Resources and Documents

Time and Effort Monitoring (OMBG A-87 Guidelines)

Charges to federal awards for salaries and wages, whether treated as direct or indirect costs, will be based on payrolls documented in accordance with generally accepted practice of the governmental unit and approved by a responsible official.

Where employees work solely on a single federal award or cost objective, charges for their salaries and wages will be supported by periodic certifications that the employees worked solely on that program for the period covered by the certification. These certifications will be prepared at least semi annually and will be signed by the employee or supervisory official having first-hand knowledge of the work performed by the employee.

Where employees work on multiple activities or cost objectives, a distribution of their salaries will be supported by personnel activity reports (or equivalent) unless a statistical sampling system or other substitute system has been approved by the cognizant federal agency.

Personnel activity reports or equivalent documentation must meet the following standards:

• They must reflect an after-the-fact distribution of the actual activity of each employee
• They must account for the total activity for which each employee is compensated
• They must be prepared at least monthly and must coincide with one or more pay periods
• They must be signed by the employee
• Time and effort reporting
• Supervisor review
• Actual vs. budget
• Handling “overtime” for salaried employees
• Substitute systems for allocating salaries