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and submit your effort report on-line If you have trouble logging in try putting 'uthscsa\' before your username; example: uthscsa\longg If you continue to have trouble, please visit the link below. |
Instructions for completing your effort reportEffort certification for payroll distribution purposes and for the purpose of recording a faculty or staff member's total professional effort is required by OMB Circular A-21. The Office of Sponsored Programs (OSP) is responsible for maintaining the official records and the respective departments are responsible for the distribution, collection, and input of faculty reports. The reports confirm, on a best-judgment basis, the payroll and effort of an individual during a reporting period.Effort reports are required for UTHSCSA faculty members and exempt employees who have actual or pledged time on all awards which are either classified as research or are from Federal sources on a six month basis. The bi-annual reporting periods are September 1-February 28 and March 1- August 31 of each fiscal year. Non-exempt employees are required to report on a monthly schedule from the 1st through the end of the month.
Reporting Process.
All reports are completed the month following the reporting period. For example, reports for the period September 1-September 30 are completed in October.
Faculty only: OSP will send an e-mail notice to the designated department T&E administrator that the Time & Effort reports are ready for review- hard copies will be distributed to faculty by the administrators. Concurrently, OSP will send an e-mail to the faculty notifying them that their Time & Effort reports are available for review in read-only mode. Faculty will fill out and sign hard copy for input into the system by the administrator.
Staff only: OSP will send an e-mail notice to all staff required to submit a report. Staff will input their effort into the system.
Accessing Your Report.
To access your effort report, either click on the link provided in your e-mail notification or go to the OSP website and click on the Effort Reporting button. A box will come up asking you for your UTHSCSA user name and password. If you are accessing from a remote site, you will probably need to give the domain name as well (i.e., instead of just Smith, you may need to type UTHSCSA\Smith; this may differ between browsers).
Form Completion.
- Click on the Account number for a description of that account. You can also click on any of the column headings to understand what the information in the column means.
- Enter percent time in whole numbers for each category when at all possible. Be careful when using fractional numbers as all effort must total EXACTLY 100% before you will be allowed to submit your form.
- If you have any questions or disagree with the pre-printed information, email the Office of Sponsored Programs (OSP) at report-effort@uthscsa.edu. You should NOT confirm and submit your report if you believe it to be incorrect until you have discussed the discrepancies with OSP. If the report needs to be corrected, OSP will make note of the corrections needed and instruct you to confirm and submit "with exception".
- When you have received a message that your effort report has been processed, you can close that browser window.
If you encounter any problems with this form, please report them to the Office of Sponsored Programs.
Account The accounts listed in this column are those from which you pledged effort or were paid during the certification period. The first 6 numbers of the account is the PGid number assigned to this grant; the last five numbers are the fund group of which the last two numbers identify the funding source (i.e. fund groups ending in 16 and 17 are DHHS federal grants). Type These broad classifications provide a description of the account's purpose. We use nine codes: instruction, research, public service, hospitals and clinics, academic support, other, institutional support, M&O (maintenance and operations), physical plan, scholarships & fellowships. % Time (Pledged) Faculty: This is the amount of effort that was committed to the funding agency at the time of the proposal. If this amount changes during the conduct of the project, please notify the OSP at report-effort@uthscsa.edu. Staff: This column will be blank. Adj Time (Pledged) Faculty: This column takes the data from the %Time (Pledged) column and makes an adjustment, if applicable. If the project account was not active for the entire certification period, the percent effort pledged is adjusted for the amount of time that the account was active. For example, if your pledged effort is 50% on an account that was only active 3 months of the 6 month certification period, the % Time (pledged) is adjusted accordingly: 3/6 * 50% = 25%
% Paid (Payroll) This is the percent of your salary actually charged by account. This has been normalized to 100% effort. (See Frequently Asked Questions on Effort Certification.) % Time (Actual) You should fill in this blank with the actual amount of time you spent on activities directly associated with this account. On a federal account, if your actual time spent is less than the percentage you are being paid, you need to email OSP at report-effort@uthscsa.edu for assistance. Confirm and Submit Click this button if the information on your certification is correct. Check when submitted report with an exception Check this box if you either have noted or will be noting to OSP changes that should be made on your certification form.
