Effort Reporting

Total University EffortTotal University Effort is the sum of all professional activ... More is the sum of all professional activity or effort for which an individual is compensated by the University. Total University Effort is not based on a “standard” work week. If an individual who is being compensated for a 100% appointment works 50 hours in a week, then 25 hours would represent 50% of his or her Total University Effort. If an individual who is being compensated for a 50% appointment works 30 hours in a week, 30 hours would represent 100% of his or her Total University Effort.

Total University Effort generally includes externally sponsored research activity, department research, teaching, clinical service, administrative duties, and proposal writing. Activities outside of Total University Effort include personal consulting and other outside compensated professional work as described in the External Compensated Activity Policy, volunteer individual community or public service, and Veterans Administration Hospital compensated activities documented in a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU).

The Effort Reporting process is Boston University’s way of ensuring we comply with this Federal Regulation and is part of a yearly audit.

IBS does not include payments from other organizations or income that a person is permitted to earn outside of his or her University responsibilities, such as private consulting. The IBS rate must be used as the base salary for all grant proposals.

BU gathers this information through effort reporting and PAR certification. Effort is the amount of time an individual spends on any project or award.

PIs cannot certify 0% effort on a sponsored project during the entire grant funding period. They must certify at least 1% effort on an effort statement during any one of the effort periods to accurately reflect their leadership of the project, unless specifically exempted by the sponsor. Additional exemptions may include Deans/Assistant Provosts/Associate Provosts with Provost approval, equipment and instrumentation grants, dissertation and training grants and limited purpose grants such as travel grants and conference support.

Effort percentages on the PAR must total 100% exactly, no more or less. All effort must be accounted for, and is not tied to specific hours per week. For example, an individual who spends 40 hours a week on sponsored research and 40 hours a week on clinical activity would report an effort percentage of 50% for each, totaling 100% for the certification period. If a graduate student has a full-time appointment for a total of 20 hours per week, then averaging 5 hours a week on a sponsored project during the effort reporting period represents 25% of their effort.

The cost associated with committed effort may be borne by the sponsor (charged to the grant or contract) or by the institution (documented as cost-sharing).

Payroll or labor distributions are the sum of an individual’s compensation that is withdrawn from sponsored programs. Effort reports (PARs) are an extract of all payroll system charges for a given employee during the effort reporting period, as recorded on the date the PARs were generated. Certification of an effort report (PAR) represents an employee’s agreement that the effort expended on sponsored projects and other activity for which they were compensated by BU is accurate, allowable, and properly allocated.

Effort is not just a verification of the salary or payroll distribution charged to sponsored projects; committed cost-sharing effort must also be included in effort reports.

Here is an example. If a Professor’s base is $100,000 and they have one course release (each course being worth 20% of the base), they would be budgeted as $80,000 in the school and $20,000 on an unnamed grant.

• Scenario A: At some point a grant is awarded, and it has 10% effort budgeted; they cannot charge the $20,000 (20% of base), they can only charge $10,000 (10% of base). If the release is budgeted in the Spring and the grant started in the Fall and effort is 10% for the full FY, they have to charge the effort equally over the two semesters even though they didn’t budget that way. The department then has to cover the $10,000 that is not covered by the grant, and so “loses” money.
• Scenario B: The grant that is awarded has 25% effort. The department charges the grant $25,000 (when they only budgeted for $20,000) which creates an extra release, or savings of $5,000, for the department and they “make money” on this as long as the budget office allows them to keep excess release.

The reported effort that prints out on the PAR is calculated by taking the formula: Amount charged to Award / Employee Full Salary.

The difference between the Printed Effort on the PAR and the “real” effort that the individual performed is considered cost share.

You can see an example in this informative video about the Salary Cap

All recertified PARs are also signed by the Assistant Vice President, PAFOSponsored Programs (SP)- Post Award SP- Post Award assist....

The University is required by federal regulation to certify effort; so individuals who have had any portion of their salary charged to a sponsored award that certification period will have a PAR generated, this includes faculty, grad students, undergrad students, etc. The exceptions are: students who are paid with weekly timesheets, individuals who are paid with non-PAR eligible wage types and individuals paid from a sponsored program but the percent is less than one half. Duplicate PARs: SAP generates a PAR for each employee group. Therefore if an employee moves between exempt, non-exempt and student employee groups the employee will have duplicate PARs to certify.

• • January to June (FYXX P1)
• • July — December (FYXX P2)

PARs are typically sent in February for the July – December PAR period and August for the January – June PAR period. All PARs are due back to PAFO within 60 days.

PARs and PAR percentages are generated via SAP for BU employees who are charged to either BU or BMC Sponsored Research. PAR percentages are calculated via SAP using a system of formula’s that is based on Employee Groups (exempt, non-exempt, student exempt). For more information on Employee Groups see “Viewing Employee Master Data using PA20 Transaction” in BU TechWeb resources.

There are certain Wage Types that are “PAR Eligible” and some that are “Not PAR Eligible”. A listing of Wage Types can be found.

Certification of the PAR represents an employee’s agreement that the salary charges shown on the report reasonably reflect the effort expended on sponsored awards and other activity for which they were compensated for.

If the PAR is for a principal investigator (PI) who has left the University, the Department Chair or Dean may sign on the PIs behalf. The PAR should indicate the PI’s last day at the University.

