Time and Effort

0:00
Hello and thanks for joining today to learn about time and effort reporting.

0:04
Our goal today is to give you an understanding of the time and effort reporting process, the federal requirement for tracking, reporting and certifying time and effort, and to answer some common questions on this topic.

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One note, these concepts are important for faculty researchers to understand because of our federal sponsor compliance requirements for EFFORT reporting.

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As for the actual tracking in the time and effort system, that access is limited to fiscal shared services and department staff.

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Although as a faculty researcher, you may not actually be the person entering the data into the system, your participation in this training and understanding of the concepts is still critical to our compliance and we welcome you here today.

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Here's our agenda for today.

0:51
We'll talk about the effort reporting process and some definitions and key concepts around effort.

0:56
We'll talk through why we report and who is required to report.

1:00
We'll talk through a related concept, cost sharing, and how that's reported.

1:05
And we'll review what you need to know about the time and effort year-end certification process.

1:11
You may ask, “Why do we go to all this effort to track and report on time and effort.?”

1:16
It's simple.

1:16
It's required by our federal sponsors.

1:18
It's also the way that we track cost sharing for our grants.

1:22
The reference to the actual legislation is shown on this slide, but let me save you the trouble of looking it up and point out the key concepts of it.

1:31
The principles behind the legislation are here.

1:34
The important key points for you to know are that activity is expressed as a percentage of overall professional activity and the reports must show the percentage of activity that is paid by the university and must represent a reasonable estimate.

1:49
Reports must also be verified by a responsible individual, confirming the personnel costs being charged to the grant and ensuring that we are reporting a full 100% of the research team's efforts.

2:02
This is an overview of the lifecycle in both pre and post awards stages.

2:08
Let's start with the employment contract established between the University and the faculty.

2:13
This becomes the basis for the time and effort tracking. In the proposal preparation stage, effort is proposed and a commitment is made to the sponsor for the percentage of time that will be spent on the project.

2:18

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Note that the commitment made may reflect a revision to the original proposal made to the sponsor.

2:30
As effort is extended, that effort is tracked and reported monthly consistent with the activities that are being completed.

2:37
This takes place in the MSU Time and Effort system, which is maintained by OSP.

2:42
There are a very limited number of employees, usually shared services or department staff, that have access to this system, and their role is to work with you to enter accurate information into the system consistent with your activities.

2:55
Finally, on an annual basis, your effort is certified in writing.

3:01
How is effort defined?

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It's the proportion of time spent on an activity expressed as a percentage of total professional activity.

3:09
The total must equal 100% and may represent more than a 40-hour work week.

3:14
Note that the effort is expected to be a reasonable estimate, knowing that many professional activities are interrelated and overlapping.

3:22
To reiterate the point, you may spend 50% of your time on research, 30% on instruction, and 20% in public service, aligning with your employment contract.

3:33
In the time and effort system, this will be reported as 50% university activities and 50% sponsored activities, broken down by grant if you're working on more than one.

3:44
So the total will always add up to 100% even if you're working more than 40 hours per week.

3:51
Who is required to report their time and effort?

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All departments where there is any grant activity and any department in which cost sharing is taking place.

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As for which type of employee, any administrative classified contract professional and GRA employees.

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These are any with the 61123 through 61130 account codes.

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As for those who are not reported, that includes undergrads, temporary hourly employees, and work study students. Please note – we are sometimes asked if additional compensation is recorded and added to their effort reporting? The answer is that no – it doesn’t figure into time and effort calculations.

 
4:22
Note that time and effort reporting is also the way we track cost sharing.

4:26
Even if an individual was not paid from a grant, if they spend time on the grant, it should be reported, that is cost sharing.

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It also allows us to verify the cost sharing commitments we are making as a university.

4:41
As mentioned earlier to be compliant with federal regulations, there is a certification process that happens annually.

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OSP initiates this process and deans and department heads are required to sign off on the reports.

4:54
Any corrections in payroll that are required should be made before this process commences.

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To be sure we have the most accurate information.

5:02
Note that this is a favorite area for auditors and we've seen in the industry that non-compliance is costly.

