Government Furnished Property

Often the government delivers all of their properties to the University for performing explicit contract requirements. This property can "ONLY" be used on the grant it has been intended for stated unless otherwise. Moreover, precise records need to be maintained as to the use, location, and maintenance.

• Government-Furnished Equipment: Equipments that are owned by the Government but furnished to the University for Use under a federally-funded project.
  
• Contractor-Acquired Equipment: Equipment attained by the University along with funds provided by the Federal Government.
  
• Contractor-Fabricated Equipment: Special purpose equipment that gets assembled results in an editorial article of capital equipment.

Management of Government Property
The manual is nothing but a mutual effort of the Office of Sponsored Programs, Purchasing, and Property Management for establishing as well as maintaining a property control system for the control, use, maintenance, repair, protection and preservation of government property in the custody of Montana State University, its agents, along with its subcontractors. Government property may be obtained as (1) by purchase (2) by government surplus 3) by fabrication as an end product.

Process of Capital Equipment Purchases:
Purchasing Department routes for capital invoice payments via Property Management, who allots the permanent tag number, places and tags the item, noting all the details such as PI name, serial # and location. This information is entered on the University BANNER computer system at all times.

Identification of Government Property
After the establishment of government property, property management will be accountable for the affixation of identification tags on all of the government properties as soon as possible.

Property Records
Property Control preserves the entire collection of official records for all federal government property coded as capital equipment and has the following properties such as: property identification number, department, acquisition method, description, manufacturer, model number, serial number, condition code, unit cost, total cost, date received, location, department contact, contract number, university account number, funding agency, date last inventoried.

Physical Inventories
At the annihilation of a contract, the OSP or Property Management will equip the liable Principal Investigator with all of the government properties that gets listed are attained during the life of the contract to date.

Annual Inventory
Property Management and the PI/Departmental Administrator will work together to conduct an annual inventory of all government-owned property and resolve any discrepancies disclosed by the inventory.

Selective Inventory
Property Management may conduct selective inventories as needed to protect the Government’s interest.

Closeout or Terminal Physical Inventory
The PI/Departmental Administrator shall prepare, with the assistance of Property Management, an inventory of government property in the possession of Montana State University or its subsidiaries at termination or closeout of an award.

Movement
Movement out of the department of any item of federal government property that is tagged with a university property tag must be documented by the PI/Departmental Administrator on an Equipment Transfer Notice.

Consumption
Consumption is the process of integrating all the raw materials offered by the Federal Government into an end item unless or otherwise overwhelming them in the performance of the contract.

Utilization
University departments should utilize government property for the purposes that are described in the award.

Maintenance
The PI/Departmental Administrator takes responsibility for the care, maintenance and utilization of government property in their possession from the time of receipt of the property until it was relieved of responsibility by the agency.

Subcontractors
The PI is accountable for all government property in the custody of subcontractors or at alternate locations. Property Management maintains each and every records of government property that is physically positioned off-campus.

Property Accountability Management System

Property Accountability Management System is a centrally maintained subsystem of the Statewide Accounting Budgeting Human Resource System (SABRS) used to direct as well as account for the State's investment in each and every fixed asset. Assortments of department heads are vested at Montana State University with the eventual responsibility for all inventories within their departments internally. Property Management is a support service to the department for assuring the accurate records and proper control of property for the reason that whether they are maintained or not. Possession, use, and accountability are always preserved on the department level only. Property Management and the Montana State University Internal Auditor's Office will carry out unscheduled audits along with complete audits of departmental property sporadically and may be performed as directorship vacancies that occur.

PROPERTY MANAGEMENT METHODS

Property inventory at Montana State University is classed as either periodic or perpetual.

Due to the occurrence of acquisitions, the perpetual inventory is updated by Property Management. Moreover, it is designed for recording both ownership and location of capital property. The periodic inventory is taken on a department level for those departments that have stores and supplies as well.

Capital Property Criteria
Property Accountability Management System (PAMS) is a sub-system to SABHRS, and is used as a means to trace capital property and also for generating the Investment in Plant entry into SABRS for financial statements.

Capital Accessory Purchases
Often a piece of equipment is purchased which is to be used in conjunction with a capital item, but could not be used only by it. Suppose if any equipment is purchased and used only with a specific piece of capital property, and if it cannot be used by itself, then it is deemed a capital accessory if it is not a replacement part.

Adding Property to PAMS
The BPA, invoice and purchase order copy is used to add new property acquisitions to a departmental inventory on Banner fixed assets. At the time of payment processing of an invoice or BPA, State of Montana identification tag is assigned by Property Management for all University acquisitions of capital property in a situation where a donated gift is received or when a capital item is being accomplished by some other method.

Information Requested on NVOICE/BPA
Business Payment Authorization is arranged by the department when capital property is received and established as well by the requesting department. Based upon the index number it's paid from, the BPA is sent with an invoice to the Business Office, Grants and Contracts or AES/CES accounting. Both the BPA and the supporting invoices are forwarded to Claims in the Business Office for payment later.

Identification of Property
One unique number is assigned to each piece of a capital property. Once that number has been assigned, it remains on the same record until it gets deleted, and will never get assigned again. The property number that has been allocated for a single piece of property is noted on an analogous BPA before the BPA and invoices are taken to the Business Office to be paid.

Untaggable Property
Property which, due to structure, shape, or precision, cannot be tagged should be marked in some other identifiable manner which is easier. The property number will be always notorious on the item by some means such as decal, indelible ink, paint, or electric engraver.

Missing Tags or Untagged Items
If the item needs to be tagged or retagged, the department should note all the adequate information such as description and serial number and so the records of research of property can be determined in an easy way.

Minor Property
Minor property consists of items having a normal useful life of one year or more that has a unit cost of at least $1,000 but less than $5,000 and are accounted separately.