Effort and Effort Reporting

Salary costs are typically the largest expense charged to sponsored awards. Salary charged to a specific sponsored project must be consistent with the actual activities performed on the project and be supported with appropriate documentation.

NIU faculty, staff, and students receiving salary support from federally funded sponsored awards must certify an effort statement representing all NIU activities, which is the mechanism used to document that salary charged to awards is appropriate for the work performed.  Hourly staff sign timesheets and do not complete effort statements.

The management of effort and effort reporting requires support from multiple individuals working in concert to ensure effort is certified on time with reasonable accuracy; this includes college and department administrators, employees, and SPA.

Effort/Certification Period Reports Distributed to Colleges/Divisions Reports Due to SPA
July 1- December 31 (TE1) Approx. May 1 Approx. June 1
January 1 – June 30 (TE2) Approx. Nov 1 Approx. Dec 1

TE1 and TE2 refer to the certification period. TE1 is time and effort period 1 and TE2 is time and effort period 2.

Time and Effort Quick Guide (PDF)

  • Required by the federal government.
  • Confirms to the federal government that the salaries charged to awards reasonably reflect the amount of work performed during the certification period.
  • Certifies to the sponsor that the effort pledged as cost share on an award has been met.
    • Cost-shared effort is part of the Institutional Effort presented on the Effort Statements.
    • Cost-shared effort is confirmed via SPA Cost Share Certification Forms.

Effort is not based on a 40-hour workweek.

Effort commitments presented to a sponsor may be funded or unfunded. (When unfunded, the commitment is a mandatory or voluntary cost-share commitment.)

Regardless of the individual’s appointment percentage or the number of hours worked, their 100% effort equals all the activities for which they are compensated by the university – i.e., their total NIU effort.

  • If they have a quarter-time job, their 100% effort corresponds to everything they do for that job. So, for this person, 0.25 FTE = 100% NIU effort.
  • If they work 60 hours a week, their 100% effort corresponds to all the activities for which NIU compensates them during that time. Here, 60 hours = 100% NIU effort.

Effort is the time that an individual spends on an activity, expressed as a percentage of all their time spent on NIU job duties. NIU duties may include:

      • Instruction
      • Administration
      • Research
      • Service as a member of a committee or governance body
      • Outreach to the community

For every individual, whether full-time or part-time, whether they work 40 hours a week or 60 hours a week, the total of their effort must equal 100%.

Think of your effort report as a pie that equals your total NIU activity, with each ‘slice’ representing the distribution of university activities as shown below. For your effort on grants, think about the effort as an approximation of value to each specific project.


Effort Report Pie Chart. 15% Grant A, red. 20% Grant B, grey. 65% Institutional Effort, Black.

Effort reporting is not an exact science. The federal government recognizes that instruction, administration, research, and service are often inextricably intermixed. Reasonable estimates are expected.

Effort Statements are generated based on official university payroll records and reflect pay distributions for the certification period (i.e., TE1 and TE2).  Pay distributions include the following HRS earnings codes. 

Reg Code Retro Code Code Description When to Use
E30 R30 Add Comp Grant Research & Activity For extra service pay/add pay for grants only, and only when authorized by the sponsor
GNC RGN Grant No Fringe Cost For faculty summer pay
REG RRG Regular For faculty release time, including course buyouts, all pay for 12-month employees

Effort Statements are generated for those receiving payments from a federal source during the certification period.

Statements will present total grant funded and non-grant-funded (i.e., institutional) effort, with percentages allocated to every grant award for which pay was received during the certification period.

The percentages are based on NIU’s definition of Institutional Base Salary (IBS), which is the amount of compensation that NIU pays for an individual’s professional services, whether that time is spent on research, teaching, clinical activities, or other administrative duties, and whether the individual is employed full-time or part-time at NIU.

IBS does not include bonuses, incentives or other “one time” payments, reimbursement for tuition, travel, or other personal expenses through Accounts Payable, prizes, awards, or royalties.

Sponsored projects can only be charged for activities that directly relate to the work of the project.
Common activities include:

  • Directing or participating in any aspect of the research related to the specific project
  • Writing a progress report for the project, sometimes called a continuation or non-competing proposal
  • Holding a meeting with lab staff to discuss the specific project.
  • Activities contributing to and intimately related to work under the agreement, including:
    • Participating in appropriate seminars.
    • Consulting with colleagues about specific aspects of the project.
    • Delivering special lectures about specific aspects of the ongoing activity.
    • Attending a conference held by an outside professional society to present research results.
    • Reading academic journals to keep up to date with the latest developments in one's field.
    • Mentoring graduate students on the specific research project.
    • Making an invention disclosure and other activities related to pursuing intellectual property (IP) – if the IP is directly related to the project and the effort occurs within the project award period.

Sponsored projects cannot be charged for activities that do not directly relate to the work of the project.
Below are examples of activities that should not be charged to sponsored awards:

