Effort Reporting System Implemented

The University of California Office of the President, in partnership with the five largest UC campuses (UCLA, UC Berkeley, UCSF, UCSD, and UC Davis), has developed a new web-based Effort Reporting System (ERS) that will replace the existing paper-based Personnel Activity Report (PAR) system. It tracks the effort distribution for employees paid from federal and federal-flow-through contracts and grants as well as for those employees whose salary is part of committed cost sharing. It calculates effort distribution, produces reports, sends out notifications and reminders to appropriate parties, performs edits, generates management reports and provides a data extra mechanism to populate campus ad-hoc reporting tools, keeps a history of changes and corrections to Effort Reports and in general provides the tools and information necessary to ensure that the University is in compliance with effort reporting regulations.

Since salary expense represents the largest direct cost component on sponsored projects and effort reporting processes are currently under scrutiny by the Office of Inspector General, this system will reduce the compliance risks inherent in the current process and protect the campuses from sizeable audit disallowances and the loss of federal funding, which could be consequences of having an ineffective effort reporting system. It will display effort report detail that is clear and understandable to the user, capture certification electronically so that the system can monitor completion and provide an audit trail, provide a simple method of correcting and re-certifying reports, and notify individuals and departments of reporting deadline requirements.

The system was implemented at UCLA on September 12th. The final day for certification is November 17th. Enhancements based on user feedback are planned