A Billing Agreement is a short and efficient mechanism through which VU and VUMC can contract for limited work to be performed and to effectuate payments. There are a few things to know:
- Billing agreements are only for inter-institutional relationships between VU and VUMC.
- A billing agreement cannot substitute for a subcontract. If a faculty member is performing substantive scientific work on a project, a sub-award not a billing agreement is the appropriate mechanism
- Billing agreements can be sponsored (funds coming from a grant or a contract), or non-sponsored (institutional funds).
- Billing agreements provide for reimbursement of costs. They do not have indirect costs, but the non-sponsored billing agreements do include a 10% administrative fee.
- A request for a new billing agreement should be submitted to the Office of Contracts Management through PEER (https://peer.app.vumc.org). Choose the option to “Create a Contract Request,” and you will be guided to the form. You will be asked if the request is for a billing agreement, and if the answer is yes, the number of questions will be reduced.
- If your billing agreement is for reimbursement of costs for students, you will need one billing agreement per student.