What is effort reporting and why do I have to participate in this certification? Effort reporting is an accounting of your professional effort on sponsored agreements, both paid and unpaid. We are required to do effort reporting by Federal regulation. You are asked to certify the effort you are being paid from an account funded by Federal money classified as research and/or you have indicated that you will expend effort on a project funded by Federal money (that effort may or may not be reimbursed by the account). Effort reporting is the Health Science Center's only means of certifying payroll charges on sponsored agreement accounts. Without this certification, we would not be eligible for payment of these charges by our federal and other sponsors. Where does the information on my effort certification come from? The information on your effort certification comes directly from the Health Science Center payroll records and from information submitted on the funded proposal. My effort per project can vary from month to month. How do I accommodate that in this report? For faculty, effort is certified every six month period and we are required to certify to a picture of your activity during that period. You should use an average percentage. This is, if you worked on a project 50% for three months and 30% for three months during this period, your average effort was 40% and that is the amount you should indicate on the form. Remember that you are reporting your best estimate of time spent over a six month period. For non-exempt staff members who aren't faculty, your effort is certified to on a month to month basis. If your effort varies during the month, we may need to do a payroll change for you. Email OSP at report-effort@uthscsa.edu for advice.
I don't work forty hours per week; some weeks I work 50 or more. Doesn't that make my effort more than 100%? Your work habits are the very reason we ask you to account for your time by percentage of effort. You are accounting for 100% of your professional time, regardless of how many hours you worked during that period. Consequently, if you work a fifty hour work week, your effort should add up to 100% based on a distribution of 50 hours. What if I only have a half time or other than full time appointment? Should my effort still total 100%? Yes, you need to certify to 100% of your professional effort to the Health Science Center. In other words, if you have a half time appointment, you are making certification for 100% of your 50% appointment. What if my real effort on an account is more than the percentage of my payroll that the account pays? This is okay. You need to fill in your effort as it accurately describes your activities. For example, if you are being paid 50% from a federal account and 50% from your department account, but you spend 60% of your time on the federal account, you should record your effort in the "% Time Actual" boxes that way: 60% on the federal account, 40% on the department account. Only if your effort is less on a federal or research account than you are being paid do we need to make a payroll change. What if the pre-printed percentage of effort on my accounts is absolutely incorrect to my circumstances? Your effort report should accurately reflect the account to which you are devoting effort and from which you are being paid. Following are examples of an effort report being incorrect:
If the report indicates that you are being paid on an account and you personally know that you have not spent any effort on the project which that account funds, a payroll adjustment must be made. If the report indicates that you are being paid on an account at a higher percentage than your actual effort, an appropriate payroll adjustment will need to be made. In either case or in other circumstances where you believe the effort on an account is incorrect, please contact OSP at report-effort@uthscsa.edu.
What if I am unavailable to complete my Effort Certification? To prepare for the time when you may not be available to make your effort certification in the appropriate time frame, you should designate a delegate for signing. This delegate should be someone who, according to Federal guidelines, "has suitable means of verification" of your effort. Typically that person would be your direct supervisor such as your department chair. It should not be your subordinate. How do I access my effort report? To access your effort report, either click on the link provided in your e-mail notification or go to the OSP website: http://research.uthscsa.edu/osp/ and click on the Effort Certification button at the top of the page. A box will come up asking you for your UTHSCSA user name and password. If you are accessing from a remote site, you will probably need to give the domain name as well (i.e., instead of just Smith, you may need to type UTHSCSA\Smith; this may differ between browsers). What if I don't have a UTHSCSA domain password? Contact your department TSR or call Triage at x7-2069 What if I want to change my existing UTHSCSA domain password? If you already have a domain password, want to change it, but don't know how, contact your department TSR or click here. The basis for effort reporting requirements is found in the U. S. Government OMB Circular A-21, "Cost Principles for Educational Institutions", Section J.8. You can access that circular using this address: http://www.whitehouse.gov/OMB/circulars/a021/a021.html.