Overbase payments (if paid via a PAR eligible wage type) will show up as part of the Salary % number.

1. Additional certification needed: Employee is noted on the PAR as Faculty but did not sign their own PAR. Faculty signature must be added to the PAR.
2. Effort not 100%: The total effort for % of effort expended column does not equal 100. The total effort for % of effort expended column must equal 100.
3. Incomplete certification statement: The certification of effort expended section is not complete. The certification statement may be blank, not be considered a digital signature, missing the date certified or the Supervisor/Principal Investigator box may not be checked. If the employee does not certify their own PAR then it is acceptable (except for Faculty) for their Supervisor or Principal Investigator to sign but it is not acceptable if the appropriate box is unchecked.
4. Missing percent: the percent of effort expended column is blank. The percent of effort expended column must be completed (either by manual or digital is acceptable).
5. Over the Cap (DHHS): The PAR is noted as Faculty Over DHHS Cap and there is no cost share listed in Section II. BU Sponsored Activity B. Cost Sharing Activity. If no cost share is required but the PAR is noted as Faculty Over DHHS Cap please add a note with the reason.
6. SARF needed: In the II. BU Sponsored Activity A. Sponsored agreement section the percent of effort expended is less than the percent of salary charged. If the percent of salary charged percentages are greater than the percent of effort expended on the listed projects or activities then a Salary Adjustment must be submitted via the Salary Cost Distribution Screen within SAP to support the modified percentages and attached to the PAR.
7. Unacceptable signature: Employee is noted on the PAR as Faculty but did not sign their own PAR. Faculty signature must be added to the PAR. Employee did not sign their own PAR and is not Faculty but the Supervisor or Principal Investigator box is unchecked. If the employee is not Faculty and the Supervisor or Principal Investigator signed the PAR then the appropriate box must be checked.
   In the event of extraordinary circumstances where a faculty member is unavailable to certify his/her effort report, the Associate Vice President for Financial Affairs should be notified to determine the appropriate steps to take to achieve meaningful certification.

If PARs have been distributed and the adjustment affects an original transaction date for the PAR period the PAR must be corrected. Just write or type in the new effort percent(s). The % of Effort Expended column needs to reflect the accurate salary distribution to match the adjustment. The employee’s recertified PAR must be submitted with the SARF.

If the PAR has been certified and submitted to Effort Reporting then the PAR must be revised to include the adjustment and attached to the Salary Adjustment Request Form (SARF). The PAR must list the revised effort percentages with each change initialed by the employee.

If a PAR has not been distributed to you because it is before the effort certification period has ended then a PAR does not have to be submitted with the SARF. Remember PARs are distributed after the fact and twice a year.

PARs are not generated for students who are paid on a weekly basis using timesheets. Rather, the weekly timesheet serves as their effort certification.

• Adjustments or cost transfers for terminated, non-student, employees are processed using a paper Salary Adjustment Request From (SARF) to be submitted to PAFO for approval and routing to Human Resources Information Systems (HRIS)* for processing on the back end as you cannot initiate a PA form for a terminated employee.
• Paper SARFs can be found at the Research Support site: Salary Adjustment Request Form
• All Adjustments or cost transfers for students paid as graduate students or undergraduate students via the student payroll system are processed using the Student Salary Adjustment Request Form (Student SARF) to be submitted to PAFO (Effort Reporting) for approval and routing to Student Employment Office.
• Paper Student SARFs can be found at the Research Support site: Student Salary Distribution Adjustment Request Form (student SARF)

• corrections of overpayment credits to be confirmed by Payroll
• when a payroll record cannot be corrected any other way as confirmed by BUworks
• correction of vacation payout to be processed by PAFO only

A revised PAR, or manual PAR, may be required for any of the actions above.

• If the end date of the non-service stipend is in the past (considered historic) the only correction action available is via journal entry
• If the end date of the non-service stipend is not in the past (not considered historic) the correction is done via a new non-service stipend

If you are trying to calculate cost share for a previous PAR period and need assistance, please contact effort@bu.edu.

Do I need to cost share salary over the cap?

• Is my PAR noted “Faculty – Over DHHS Cap?
• If the answer is yes then, you must report a cost share percentage in “Category II. Section B. Cost Sharing Activity” on the PAR form and reference the DHHS sponsored program number. The cost share percentage will come from the BU Non-Sponsored Activity. To find the annual “cap amount” for this PAR period, click this link.
  In the below example the cap was $189,600. Refer to the most recent rates when calculating for your accounts:

Dr. Smith earns $250,000 annually, expended 50% effort on a DHHS program and 50% effort on Non-Sponsored Activities due to the following tasks: clinical, teaching and proposal writing.

In addition, you can refer to the 12 –month faculty cap worksheet or 9-month faculty cap worksheet. Use the wage type information to fill out the cap worksheets

BMC Clinic time and/or non-sponsored BU accounts are referenced accordingly in Section III. Services Provided to Boston Medical Center (as Vendor).

Employees can always have more effort than salary. When this occurs, the difference has to be added to cost share.

• Mandatory – Quantified in proposal, Required as condition of proposal and included in the Notice of Award, Tracked on PAR
• Voluntary Committed – Quantified in proposal, Not required as condition of proposal, Strongly discouraged, Tracked on PAR
• Voluntary Uncommitted – Is implied, but not quantified in proposal, Not required as condition of proposal or Award, Not tracked on PAR