1. Time and Effort
Overview
May 2019

2. Guidelines Time and Effort guidelines can be found:
In the “How To” section of OGMS
In the “Resources” section of OBIS
On the SBCTC web page
The Time and Effort Guidelines document has all the basics for how to do Time and Effort reporting as well as sample documents.
You can find it in three different locations:
In the How To section of OGMS or the Online Grant Management System. You do not need an OGMS user account to access this document, nor do you need to log into OGMS to get it.
In the Resources section of OBIS or the Online Budget and Invoicing System. You do indeed need an OBIS user account to get to the Guidelines document in OBIS. It’s the exact same document that you can access in the other two locations, so don’t worry if you don’t have an OBIS user account.
On the SBCTC website. It’s on the “Manage an Existing Grant” web page. However, it’s easy to find if you just go to the search box on the SBCTC web page and type in “Time and Effort Guidelines.”
It’s best if you link to one of those documents so that you’re accessing it in one of those locations each time you use it as we do update it from time to time. If you save a copy either on a computer or a printed copy, you might miss out on any updates.

3. What is time and effort reporting?
Time and Effort (T&E) reporting is the federally mandated method of certifying that salaries and benefits charged to a federal grant are accurate and used to support such charges.
Time and Effort (T&E) reporting is the federally mandated method of certifying that salaries and benefits charged to a federal grant are accurate and sued to support such charges. Grantees are required to do T&E. SBCTC is required to monitor it.
More information on page 3 of the Guidelines.
Each organization that receives federal grant funding must have a process for time and effort.
It shouldn’t be a unique process for each program or grant. You may have some slight nuances by program/grant, but should still follow the same process for the organization.
If you are “grant mangers” for a federal grant, you are ultimately responsible for ensuring all grant requirements are met.
T&E is one of those requirements.
You need to be aware of your organization’s T&E processes to ensure T&E is done and done correctly for the grants you oversee.
If your organization’s process isn’t adequate, you need to work with your business or grants office to help make some improvements.

4. Who Must Complete T&E Reports?
Any faculty/staff funded in whole or in part by a federal grant must complete T&E reports
Faculty/staff funded by non-federal funds used as match or leveraged funds must also complete T&E reports
All faculty/staff funded in whole or in part by a federal grant must complete time and effort reports.
All faculty/staff funded in whole or in part by non-federal funds used as a match or leveraged funds for a grant must also complete time and effort reports.
More info on pages 3-4 of the Guidelines on this.

5. T&E vs payroll reports Payroll reports T&E reports
Shows how an employee is paid
T&E reports
Shows actual time worked in each area
Are certified
Are used to adjust payroll when necessary
Payroll reports and T&E reports are NOT the same thing.
Payroll reports may NOT simply be signed off for T&E purposes. They don’t meet requirements.
Payroll reports reflect how an employee is actually paid – what amounts from what funding sources.
Example, an employee who is paid 50% from a WorkFirst grant and 50% from state funds for some other program or even multiple programs.
T&E reports are certified reports that reflect the actual time an employee works in each area.
Example, that same employee might have actually only spent 40% of their time working on WorkFirst stuff and 60% of their time working on the state funding work.
If/when T&E reports are submitted with different %s payroll may often need to be adjusted.
We’ll talk about that more later.

6. Acceptable t&E systems
After-the-Fact Activity Report
Plan Confirmation
Multiple Confirmation
There are 3 acceptable T&E systems or methods.
After the Fact activity reports
Employees log hours worked in each funding source after they worked those hours
Plan Confirmation
These have initial estimates.
Employees then confirm or adjust the estimates at the end of a period of time.
Multiple Confirmation method
This is a mix of 1 & 2.
Be sure to follow both sets of rules if you use this method.

7. T&E Systems by Employee type
Classified, Hourly, and Student Workers
After-the-Fact Activity Report
Exempt Staff & Faculty
Plan Confirmation
Multiple Confirmation
Page 6 of the Guidelines identifies which employees can complete which types of T&E reports.
Classified employees, hourly employees, and student workers, such as Work Study students, MUST complete After the Fact reports.
They have NO OTHER OPTIONS.
Exempt staff and faculty can complete T&E using any of the methods.
Because there is only one option for classified staff, an organization may choose to have all employees do After-the-Fact reporting.
That’s not to say you can’t have exempt staff or faculty use the Plan Confirmation system though. You absolutely can.

8. After-the-fact t&E – part 1
Initial budget estimates
Funding sources identified
Must monitor and adjust as necessary
2. Recording Activity
Account for 100% of time
Include each funding source and leave
Completed at least monthly
Correspond to pay periods
Let’s talk about the first option – After-the-Fact reports.
The method that classified staff MUST use and faculty and exempt staff MAY use.
Page 7 of the Guidelines has more information and page 8 has an example form.
Some have asked for best practices – this form is a best practice…with one caveat….
After the Fact reports require initial budget estimates and funding sources to be identified.
You’ll see funding sources identified in the example on page 8.
You won’t see initial estimates. You’ll have those in your budget records and payroll records though. You may also choose to have the estimates on another page that your employees receive.
There must also be a place for employees to record their time worked.
They must account for 100% of their time.
Each federal and match or leveraged funding source must be listed separately.
For example, most colleges receive several different types of Perkins grants. You can’t lump all Perkins grants into one line as they are considered separate funding sources.
However, activities within a grant do not have to be listed separately on T&E forms. For example, most colleges receive a single WorkFirst grant, but there are 7 different activities in that one grant. T&E forms can simply have the WorkFirst grant on one line – no need for up to 7 separate lines for that one grant as those activities are all funded by the same, single funding source. However, it is possible your organization may still choose to require that detailed of a breakdown.
“Other” funding sources may be lumped together. These would be any non-federal, non-match, non-leveraged funding sources.
Leave must be accounted for as well.
Employees must complete and submit T&E reports at least as often as monthly.
Auditors say this is realistically as long as one can remember what they did each day.

