad cross-organizational oversight

Requesting access: With the exception of Principal Investigators – whose access is provisioned automatically as set in Workday – all other roles must request access. To request access, contact ResearchAnalytics@unr.edu.

Access the Award Burn Rate Dashboard (login with your NetID)

How to use the dashboard

Users can:

• Filter data by PI, grant title, award number or Grant ID
• Compare budget spent vs. expected expenditure to evaluate burn rate health
• Review historical spending trends to support planning and decision-making

Key metrics

• Total award budget: Authorized funding amount
• Expenditures: Costs incurred to date
• Obligations: Committed but not yet spent funds
• Remaining balance: Available budget after expenditures and obligations
• Burn rate: Expenditure compared to budget
• Grant duration: Total months of award
• Time elapsed vs. spend: Percentage of budget spent compared against percentage of grant time elapsed

Example views

• Award burn rate summary
  • High-level overview of budget, expenditures and remaining balance
  • Key indicators showing financial details, utilization and time elapsed
• Award burn rate summary (ledger remaining budgets)
  • Gauges with a detailed breakdown of expenses by category (e.g., salaries, travel, supplies)
  • Supports deeper analysis of spending patterns through visuals
• Award budget to actuals by ledger account
  • A table with a detailed breakdown of expenses by category (e.g., salaries, travel, supplies)
  • Similar to what is provided by the Workday report of the same name
• Historical award expenditure and budget by ledger (cumulative)
  • Visual representation of spending over time
  • Helps assess whether cumulative spending aligns with remaining budget and total budget
• Historical award expenditures and budget (monthly)
  • Tracks monthly financial activity
  • Shows monthly expenditure over time with average monthly budget as a baseline
• Historical award expenditure by ledger
  • A bar chart that tracks fiscal year expenditure by ledger account
  • Shows expenditure over time with a focus on fiscal year totals
• Historical award expenditure by ledger (table)
• A table that tracks fiscal year expenditure by ledger account with date selection
• Shows expenditure by month (selectable) along with a cumulative total

Data and refresh information

• Data includes award budgets, expenditures and obligations for active awards
• Data is refreshed monthly and is available through the end of the previous month
• Users should note that some recent transactions may not appear until the next data refresh

Advancing Research & Innovation

The Award Burn Rate Dashboard reflects the University of Nevada, Reno’s commitment to modern, analytics-driven research administration. By providing transparent, actionable financial insights, it empowers researchers and administrators to manage resources effectively, support compliance and maximize the impact of sponsored funding.

Access the Award Burn Rate Dashboard (login with your NetID)