5:09
We've seen fines issued to UC Berkeley, University of Utah, UC San Diego and the University of Illinois as a result of audits.

5:18
In a particularly costly example, Yale had to repay $7.6 million to the federal government over audit findings related in part to effort reporting.

5:30
Finally, OSP is happy to help.

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Please reach out to your fiscal manager with questions and thank you for taking this training today.

0:01
Welcome to the Training Module on MSU’s Time and Effort Reporting System.

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This training has been created specifically for the Department staff and Fiscal Shared Services personnel who are entering time and effort information on behalf of the departments who are conducting sponsored research at MSU.

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This system is in use at MSU as part of a federal requirement to track effort that is time spent working on federally funded research.

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This session is presented by the Office of Sponsored Programs.

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There is another online module that is a prerequisite to this course.

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It's called “An Introduction to Time and Effort Reporting for Principal Investigators”.

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It's created primarily for PI’s to learn about Time and Effort reporting, but it's also designed to help you, the people who will actually be working in this system, get a big picture understanding of what Time and Effort reporting is and why it's important.

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You'll want to complete that module as a precursor to this one.

0:59
This course is specifically related to how to use the Time and Effort system at MSU.

1:03
Here's what we'll cover on that topic today.

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We'll start with how to access the Time and Effort software, which is an application that has been specifically developed for MSU.

1:13
We'll go through how to enter data into the system and the reporting that's available.

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We'll review the timelines for entering data, the annual certification process, as well as a couple of resources that you may find useful Because they're sensitive salary information in the system, we limit access to MSU’s T&E system to no more than two individuals per department.

1:38
These individuals may be on staff in the department or they may reside in the Fiscal Shared Services Group.

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This varies by department.

1:45
We'll refer to these individuals as T&E Administrators in this presentation.

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Before you're granted access to the system, you'll need to complete this training and then contact Monique Hill in OSP for login credentials.

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Initially, you'll access the software via the link shown on the screen, and then the T&E login screen will appear.

2:05
Feel free to bookmark this screen or this URL.

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And please note that the computer setup box in the upper right is no longer active, so you can ignore that.

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Once you're in the application, you'll find that every page has a help icon in the top left part of the screen, and that prompts you with information specific to that page.

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The most important guideline to know is that effort is entered in as a percentage of total time rather than the number of hours worked or the dollars of salary used.

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All percentages of effort must add up to 100% in total.

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On the top left side of the data entry screen, you'll see the names of employees who are paid from the sponsored funds.

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On the top right of the screen, you'll see the employees in the department who are not paid from sponsored funds.

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For each employee listed in the top left of the screen, you'll enter the percentages of effort for university efforts and sponsored efforts by grants.

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These must total 100% cost share, which is the term used for the part of the salary or cost being paid by MSU for work done on research.

3:15
That is, costs that are not covered by the sponsor that will be represented when the percentage of sponsored effort is higher than the amount of sponsored pay percentage.

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If there is an employee who is working on a grant but does not have grant dollars allocated to them, you will select them from the right side of the screen.

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You will enter the fund number in the lower left part of the screen and then enter the percentage of effort that is applicable to the grant.

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This amounts to cost sharing since they're working on the grant without outside funding.

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And don't forget to reduce the pay percentage from their other work to make sure it adds up to 100%.

3:56
Please note - you can only enter whole numbers so please round if needed. But always round TOWARDS the sponsored program and away from University effort. So, if you have any fractional part of an hour spent on research, record that whole hour on the grant effort.

 

4:02
There are two reports you'll use as AT&E admin.

4:06
You can access these reports on the home screen, which is that initial page you land on at login.

4:11
The 2 reports are the Under Reported Effort Year to Date report and the Effort Detail Year to Date report.

4:17
The Under Reported Effort report is a great starting point to ensure that all of your prior entries have not been affected by payroll corrections or missed entries in previous months.

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The Effort Detail Year to Date report is what you'll use to share with departments or PI’s to demonstrate what the current reporting represents up to that current period in the fiscal year.

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Let me show you both in more detail.

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This is what the under Reported Effort for FY 2024 report looks like.

