Frequently Asked Questions

Once the department completes the online recertification, the new recertified FEC is now the official FEC. Status of this FEC will show "Recertified". FEC coordinators can still navigate to the originally certified FEC by following the link in the bottom left.

If an award is only active for part of the FEC period being reported, the system will prorate the effort. For example: The FEC reporting cycle is 1/1/XX-6/30/XX. The award period ends 2/28/XX and the faculty member provided 20% effort on the award from 1/1/XX - 2/28/XX. The FEC will spread the 20% over the entire FEC cycle thus reducing the effort percent for the quarter to 6.7%.

There is provision for the Chair, Dean, Director or Division Head to certify on a faculty member’s behalf.  To do this the department Astra authorizer must assign the ASTRA role “Certify Others” to the Chair, Dean, Director or Division Head.  Once this is done they can now enter the name of the faculty they are certifying for in the Search box.

These individuals must have suitable means to confirm the work was completed such as direct supervision or an email from the separated faculty confirming the accuracy of the FEC.

No.  All roles in eFECS are set up and removed by the department's ASTRA authorizer.

No, FEC's become available for online viewing after payroll transactions for the final pay period in the FEC cycle have posted or approximately 23 days after the end of the cycle. For mid-cycle reporting of cost sharing, use the Interim Cost Share Report process.

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This most commonly occurs when there is original pay and a salary transfer on the same budget. Expanding the budget detail will reveal both the positive and the negative salary transactions.

Room Type 360 Breakroom

Room Type 090 Parking Garage

110 General Classroom

If the new department is known, use the Edit Room process in WebSpace to reassign the room by selecting the new department from the list. If the new department that uses the space is not known, use the Remove Room process in WebSpace to indicate that the room does not belong to your department. 

Send an email with the building and room that you are missing to FAHelp@uw.edu.  The F&A team will try to locate the requested room and assign to your department, if found.  Additional information may be needed.

WebSpace has been updated with Space Manager data, as of November 30, 2022.  Any updates made in Space Manager changes after November 30, 2022, will also need to be made in WebSpace.   

Yes, information can be updated in WebSpace until the data has been reviewed and approved by MAA and closed for any further updates.

Recharge or service centers will be identified by marking the box within “Recharge” column during Inventory, via the Edit Room process. The survey of these rooms will be done based on billings related to this Recharge/Service Center.

If shared space has been identified in Space Manager, it will be reflected in WebSpace in the following format: <room_number>^<sequence number>.  Additional shared space can be designated using the Edit Room process in WebSpace.  Rooms can be shared across multiple departments and /or PIs.  

If you have questions, concerns, or feedback, please email us at ECCHelp@uw.edu.

There will be a lot of transitional and ongoing support for ECC:

• Documentation and Training – Resources will be provided to cover ECC and the changes from current to future state to help users transition to the new system. For more information about training, refer to the When will training be provided? question in this section.

• Communications – Project communications will increase beginning in Spring 2023 and will continue through Go Live and the first reporting cycles. Additionally, regular Pulse Check Surveys will be sent to users to guide change management efforts.

• Initial Certification Support – Because the first project certifications will be in October 2023 and the first effort certifications will be in January 2024, training will be delivered from August – December 2023; closer to when users will use the system. In addition to training, there will be a period of more intensive support in the weeks surrounding initial certifications.

• Department-Level Presentations – Would you like the Project Team to share this information with your department? If so, please let us know via email to ECCHelp@uw.edu! The Project Team would be happy to present to your group, listen to concerns, and answer questions.

The project sponsors are:

• Brian McCartan, Vice President, UW Finance

• Chris Mercer, Executive Director, Finance Transformation

The business owner is:

• Matthew Gardner, Assistant Director, Post Award Fiscal Compliance (PAFC)

ECC will replace effort reporting for eFECS, Grant and Contract Certification Reports (GCCRs), Harborview Medical Center (HMC), and Applied Physics Laboratory (APL). This supports consistency, process automation, electronic records for all forms of effort reporting, and standardized workflows, where applicable.

Post Award Fiscal Compliance (PAFC)

ECC is an off-the-shelf solution. It will be configured to meet UW's needs.

A cutover plan is currently under development. While some details remain unknown, the following key elements are in place: 

• Current state effort reporting will end on 6/30/23, with an abbreviated reporting cycle; however, current state systems will remain in use for a few months after cutover to certify for this cycle.

• Future state effort reporting will begin on 7/1/23, with a new reporting cycle in ECC.

• Leading up to cutover, we will work with users to minimize cross-era changes and recertifications.

We will provide more information, once it is available.

Refer to ECC Implementation – Project Information.

Yes. Among other institutions, the University of Miami and the Kansas University Medical Center use both systems. We are currently engaged with the University of Miami to learn more about their implementation of ECC and Workday Finance.

In ECC, FECs will be referred to as Effort Statements. Faculty and Prinipal Investigators (PIs) will self-certify these statements.

• End-to-End (E2E) Testing, which will wrap up in April 2023 (before Support Readiness Testing), ensures ECC works within the broader technical landscape, confirms integrations function as intended, and evaluates reporting functionality and process flows.

• Support Readiness Testing (SRT), which will occur from April 26, 2023 – May 22, 2023, ensures ECC meets user needs. Effort reporting users from various roles and departments have volunteered for this activity.

Because the first project certifications will be in October 2023 and the first effort certifications will be in January 2024, training will be delivered from August - December 2023; closer to when users will use the system. For more information, refer to ECC - Training Timeline.