  • Proposal-writing, except for non-competing continuations (progress reports); this includes:
    • Developing necessary details to support the proposal.
    • Writing, editing, and submitting the proposal.
  • Administration, including service as a department chair or dean.
  • Instruction, office hours, advising of students, and mentoring students on something other than a specific research project.
  • Service on an IRB, IACUC, selection committee, or another similar group.
  • Course or curriculum development not specific to your research project.
  • Writing textbook chapters.
  • Fundraising.
  • Lobbying.
  • In addition, work that falls outside of the definition of NIU effort would not be allocated to a sponsored project.  This includes:
    • Service as the primary editor of a journal.
    • Peer review of manuscripts, regardless of whether compensation is received.
    • Advisory activities for sponsors, including service on an NIH study section or NSF review panel, regardless of whether compensation is received.
Advisory activities for sponsors, including service on an NIH study section or NSF review panel, regardless of whether compensation is received.
  1. Recognize that salary charges and effort reporting are linked functions and are an ongoing process, not a one-time activity. Keeping track of your actual effort, payroll allocations, and sponsor requirements are best done on an ongoing basis, not solely at the end of a reporting period. Communicate often with your departmental staff and SPA Grants and Contracts Associate (GCA) to help ensure everyone is aware of any hiring or payroll changes you plan to make. Doing so will ensure that deadlines (e.g., human resources, SPA cost transfers) are met and that labor charges and effort reports are accurate.
  2. Review your Financial Summary Reports (FSRs) and HR Personnel Detail reports at least once a month. You, in conjunction with your department administrator, should review these reports monthly to confirm that salaries and time are accurately allocated to your award(s).  If you discover an error, contact your GCA immediately to correct it and complete cost transfers timely, no more than 90 days from the original transaction date.   
  3. Review university information sources detailing your activities documented by the university. Various information sources may help ensure that institutional duties are adequately reflected in your non-grant-funded effort percentage. These include, but are not limited to: 1) appointment letters 2) annual reviews 3) information maintained by the department 4) award budgets 5) project personnel lists 6) travel vouchers 7) position descriptions 8) other support forms 9) leave reports, etc.
  4. Use of contemporaneous (i.e., routine, day-to-day) work records is a reliable means of backup documentation. These documents may help you reasonably estimate and support your assessment of actual effort should that be necessary. These include, but are not limited to, calendars, lab notes, progress reports, meeting notes, etc.
  5. Know your funding agencies’ guidelines. This facilitates an understanding of what specific activities are covered by award funds, salary limitations and salary caps. Your GCA can be very helpful in this regard.
  6. Use advance accounts when appropriate to allow for timely and accurate effort report certification even before your grant award is finalized. SPA can help with setting up these accounts. This is an effective mechanism for allowing effort to be appropriately allocated to a project where work has begun, but the award has not yet been executed (e.g., contracting delays, etc.).

Frequently Asked Questions

Recognizing that sponsors understand that teaching, research, and administration are often inextricably intermixed in an academic setting, NIU policy allows for a +/-5% variance when certifying effort.
The variance is based on the HR data – i.e., it is not a flat 5% differential. For example, if the effort report indicates 23 percent effort paid on an award, but the principal investigator (PI)/certifier has reduced that to 21 percent, that is a variance greater than 5% of the paid effort.

Change Calculation: (23% - 21%) ÷ 23% = 8.69%.

Infrequent, irregular activity that would normally be considered "so small" that it cannot (and should not) be accounted for. Activities can be considered de minimis in amount when, in the aggregate, they represent less than two percent of the individual’s total NIU effort.

The types of activities that may qualify as de minimis include service on ad hoc committees, participation in department and division meetings, and basic activities of university life.

You must consider this time and confirm that the effort certified as cost share to SPA is reasonable against all your university duties for the certification period. Remember, certifying effort is evaluating all your university time commitments that are part of your regular appointment. As a note, not meeting the cost share obligations of a grant can result in the need for the university to refund part of the award to the sponsor.

Time spent writing, editing, and submitting a new proposal are not activities directly related to the existing project; therefore, federal requirements prohibit charging this time to awards. However, time spent preparing progress reports or continuation proposals (e.g., Research Performance Progress Reports) may be charged as those activities are specific to the funded project and are a condition of the award.

Any time spent on a project above what was presented in the proposal becomes voluntary uncommitted cost share. For example, if you propose and charge 25% effort but devote 35% effort, the additional 10% not originally promised or charged becomes voluntary uncommitted cost share. The federal government does not require tracking or reporting of this cost shared effort; NIU does not track this time. 

Salary charges that exceed time spent on the project based on reasonable estimates (recall the +/- 5% variance) become unallowable costs and must be promptly transferred from the grant account to a non-sponsored account. You should note the change when signing the effort statement and SPA will work with you and your department to make the adjustment. Failure to identify the overcharge to SPA to promptly remove the charge results in improper billing to the federal government, and the university and/or individual may be subject to fines, penalties, and other enforcement actions. Bear in mind also that an overcharge includes both the direct labor costs (salary and fringe) and indirect costs assessed against them.

Prior agency approval is necessary for significant effort reductions of 25% or more for key persons named in the award. It is important to remember that the threshold is cumulative and may be reached over multiple successive reductions. Prior approval may occur as part of the Research Performance Progress Report (e.g., NIH).   

Keep in mind that effort reports are unlikely to capture planned changes as they represent an after-the-fact review and certification reporting periods are not likely to align with the dates of your award (s). Faculty are expected to know their level of committed effort to sponsored projects, and their ability to meet those commitments considering other university obligations they have. If you think you need to decrease your original commitment, contact your Grants and Contracts Associate to determine if prior approval is necessary.

Effort reports are signed by an individual with firsthand knowledge of the actual work performed. Generally, this is the individual but may also be the PI.

Effort reports rely on certain HRS earnings codes for accurate and complete reporting. Those involved in initiating, reviewing, and inputting payroll transactions for grant funded salary should use the following codes.  

Reg Code Retro Code Code Description When to Use
E30 R30 Add Comp Grant Resrch & Actvty For extra service pay/add pay for grants only, and only when authorized by the sponsor
GNC RGN Grant No Fringe Cost For faculty summer pay
REG RRG Regular For faculty release time, including course buyouts, all pay for 12-month employees