Effort Certification and Reporting Technology Challenges at Higher Education and Research Institutes. Effort certification and reporting is a fundamental part of grants management. While federal effort certification and reporting guidelines are described in OMB Circulars A-21, A-110, and A-122, their interpretations vary by institution. As a result, many institutions struggle when combining federal guidelines with state, and internal policies and procedures primarily due to the challenges related to:
- Developing and defining new policies and procedures and
- Identifying and implementing the appropriate effort certification and reporting technology.
While many of the larger research intensive institutions have used consulting firms to help develop policies and install their effort certification and reporting technology, the cost has often been in the millions of dollars. Institutions with more limited budgets are thus forced continue to use paper or spreadsheet solutions instead.
IT Works provides Effort Certification and Reporting Technology that is affordable, powerful and easy to implement. IT Works’ new Effort AdministratorTM product is the first effort certification and reporting technology that is not only powerful, but feature rich, affordable, and easy to implement.
IT Works is an international technology company with over twenty years of experience implementing grants management systems. We elicited requirements from numerous research and grant administrators from leading research institutions to develop, from the ground up, our new Effort Administrator internet based effort certification and reporting technology solution.
Effort Administrator is easily configurable to automate the effort reporting policies of your institution and our effort certification and reporting technology can integrate with your existing payroll, accounting, grant management, and human resource (HR) software systems. Effort Administrator provides institutions with the ability to base their effort certification and reporting on a combination of three options:
- Effort certification and reporting based on time sheet data,
- Effort certification and reporting based on salary distribution records, and
- Effort certification and reporting based on payroll records.
Additionally, our effort certification and reporting technology allows institutions to certify and report according to their own schedule (bi-week, month, quarter, semester, etc.).
The benefits of IT Works’ effort certification and reporting technology. The IT Works’ effort certification and reporting technology provides:
- Reductions in administrative burdens
- Improvements in compliance management,
- Clarity and simplicity to verify project work was performed
- Reports to individual business units within your institution,
- Documentation for historical record keeping and for use during audits, and
- Mechanism to become part of your institutions official system of record.
IT Works effort certification and reporting technology is a multi-tiered notification, certification, and approval system. IT Works’ effort certification and reporting technology includes a multi-tiered certification and approval system that allows individual employees to add, modify, and/or approve their time records. With Effort Administrator, the effort certification and reporting process starts with the end user. Administrators can then review, approve, and certify effort reports for their organizational unit.
Depending on the method of implementation, research scientists and staff can review, modify, and approve records that have been provided to them, or if needed, enter their own time records. Effort Administrator’s internal routing and approval system then passes completed certified effort reports to the appropriate administrative users for review.
Effort Administrator’s effort certification and reporting technology prompts users who are late to certify their time and effort records. This internal notification system for reminding users of incomplete or outstanding records also provides an e-mail notification system to help track down and remind late users to review and certify their time.
IT Works’ effort certification and reporting technology meets a wide range of reporting requirements including exports to your general ledger. The IT Works’ effort certification and reporting technology includes both canned report formats as well as user-definable report options. Our effort certification and reporting technology provides numerous reporting designs and formats. Some examples include:
- Certified Effort Statements
- Employee Time Sheets
- Reports by Sponsored Project Budget Period
- Reports by Institution Certification Period
Effort Administrator also exports account adjustment records to your institution’s general ledger.
IT Works’ effort certification and reporting technology is a customizable turn key solution. IT Works delivers its effort certification and reporting technology solution tailored to the needs of our clients. IT Works provides implementation, training, and consulting services to all our clients. Our implementation services include initial system configuration, pre-loading of data, testing, interface development, and other software customization. User training is provided on site or via internet based conference calls. Nationally recognized research administrators are available as consultants for institutions needing assistance in developing internal policies and procedures.