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Best Practices and Requirements
Requirements for managing effort
- Monitor and reconcile accounts on a monthly basis.
- Monitor cost share commitments.
- Monitor unallowable salary over the Salary Cap.
Best practices for managing effort
Payroll is the largest component of most sponsored awards. The following summary of best practices for ongoing compensation.
- Appoint personnel to the correct accounts to minimize salary transfers.
- Utilize Advance Accounts to document valid effort expended on a project prior to award set up.
- Review salary charges with the principal investigator and make corrections, generating eDocs in a timely manner.
- Avoid retroactive payroll.
- Review awards in advance of expiration to ensure appropriate costs are charged.
- Expenses must be posted to the award account by the date communicated in the final financial report notification. No additional salary charges will be allowed after this deadline.
- Notify ORA in advance of project directors (PI's) leaving the University
- Primary award PI's on any federal or federal pass through awards terminating employment with Indiana University may be required to confirm project statements for effort charged to those projects.
- See a flowchart of the process for PI's leaving IU.
The Office of Research Administration provides a number of reports to assist departments with the management of compensation on sponsored awards and to support compliance with federal regulation and IU Policy. Please visit the Compensation Management Reports and Resources webpage for more information.
Below are videos providing an overview of best practices for effort management on sponsored awards.
- Best Practices for Managing Effort on Your Awards
A video guide for managing effort throughout the life of a sponsored award. - When Award PI (Confirmers) Leave IU
A video guide describing the best practices for when PI's have left or may be preparing to leave IU.
Below are a few of the most popular reports the Office of Research Administration provides to assist departments with the management of compensation on sponsored awards.
Calendar Year Effort View Dashboard Report
Displays summarized Institutional Base Salary payroll expenses and effort information by Award and Account PI for a given calendar year by Project or account.
Principal Investigator View Dashboard Report
Provides information by Principal Investigator regarding pending proposals, active awards, and advanced accounts. The report also displays payroll detail and account balances for open sponsored award accounts.
CG Labor Projections Dashboard Report
Provides information to help manage job appointments on sponsored award accounts, including an estimate of labor that will be charged through the end of a project.
Salary Cap Dashboard Report
Provides payroll information by person, award, and account for employees subject to Salary Cap Limitations, including amounts over the allowable cap limitation that are required to be allocated to "INSxx" cost share sub-accounts.
PI Leaving IU Dashboard Report
Provides information about Principal Investigators on KC Awards to help identify PI's who have left or may be preparing to leave IU.
PI Leaving IU Dashboard Report
Please visit the Compensation Management Reports and Resources webpage for a full listing of available reports.
Cost Transfers on Sponsored Projects
Sponsored accounts must be reviewed on a monthly basis in accordance with IU Policy. To find additional information or to initiate a late cost transfer request please visit the ORA Cost Transfer webpage.
Cost transfers for all federal and federal pass-through sponsored awards, including corrections to salary costs, must be initiated and routed to ORA within three months following the month in which the cost was first incurred.