Boston University receives substantial funding from the federal government and other sources in the support of sponsored programs. Office of Management and Budget Uniform Guidance, Uniform Administrative Requirements, Cost Principles, and Audit Requirements for Federal requires recipients of federal funding to maintain a system that documents and supports individual distribution of activities and associated payroll charges to sponsored agreements. Boston University applies these standards to all sponsors through the Personnel Activity Report (PAR) system which is driven by salary information recorded in the University\u2019s payroll system.<\/p>\n
In accordance with OMB Uniform Guidance, whenever it is apparent that a significant change in work activity that is charged to sponsored agreements will occur or has occurred, the change will be documented with the signature of a responsible official and entered into the system. The Salary Adjustment Request Form is the mechanism used by the University to retroactively record these changes in the University payroll system.<\/p>\n
This procedure applies to all individuals with salaries and wages supported by sponsored awards.<\/p>\n
Effort is the time spent on any University activity by an individual, expressed as a percentage of the individual\u2019s Total University Effort.<\/p>\n
Effort Certification is the certified affirmation by the individual completing each PAR that the percentages of effort reported on the form are accurate and reasonably reflect their professional activity during the reporting period.<\/p>\n
Cost transfers are the reassignment of expenses to or from sponsored projects after initially being charged to a separate funding source.<\/p>\n
Salary adjustments are the transfer of payroll expenses to or from sponsored projects after initially being charged to a separate funding source.<\/p>\n
Principal Investigators (PI) and Department Administrators (DA) should ensure charges to sponsored projects are accurate and in accordance with direct charging practices described in OMB Uniform Guidance and university policy. On a monthly basis, the DA should run financial reports for each sponsored project using Boston University\u2019s Grants Management (Distributed) Reports, which are found in the \u201cReporting\u201d tab of the BUWorks Central Portal. The administrator should work with the PI to review these reports to identify legitimate errors.<\/p>\n
Unallowable costs, erroneously charged to an award, must be promptly transferred to your Departmental University Cost Center, Discretionary Account, or other non-sponsored project account. Departments should work with their Sponsored Programs Post-Award Officer if they have any questions on how to resolve. <\/span>Find your SP-Post Award Officer<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n Review the <\/span>Charging of Direct Costs to Sponsored Awards Procedure<\/span><\/a> for reasonableness, allowability, and allocability of charges.<\/span><\/p>\n Salary adjustments are allowable if they are initiated to correct such errors, made on a timely basis and include appropriate justification and supporting documentation. Moreover, the costs being transferred must be allocable to the award the charges are being transferred to, if applicable.<\/p>\n The University\u2019s records must contain appropriate documentation supporting an adequate evaluation of the transfer. The results must be accurate and complete. Frequent, tardy, or inadequately explained transfers, especially when they involve accounts with cost overruns, raise questions about the appropriateness of the transfers themselves, as well as the overall reliability of our accounting system and internal controls. As such, all salary adjustments involving sponsored projects must be reviewed and approved by the Research Accounting department within Research Finance.<\/p>\n Retroactive payroll adjustments<\/strong> that involve Sponsored Programs are submitted to Research Accounting for approval and processing through SAP \u201cPersonnel Actions.\u201d All such Personnel Actions (PA) \u2013 other than the \u201cSalary Cost Distribution form\u201d \u2013 must include a Salary Adjustment Request Form (SARF), which can be found here<\/a>. For the Salary Cost Distribution form, the contents of the SARF<\/u> are contained within the Salary Cost Distribution form itself in SAP.<\/p>\n Student salary transfers are processed via OnBase. Instructions on completing a Student Salary transfer can be found here<\/a>. When submitting a Salary Cost Distribution form in SAP or a Salary Adjustment Request Form, the following principles must be followed:<\/p>\n Additionally for CRC faculty on accrual, adjustments must include all original salary and accrual changes<\/p>\n All salary transfers must be properly documented in the Salary Cost Distribution form or on the Salary Adjustment Request Form and must include the following information:<\/p>\n If within 90 days of the original transaction date*:<\/strong><\/p>\n If in excess of 90 days of the original transaction date*:<\/strong> In addition to the information listed above, the following is necessary:<\/p>\n *Original transaction date is the effective date of the original charge posted to SAP. For example, if the months of August, September, and October are being moved, the effective date is 8\/1\/20xx. If the entry is being done on November 2nd<\/sup>, this is a >90 day entry as the effective date is August 1st<\/sup> and not August 15th<\/sup> which was the payment date.<\/em><\/p>\n All Salary Cost Distribution forms and Salary Adjustment Request Forms are reviewed along with all supporting documentation and may be rejected or approved by Research Accounting on an exception basis. A common exception involves the set-up of a sponsored program source with an award date occurring in the past, also known as a \u201clate award.\u201d When appropriate, the department is encouraged to request a preaward account to ensure charging is allocated to the appropriate funding source.<\/p>\n Salary transfers made simply to \u201cspend down\u201d a sponsored project with available funding or to meet deficiencies caused by overruns or other fund considerations will not be approved. Transfers from sponsored program sources to unrestricted accounts (e.g.: departmental budgets) will always be allowed and must be completed in a timely manner to ensure accurate reporting to sponsors.<\/p>\n Requests not approved by Research Accounting will be returned to the individual who initiated the salary adjustment.<\/p>\n If a salary adjustment is required for an individual who is no longer an employee of Boston University, a paper SARF must be completed in its entirety and routed to the SP Post-Award Officer. Sponsored Programs will work with Human Resources to key this on the back end so that Payroll records are reflected accordingly.<\/p>\n Salary payments from sponsored projects require certification of Personnel Activity Reports (PARs) that the salaries and wages charged to sponsored projects are consistent, fair, and timely with the effort contributed. In accordance with federal regulations, the PAR must be updated to reflect the accurate salary distribution corresponding to the expended effort. If the percentages on the PAR do not reflect the true level of effort, a salary adjustment must be performed.<\/p>\n Consequently:<\/p>\n The University will not accept salary adjustments that will increase the level of effort on a sponsored project beyond the level certified on the Personnel Activity Report.<\/p>\nA. Processing Salary Adjustments<\/h3>\n
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Terminated Employees<\/strong><\/h4>\n
B. Effort Certification<\/h3>\n
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5. Responsible Parties<\/h2>\n