Time and Effort Reporting

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Last Updated: Jul 16, 2025, 09:24 AM

Typically close out documents include:

  • Final Financial Report
    • Grant accountants prepare and submit most financial reports that are required by the funding agency.
    • It is the fiscal officer/PI’s responsibility to ensure all project costs have been posted.
    • Fiscal officer is responsible for reviewing and approving final financial report.
  • Final Technical Report
    • The principal investigator is responsible for preparing and submitting the final technical report required by the funding agency. This is an important obligation used to monitor and evaluate the project.
    • Failing to turn in reports on a timely basis can result in the agency delaying or suspending final payments on the grant or contract. It can jeopardize possible future funding from the agency, not just for the PI involved but for other researchers at the university.
    • Check your award agreement to be sure you know when the final reports are due, what information is required and what format is specified by the agency.
  • Report of Inventions
    • Notify OSPA that a report is required. 
    • PI certifies whether an invention resulted from the project. 
    • OSPA will complete and submit the required report to the funding agency.

What is effort?
Effort is defined as the amount of time spent on a particular project or activity. This includes the time spent working on the project and directly charged to the project as well as the time contributed to the project (cost shared effort).

What is effort reporting?
Effort reporting is the method used to certify the effort charged or contributed to a sponsored project.

What is contributed or cost shared effort?
Cost sharing represents the portion of the total costs of a sponsored project that are not borne by the sponsor of the project. These costs are borne by the university or third parties, rather than by the sponsor. The fulfillment of cost shared effort (salary) is demonstrated through the university’s effort reporting system. Any commitment of effort referenced in the project proposal or the award document must be honored, reported, and captured in an effort reporting system.

How does the university certify effort?
The university certifies effort after the pay period has ended and any salary dollars have posted. The method to certify effort depends on whether the salary costs are 1) directly charged to the sponsored project or 2) cost shared to the project.

  1. Salary Costs Direct Charged to Sponsored Projects
    The actual salary paid for monthly and semi-monthly payrolls is based on the FTE percentage that is entered on the employee’s original appointment paperwork. The appointment is entered on the payroll paperwork as a percentage of total wages. The actual salary paid for bi-weekly and student workers is based on actual hours reported by the budget purpose fiscal officer during a payroll period. These hours are allocated to individual budget purposes based on work performed during that period.

    During each payroll period the fiscal officer of the grant budget purpose runs a fiscal officer certification report. The account fiscal officer is expected to review this certification report and then attest that the individuals paid are due the amounts indicated. If the amount paid is not correct (percentage of effort has changed or the budget purpose being charged is incorrect) the fiscal officer should immediately process a retroactive account adjustment (RAA) to change the costing of the individual’s salary.

    Please note that the individual signing the fiscal officer certification report should have firsthand knowledge of the actual work being performed on the grant or contract. If the fiscal officer lacks this knowledge, an individual working closely with the project should be consulted.
  1. Salary Cost Share to the Project
    When salary cost share is determined to be a requirement on a grant or contract the Office of Sponsored Projects Administration (OSPA) will begin the monthly process of accumulating this information. On each budget purpose for which salary cost share is a requirement OSPA will send the fiscal officer (via e-mail) the certification of time record for grants and contracts form. This form will arrive prefilled with information including the reporting period, budget purpose number, budget purpose title, fiscal officer name and the unit name. A blank version of this form (along with instructions) can be found at https://eforms.siu.edu/siuforms/info/acs0309.php. Note that this form is to be used only for accumulating cost share information; salaries directly charged to the grant or contract should not be included on this form.