Faculty must annually certify effort for project payroll. This process replaces the ePAR monthly certification process.
If you find changes that need to be made, you can alert the business manager for your department within the Portal itself. Please refer to the instructions for this process within this tutorial for more information.
Major changes and important information regarding project payroll certification are briefly summarized below:
Payroll Certification
PIs will now certify that payroll charged to the project is (a) reasonable for the work performed and (b) allocable to the project for each team member.
Specifically, PIs will certify the following statement:
“Your annual after the fact review attestation/approval constitutes that a scientific programmatic review and/or research financial compliance review has been conducted. The payroll charged to this award and any accompanying cost share showing personnel dollars is reasonable with respect to the work performed, allocable to the project, and consistent with the terms and conditions of this award, inclusive of Uniform Guidance (2 CFR Part 200) when applicable.”
PI Certification
Each PI will certify payroll for the entire project team.
Annual Certification
Certification will now occur annually on the project anniversary.
PIs are required to complete an initial certification in June 2019, then annually on the project anniversary thereafter.
Tips and Tricks for Payroll Certification
In this article, you will learn the steps to view and certify your project payroll.
Starting June 2019, the annual faculty payroll certification for all sponsored projects will be available through the Grants Portal of the Sponsored Projects Administration homepage.
You will receive an email message regarding Upcoming Payroll Certification from the Office of Sponsored Projects Administration.
This is an example of an email message that you will receive from the Office of Sponsored Projects Administration.
The Upcoming Payroll Certification message includes brief information about your project and certification requirements as well as a link to your annual project payroll certification page.
Note: If you have multiple sponsored projects, you will receive separate emails for each of the projects. The link to your project embedded in each email is for only one project. You are required to go to each of the project payroll information pages to certify them, respectively.
Click the here link.
The Grants Portal page is displayed.
Click the Login link in the top right corner.
After entering your credentials, click the Login button.
Note: VPN authentication is not required to access the Grants Portal.
Detailed information about the selected Payroll Certification ID is displayed.
On this page, you can view Project Title, Sponsor Name, Sponsor Award ID, Project ID, Certification Period, Period Type, Period Number, Association Award, Award Budget Document, Award Budget Justification Document, and Payroll information that the PI(s) and Co-PI(s) have received up to the present.
The current payroll certification state is Needs Certification .
You should carefully review to ensure the payroll information at the bottom of the page is correct for the project for the Fiscal Year to Date, including Name, Payroll (Annual), Cost Share (Annual), Payroll (Project total), and Cost Share (Project Total).
If you can confirm that all project payroll information is correct, click the Certify link in the left side menu bar.
If any information is incorrect and needs changes, follow the instructions later in this tutorial.
The Certify dialog box is displayed. Read the statement carefully.
Click the OK button to certify that you have completed the review as in the following statement: " A scientific programmatic review and/or research financial compliance review has been conducted. The payroll charged to this award and any accompanying cost share showing personnel dollars is reasonable with respect to the work performed, allocable to the project, and consistent with the terms and conditions of this award, inclusive of Uniform Guidance (2 CFR Part 200) when applicable."
The payroll certification state has been updated to Certified.
If you find incorrect project payroll information, do not click the Certify link to proceed with the certification process.
Click the Request Changes link instead to submit a modification to the payroll information.
The Request Changes to Payroll Expenditures dialog box is displayed.
You can add a request to modify your payroll information in the Request box. Once you click the OK button, an email notification will automatically be sent to you, your project Co-PI(s), the Office of Sponsored Projects Administration, and the business manager associated with the department ID on the project. You should work with your business manager to correct the project payroll information.
Example shown here:" test change " into the Request field.
Click the OK button.
Once you submit your Request Changes, you can scroll down to view the submitted Request Changes information in the History section.
To view detailed information about the requested modifications, click the Request Changes link.
The Activity Details (Request Changes) page is displayed.
Click the Notifications tab to view details about the modifications, including who has received the email notification regarding the requested changes.
The notifications page shows the Job Name, Subject, Recipients, and CC Recipients for the selected submitted Request Changes.
After you view the details, click the << Return to Workspace link to perform other grants-related activities.
You are returned to the Payroll Certification page.
Once you work with your business manager to make appropriate corrections to your project payroll information and those changes have been completed, there will be documentation that you will need to upload to the Portal.
To upload any necessary documents, click the Upload Correction Documentation link.
The Upload Documentation of Corrected Payroll Charges dialog box is displayed.
You can add attachments by clicking the [+Add] button and also enter your comments into the Comments box. Once the backup documents showing the changes to payroll in the financial system have been uploaded, click the OK button to save the documents.
Note: Once you click the OK button, an email notification will automatically be sent to you, your project Co-PI(s), the Office of Sponsored Projects Administration, and the business manager associated with the department ID on the project.
Once all incorrect information has been corrected and your documentation has been uploaded, you can certify your project payroll by clicking the Certify link.