Service Centers
Service centers are activities of a department that provides goods and/or services of a specialized nature to UND users on a recurring basis and charges a fee for those goods/services – typically value added by personnel in providing the good/service. The department charges a fee no greater than the cost of the goods/services.
Service centers include ‘recharge’ centers and ‘specialized service facilities’ addressed in OMB Uniform Guidance (2 CFR 200.468). They also may include ‘institutional service centers’ that are not defined in OMB guidance.
Institutional Service Centers
A specialized, recurring institutional or departmental service provided to a large portion of the university for a fee. Examples include facilities, transportation, print centers, telecomm. The goal is to be self-supporting by generating income from multiple funding sources, including departments outside the parent department. They operate on a break-even basis. The goal is to recover the costs of the goods or services provided. Institutional Service Centers impact many departments across campus.
Recharge Centers
An operating unit within an academic department that provides more specific services, instruments, technology, etc. to support research and other sponsored activities for a fee. Examples include testing equipment utilized for research, small animal research facilities, analytical research labs. Recharge centers may also sell to external customers on an incidental basis. Recharge centers may not be expected to be self-supporting and may be subsidized by their parent department.
Specialized Service Facilities
A type of recharge center identified under CFR 200.46 that utilizes highly complex or specialized equipment/processes not usually available elsewhere with significant support costs and revenue that exceeds $1 million per year. Examples include high performance computing, large animal research facilities, wind tunnels.
Why do we need Recharge Centers?
Service centers can provide services often for less than the market rate and allow UND to maintain control over quality. They also provide an opportunity for multiple research projects to utilize expensive labs and equipment at a fraction of the cost of running their own lab. Service center accounting allows the department that provides the services to recover the “costs” of those services and to recover direct costs from grant activities.
Other Types of UND Charges
Other UND departments charge for goods and services that are not considered Service Centers.
A department that charges primarily individuals (may also serve general public) at UND for its services. Generally self-supporting, based on full-costing (direct costs of the department and allocation of indirect costs of the institution and debt service). The unit charges a fee related to, but not necessarily equal to the cost of goods/services. A surplus or deficit in a given year is retained and used without restriction. There are no restrictions on purchase of equipment from auxiliary funds.
Invoiced costs are merely passed through to other funds. There is no mark-up or charging of administrative costs. The initial invoice is charged to a fund and then re-billed to the receiving department. There is no value added to the process – done merely out of convenience.