4:47
It shows you a list of entries, one line for each employee for whom there is a mismatch between the portion of salary the grant was allocated to pay the employee and the amount of effort that it was reported to have taken place on that grant.

5:01
For example, on the first line, the Salary column represents the salary dollars that were expected to be covered by the grant in that pay period, but in the effort column, there is a zero.

5:12
It's highly likely that this is an error and that the employee did work their expected time on the grant, and that the effort column needs to be updated to reflect the percentage of their time that was allocated to that grant.

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The final column is a simple calculation showing the difference between the reported effort and salary.

5:30
Ideally, you want to have the expected salary and actual effort to be equivalent for each employee.

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If they are not, then you'll revisit that record to either correct it or to make sure we have a reason why they don't match.

5:41
I'll say that this report is a world of exceptions.

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Things like leave without pay, pay increases, changes, and grant personnel.

5:50
There are 100 reasons that things might turn up on this report and this is what OSP is prepared to answer for you.

5:57
These are calls we expect and hope to take so that you don't get bogged down in spending time figuring out how to handle non-standard scenarios.

6:05
So please don't hesitate to call.

6:09
Another thing about this report is it's important to know that the T&E production database only picks up the original payroll record, not any correction or revised entries.

6:19
Therefore, any and all corrections or revisions have to be manually updated accordingly.

6:23
Once corrections are made and the effort equals the salary percentage, the entries will drop from the report.

6:29
So this is a great report to see what work needs to be done and what corrections need to be made.

6:34
If I'm doing my regular effort data entry monthly or quarterly, this is the report I'd run throughout that process.

6:44
The second report you'll run on a regular basis is the Effort Detail Year to Date report.

6:49
When you click on this report button, your departments effort records will download into an Excel file immediately.

6:56
You can filter and cut the data and save it into different files so that you can share the information that pertains to any given PI.

7:03
It's a good report for coordinating with PI’s to get confirmation on the entries to make sure you have the right employees listed and to verify other information.

7:11
It's also used at the end of the year for gathering certification, reporting, and signatures.

7:17
Here's an example of the downloaded report.

7:19
This shows data for the fiscal year to date and because this is an excel sheet, you can manipulate the data for each Pi so that you're only sending the information related to that specific Pi.

7:31
You can then send this information out to the PI’s periodically throughout the year so that they can verify the information.

7:40
Let's show you a typical timeline for data entry reporting and for making any required corrections.

7:46
We'll use August, September, and October as 3 sample months.

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In month one, the research efforts take place in month two.

7:55
Any corrections or adjustments for anyone working on a grant from the prior month are made to payroll in month three, OSP will open the period for Date Entry of effort.

8:04
You'll get an e-mail to that effect from OSP, and this is when you'll use the T&E system to make your department's entries.

8:13
You'll also use the Under Reported Effort report to see if there are any items that need to be revisited from July or before.

8:20
This may happen, for example, if there are payroll changes that cause discrepancies between effort and salary that need to be corrected.

8:29
The annual certification process is an annual requirement for us to validate and certify the effort reporting.

8:35
It's something we have to do to remain compliant with the federal regulations.

8:39
This means that the tracking that has been taking place all year needs to be reviewed and signed off by a department head or a Dean.

8:47
When directed by the OSP office, the annual certification process will be kicked off and you'll receive the notice via e-mail, usually taking place in the October time frame.

8:57
Departments will generate the effort report reflecting fiscal year cumulative totals.

9:03
This report will be used by the departments to have effort verified and signed by the department heads.

9:09
The report will then be emailed to OSP.

9:11
DocuSign is available for use to obtain these required signatures.

9:15
When you receive that e-mail from OSP, you will be provided with the details on all of these steps.

9:23
Finally, a couple of resources for you Monique Hills, our OSP system resource.

9:28
Please feel free to reach out to her with any questions or additional training requirements.

9:32
We also have a policy document available on our site which is a good general resource.

9:37
So thank you for your time today and for your commitment to keeping accurate and timely time and effort records.

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Please let OSP know where we can provide additional support.

9:46
We are here to help.