Accounting for Payments to Human Subjects

The following guidance regarding accounting for payments to human subjects was issued on June 30, 2009 by Carol Gibson, CPA – Controller

New Account for FY2010 – Human Subjects

Senate Bill 300, the Transparency in Government Act, was passed during the 2008 legislative session and signed by Governor Perdue in May 2008. This bill requires State Agencies and State Institutions to extract all trade vendor payment data (vendor ID, vendor name, amount & number of payments) to the Department of Audits and Accounts (DOAA).  The DOAA will then make this data available to be viewed by the public via a searchable website.

Georgia Tech currently processes some payments related to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and Human Subjects the same as trade vendor payments.  The DOAA has approved for all State Agencies and State Institutions to exclude any payments related to the HIPAA and Human Subjects from this extraction. During a review of these types of payments, it was noted that Georgia Tech does not consistently use the same Account to process these payments.  In response to this, the Institute has elected to create a new account to use for these types of payments.  This account will help to better identify these payments and ensure that this private information is not made available on any searchable public websites.  As of July 1, 2009, please use the following Account to process payments related to HIPAA and Human Subjects:

Account       Description

751510       Services – Human Subjects

Please distribute this information to GT staff members who process payments for HIPAA and Human Subjects.  Please direct all questions related to HIPAA and Human Subjects payments to ap.ask@business.gatech.edu.