9. After-the-fact t&E – part 2
Verifying/Certifying
Signed by employee or other person with direct knowledge of work completed
Organization must have way to verify accuracy
Forms
Must contain requirements in guidelines – pages 7 & 14
Reconciling
If more than 5% variance, must reconcile actual payroll with T&E reports by end of grant and/or fiscal year
Forms have to be signed by employees or someone with direct knowledge of their work.
We really recommend that employees sign their own forms.
Many supervisors don’t have direct knowledge of exactly what an employee does every hour of ever day.
There must be a way to verify the accuracy.
SBCTC has supervisors sign in addition to employees to help with this verification of accuracy.
May still need something else to back it up – appointments on Outlook calendars, etc.
Make sure any form you’re using contains the required components on page 7 of the Guidelines. There’s also a checklist on page 14 to help.
Reconciling –
Remember our example before of the employee charged 50% to WorkFirst and 50% to state funding?
Remember how their T&E reports reflected 40% of their time worked on WorkFirst activities and 60% on the other activities?
It is a federal requirement that if there’s more than a 5% variance in what is/was charged to a grant and what was recorded on T&E reports, and the variance results in more salary and benefits being charged to the grant than was actually worked on that program, then the amounts charged to the grant must be changed.
You must reconcile T&E reports with amounts charged to grants by the end of the grant or fiscal year, whichever comes first.
You must do this before your final billing!
This may mean that you need to refund some money to the grant.
If you’re unsure how to refund money to the grant, contact SBCTC grant staff for help.
Best practice, for grants that run on the state fiscal year cycle, is to reconcile work reported on T&E forms against what was charged to the grant in late May. This gives you time to adjust your May billing, if necessary, and still submit a budget revision, if necessary, but the mid-June budget revision deadline.

10. Plan confirmation – part 1
Only for exempt staff & faculty
Initial work plan/budget
Funding sources identified
Includes $ and % of salary
Monitor and adjust as necessary
Accounts for 100% of position’s activities/funding
Each federal, match, or leveraged funding source listed
Non-federal, non-match, or non-leveraged funds may be lumped into “Other” line
The second method is the Plan Confirmation method.
Remember, classified staff can NOT use this method. It’s only for exempt staff or faculty.
There are details on this plan on page 9 of the Guidelines, a sample form on page 10, and a checklist on page 15.
Just like the After-the-Fact method, it requires funding sources to be identified.
It must include estimates $ amounts and %s of salary or effort by funding source.
It also has to be monitored and adjusted as necessary.
It also has to reflect 100% of the position’s activities/funding.
Just like After the Fact, you can lump all the “other” funding together (the non-federal, non-match, non-leveraged funding sources).

11. Plan confirmation – part 2
Recording activity
Completed per academic term
Adjust payroll if more than 5% variance
Verifying/Certifying
Signed by employee or other staff with direct knowledge of work
Must be able to verify work/assignments
The form has to be completed at lest once per academic term.
You also have to adjust payroll and any amounts already billed to the grant if there is more than a 5% variance in what was originally budgeted and charged to a grant.
These forms must also be signed by the employee or someone else with direct knowledge of their work.
You still have to be able to verify the percent of time worked by each funding source. You could do this by:
Contacting the employee and documenting it.
Contacting the supervisor and documenting it.
You also need some kind of documented process to capture variances in actual work percentages versus estimated work percentages.

12. Single funding source
Exempt staff/faculty funded by a single funding source – 100% from a single, federal grant or 100% match/leveraged funds – may complete quarterly Certification of Pay statements.
Exempt staff or faculty funded by a single federal source or a single non-federal source used as match or leveraged funds (and NO other funding sources!) may complete a quarterly Certification of Pay statement.
There is an example of this on page 11 of the Guidelines.
This is NOT for classified staff. Remember classified staff MUST complete After-the-Fact reports of actual hours worked.
The forms must be signed quarterly.

13. Incidental work No T&E is needed if:
Assignments are short-term (less than 1 academic term)
Duties are not ongoing
Must still be separately identified and documents in organization’s financial system
Incidental work does NOT require T&E reporting as long as:
Assignments are short-term in nature, which is defined as less than one academic term.
The duties aren’t ongoing. They’re one-time duties.
If an employee does some incidental work for 2 weeks every quarter, that would be ongoing and would require T&E.
You still have to be able to identify the funding source for this incidental work in your financial system.
You should also have some kind of contract or stipend paperwork with the individual that identifies the funding source and method of payment.

14. Annual evaluations
Organizations must do an internal evaluation annually of T&E reporting/systems.
SBCTC or State Auditors Office review does not meet this requirement.
Your organization must do an annual internal evaluation of your T&E reporting systems/methods.
This is not just an annual review of the actual reports to adjust budgets and charges to grants.
This is about the actual methods and processes you’re using. This is about identifying problem areas or holes and fixing things.
SBCTC’s review or your organization or an auditor’s review does not meet this requirement.

15. Questions? SBCTC Contacts:
Michele Rockwell, Contracts Specialist, /
Susan Wanager, Policy Associate-Fiscal Management, /
Maryam Jacobs, System Internal Auditor, /