Unallowable Costs
Expenses federal funds can never cover: such as alcohol, lobbying, entertainment, fines, and bad debt.
The Uniform Guidance names categories of cost that federal awards can't pay for regardless of context: alcoholic beverages, lobbying, entertainment, fundraising, fines and penalties, and bad debt, among others. A few are unallowable as direct charges but partly recoverable through the F&A rate.
Institutions keep unallowable costs out of both direct charges and the F&A base, usually by flagging specific accounts, so they're never billed to the government even indirectly.
Unallowable costs that slip into a grant or the F&A base are disallowed on audit and repaid with interest.
Track this in GrantsManager
GrantsManager gives PIs and administrators one real-time view of proposals, awards, budgets, and compliance, so terms like this stop living in spreadsheets.