Accessing Funds
All sponsored awards must be routed through SPA to obtain the required institutional authorized signatures and to create the unique sponsored award subaccount. SPA will require that all compliance approvals be provided prior to an account being established. Compliance requirements include human research subjects, animal care and use, and biosafety approvals.
Principal Investigators access sponsored award funds through the same mechanisms used to access departmental funds. Goods and services purchased to support programs area charged to specific sponsored awards using WMed's OneSource system. All purchases must include the unique sponsored award subaccount number in order to access funds.
Effort
WMed tracks the effort committed by all employees on sponsored programs, whether that effort is ultimately charged to the sponsored award or not. Documentation of this effort is a requirement of most sponsors, including key federal agencies.
Charging Personnel Costs: Non-Exempt Employees
Non-Exempt (hourly) employees document and report time spent on sponsored programs through the Employee Self Service system. Sponsored award subaccounts are added to the timesheets of non-exempt employees identified as having a role on a sponsored program. See below for detailed instructions on how to allocate time to grants within Employee Self Service.
Charging Personnel Costs: Exempt Employees
Exempt employees charge time to a sponsored award (expressed as effort) by completing Effort Reporting and Certification Logs (ERCLs) each quarter. Official Effort Reporting and Certification Logs (ERCLs) are only available from SPA, but a sample is available here.
At the beginning of each quarter, SPA generates a personalized ERCL for each exempt employee reflecting effort planned to be committed on active sponsored programs for that quarter. This planned effort is expressed as a percentage of the employee’s overall WMed effort for each month in the quarter. The employee reviews the ERCL, makes any changes needed to their planned effort, and returns the ERCL to SPA with their signature attesting to the planned effort on each sponsored program. Attested ERCLs are used to actively allocate payroll expenses to the appropriate sponsored awards.
Throughout the quarter, exempt employees must notify SPA of any significant (>5%) change in their committed quarterly effort level on any sponsored program. Insignificant changes or temporary fluctuations in effort do not need to be reported to SPA.
At the end of each quarter, SPA circulates the attested ERCLs to the Principal Investigator of each sponsored program for certification of the actual effort committed by exempt employees on that sponsored program. Payroll expenses are adjusted as needed upon receipt of a certified ERCL.
Any discrepancies identified by Principal Investigators must be communicated to SPA prior to certification. If any changes need to be made to any of the recorded effort for the upcoming quarter, the Principal Investigator must complete an Effort Change Request Form. Contact SPA’s Post Award Coordinator for more information.
Administering the Program
Sponsored programs conducted at WMed are performed within the administrative and financial scope initially approved through the acceptance of the award. Principal Investigators, and those they may designate, will have access to WMed's Faculty Dashboard Grants module to track spending on their grants. Expenses charged to each grants subaccount are updated daily.