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eRA Information: Federal Financial Report Required to be Submitted in the Payment Management System, Starting January 1, 2021

Effective January 1, 2021, recipients will be required to submit the SF-425 Federal Financial Report (FFR) to the Payment Management System (PMS) instead of eRA Commons (see NIH Guide Notice NOT-OD-20-127). 
 
The change in this submission process is part of the Health and Human Services’ (HHS) initiative to consolidate FFR reporting into PMS across all the HHS Operating Divisions. Recipient organizations should already be familiar with PMS as they use the tool to draw down grant funds. 
 
To reduce the burden for recipients, clicking on the new Manage FFR button next to a particular grant on the Search for Federal Financial Report (FFR) screen in eRA Commons will take the recipient directly to PMS (see Figure 1). The recipient will log into PMS and be taken straight to the Federal Financial Report — Details screen for that grant in PMS. While the interface will appear new to the recipients, the data to be completed will remain the same. Once the form is completed in PMS, the recipient will submit it to the agency. Recipients will still be able to see the status of their submission in the eRA Commons/FFR module.
 

Figure 1: The Manage FFR button in eRA Commons/FFR that will take the user to the Payment Management System
 
 
NOTE: Recipients who work to complete the FFR should register with PMS and obtain log in credentials prior to submitting an FFR. It is also important to note that recipients who have FFRs that are a work-in-progress in the eRA Commons/FFR module as of January 1, 2021, will need to start them over in PMS.
 
 
The change to FFR submission requirements does not affect the timeline. Therefore, FFR due dates, as outlined in the NIH Grants Policy Statement, 8.4.1.5.2 and 8.6.1, remain unchanged. FFRs that are submitted prior to January 1, 2021 will use the FFR module in eRA Commons. 
 
A second guide notice will be issued soon. Training sessions offered by PMS for recipients will be posted at this link as they become available: https://pms.psc.gov/training/gr-ffr-training.html 
 
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