Awards Management: Roles and Responsibilities

Grants management is a team effort– particularly here at Emerson, where we have limited technical resources for the task.

Effort Certification on Grants

Overview

Effort Certification –sometimes referred to as Payroll Certification– is a federally mandated process in which the personnel who work on grants certify that any compensation received from those grants is commensurate with effort. Put another way, the staff member is certifying that the salary or wages they received from a grant was for time spent working on the project that is funded by that grant.

Effort Certification is done on a quarterly basis in Workday, and is applicable to both federal and non-federal grants, as well as associated cost-sharing accounts. The College maintains this process to facilitate Emerson’s compliance with federal regulations. As an Institute of Higher Education (IHE) that receives federal funding, Emerson College is mandated by the Code of Federal Regulations (2 CFR 200.430) to:

  • Ensure that records and documentation for “salaries and wages [charged to federal awards are] based on records that accurately reflect the work performed”;
  • Maintain a “system of internal control which provides reasonable assurance that the charges are accurate, allowable, and properly allocated”;
  • Encompass both federally-assisted and all other activities compensated by the College;
  • Maintain processes for the review of “after-the-fact interim charges made to a Federal award based on budget estimates,” with the ability to make adjustments to ensure “the final amount charged to the Federal award is accurate, allowable, and properly allocated.”

In addition to self-certification required of all staff, faculty and staff who serve as Principal Investigators (PI’s) on grants must certify the effort and compensation of exempt staff on those grants, as well as their own compensated effort. 

Effort Certification Process and Schedule

Effort certification is Workday, and will be managed by the Controller’s Office, with assistance from the Office of Research and Creative Scholarship. The steps involved are as follows–

  1. Monitoring Time and Effort: Throughout the year, grant-funded employees are expected to monitor their time and effort spent on different activities, including teaching, research/scholarship, and service. The purpose of an effort report certification is to document a reasonable representation of how you spent your time.
  2. Administrative Review: At the end of each effort certification period (every three months), employees will receive a notification in Workday to review and certify their effort reports.
  3. Verification and Corrections: During the certification process, employees can verify the reported effort, or send the report back to Accounting, with comments specifying any necessary corrections if discrepancies are identified (Adjustments will be made by Accounting).
  4. Principal Investigator (PI) Review: For employees involved in sponsored projects, the PI or designated personnel will review and approve effort certifications related to those projects.
  5. Final Certification: Once all the necessary verifications and corrections are made, the final certified effort reports will be stored in our institutional records.

A PDF guide for how to review and certify effort in Workday can be accessed here. 

Effort Certification Schedule

Cost Sharing/Matching on Grants

Overview

“Cost sharing” is the portion of a project’s costs not covered by the sponsor, and quantified in the proposal budget and narrative. It is the College’s share of the cost of carrying out the objectives of a project or program.

The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) classifies cost sharing into three categories: Mandatory, Voluntarily Committed, and Voluntarily Uncommitted Cost Sharing.

  • Mandatory Cost Sharing: The sponsor explicitly requires cost sharing/matching as a condition of the award, usually at a specific ratio. Cost shared expenses must be managed and treated in a manner consistent with how the College manages charges to federal grants. 
  • Voluntary Committed Cost Sharing: Cost sharing specifically pledged on a voluntary basis in the proposal’s budget that becomes a binding requirement of Federal award.
  • Voluntary Uncommitted Cost Sharing: Costs and effort that are not included as part of the submitted proposal or upon acceptance of the award. This does not need to be tracked or reported.

College Principles and Guidance. As a general principle, Emerson College agrees to provide cost sharing only when it is a requirement of the sponsor. For mandatory cost sharing on federal proposals, institutional funds should not exceed the amount of the sponsored award (1:1 ratio).

Whenever possible, cost sharing obligations should be met with costs that have the least negative impact on the College’s finances: 

  • Third-party in-kind contributions
  • Funds from gifts and non-federal grants
  • Unrecovered (waived) indirect costs
  • Staff time and associated fringe benefits for existing Emerson personnel working on the project
  • Discretionary funds

Cost sharing requires the prior written approval of the institution.

For a visual overview of Cost Sharing with examples, click on the slide show below. 

Cost Sharing Overview

If you are planning on submitting a grant application with cost sharing requirements, please contact ORCS at your earliest convenience. 

Guidelines for Tracking Cost-shared/Matching Expenses in Workday

  • Expenditures on institutional, gift, and discretionary funds that are counted as Cost Sharing on a grant must be tagged, via an Accounting Adjustment, in Workday using a special Cost Sharing Grant (CSG) worktag.
  • Unlike a regular grant worktag, the CSG worktag does not have a default cost center, fund, or program. 
  • The CSG worktag can be added retroactively in the “grant” field of any transaction on gift, opex, or discretionary accounts. It cannot be used on other grant accounts. 
  • The CSG worktag would not be subject to budget checks/budget fails; the budget check would roll up to the fund being used.
  • Running a FIN005 report for the CSG worktag should show expenses identified as cost sharing on all account types. 
  • When a grant worktag is requested for a new award, ORCS will request a companion CSG worktag for cost-sharing and matching cost tracking. 

Examples of Workday Transactions Using a Cost Sharing Grant (CSG) Worktag

SETUP STEPS

  1. ORCS submits the “New Worktag Request Form” with both the “Federal Grant” and the “Cost Sharing Project Worktag” boxes checked.
  2. Before submitting the  EIB budget upload template with revenue and spend figures for the grant, the Project Director/Principal Investigator’s department must confirm the final cost sharing/matching amount for the project. 
  3. Although cost-shared/matching costs do not need to be allocated by account, it is still the College’s policy that cost-shared expenses from operational funds cannot exceed the amount of the grant itself. 

ASSIGNING AND TRACKING

  • Expense reports, WD purchases: Assign CSG worktag in the “Grant” field via an Accounting Adjustment. This will not overwrite any preexisting worktags for whatever account you are using. 
  • Payroll: Assign via Accounting/Payroll Adjustment.
  • Fringe Benefits: Benefits on non-grant accounts will automatically be calculated at the College’s standard rates. ORCS will work with Finance to adjust these to match the federal rates. 

TIMING OF WORKTAG ASSIGNMENT TO TRANSACTIONS

For retroactive adjustments, the cost sharing worktag should be assigned to relevant transactions in the same month that the original charges hit the account. Charges being moved more than 30 days after their initial date require a completed and signed Cost Transfer Form.  

REPORTING

After each month’s accounting close, ORCS will run a WD financial report on the CSG worktag to aggregate all expenses that have been tagged with the worktag to indicate cost sharing/matching. ORCS will include the cost sharing report when it sends the monthly/cumulative grant report to the Principal Investigator/Project Director.

If you further questions about cost sharing, please contact the Executive Director of ORCS.