In the current state, responsibility for retention falls to units for GCCRs, and Management Accounting and Analysis (MAA) for FECs in eFECS.

In the future state, both Project and Effort Statements will be stored electronically in ECC, and retention will be managed by Post Award Fiscal Compliance (PAFC) in conjunction with the Records Retention Team.

Note: In the future state, units will still be responsible for retaining GCCRs that were created before ECC go-live. The full retention period for these records is 12 years.

ECC will support effort reporting for all Effort and Project Statements and there will be three ECC instances to allow for differences between organizations: UW, UWM (Harborview), and APL.

ECC will have the same look and feel across instances. Users who work across organizations, will need to log into each instance separately.

First, do not certify the FEC. Make sure all corrections have been made before doing so as eFECS will automatically update the FEC information to incorporate changes processed if it has not been certified thus avoiding the need to recertify. If you do certify your FEC and a correction is subsequently made you will need to recertify it.

Second, contact your FEC coordinator to inform him/her there is a problem with what is reflected on the FEC as it does not reasonably reflect your actual effort. This most commonly results from incorrect salary distributions or an issue related to cost sharing. In these cases a retroactive salary distribution correction and/or cost share adjustment can be made.

While it sometimes can take time to get changes processed and result in the FEC certification being delinquent, it is the better option than to knowingly certify to something incorrect.

An FEC most commonly will need to be recertified in the eFECS system when there is a retroactive change in salary distributions and/or cost share commitments/effort that has a material impact on the percentages previously certified to for sponsored budgets, i.e., the adjustment changes the percentages.  If there are no (or minimal) changes impacting sponsored budgets, a recertification is not necessary.

While we strive to avoid the recertification of FECs as they are frequently reviewed and questioned by auditors, it is critically important that when an error is detected, the FEC be corrected even if it requires it to be recertified.  One common cause of this is late receipt of awards from sponsors.

It is recommended that, in these cases, an advance budget be requested, especially if the anticipated receipt of the award is past the complete by date for the FEC.  Also, while the late certification of an FEC is non-compliant with UW policies, it is a lesser issue than knowingly certifying an incorrect FEC.

If faculty is not paid on any sponsored budgets and no longer has a cost share commitment for specific period, there will be no FEC for this period.  

As of March 2017, recertifications are processed electronically.  Follow the instructions on MAA website.  Note, the ASTRA role “View and Update Effort Report” is needed to process a recertification online.

Please contact your department Astra authorizor to grant you the eFECS Effort Reporting access. 

To change an incorrect WUC, contact the Payroll Office at ischelp@uw.edu. Follow the same procedure for PIs who are missing from your GCCRs.

It is most likely because there are no budgets currently assigned to the missing PI. Verify that the budget for which the PI is responsible for certifying has the correct PI EID and PI name in MyFinancial Desktop, Budget Profile.

The Grant and Contract Certification Report (GCCR) is required to be maintained in the home department of the Principal Investigator. Therefore, to determine compliance with the GCCR process, MAA relies on the departmental downloads, i.e. if the GCCR has not been downloaded, it has not been certified. Downloading the GCCR removes the report from the overdue list.

Note, when there is a change in PI, the system will create a GCCR for the new PI. This may result in a duplication of a report for a period already certified by the original PI. In this case there is not need for the new PI to certify again. However downloading the GCCR will remove it from the overdue report.

The situation in which you would need backup documentation is if a previous GCCR has a salary transfer after the fact that will affect it. In addition, you need to have the faculty recertify the GCCR after the salary transfer has posted and you have edited the GCCR to include it. Here is some more information on GCCR changes: Changes to GCCR | Management Accounting & Analysis (uw.edu)

255 if the server or room housing data and/or backup systems is being used for organized research.  

710, 711 or 715, if being utilized for more general IT-hosted applications. 

They should be listed as an occupant in each lab/space they occupied during the fiscal year (7/1/2022-6/30/2023), wherever they are doing rotation work for a reasonable length of time (e.g., one quarter or pay period).

This step is only required for those deparments participating in the Space Survey:

Yes, include research staff as an occupant in all the research related spaces they occupy.

This is only required for those departments participating in the Space Survey:

Space Manager will allow you to assign a person from another department as a room occupant using their EID or name.  

This step only required for those departments participating in the Space Survey.

• For Space Manager, vacant space should have no PI allocation and no occupants listed
• Within WebSpace, the PI should be marked as “Vacant” PI. 

The room type should be coded as 300s if funded more than 50% from gifts and endowments.  

Yes, if before 11/30/22 in Space Manager. 

Updates to the space inventory information can be made in WebSpace beginning in January 2023.

If <50% of their time is spent in the office on sponsored research, the room type should be coded as 312. 

Typically, the amount of time spent on administrative activity by the chair would make it a 312 unless they have separate office space where their research activities take place away from their leadership responsibilities.  

Yes, leased space should be part of this space inventory activity.  This will help ensure accurate inventory records no matter how it is funded. 

The space inventory occurs prior to the functionalization of the space during the space survey. During the inventory portion of the survey, the primary use codes of the space are checked for accuracy to ensure research space is accounted for and assigned to be surveyed. For example, if a space was converted to a research lab, it’s primary use code would need to be updated to reflect this change.

No, as Space Manager only allows UW employees to be added as occupants. 

However, unpaid volunteers will need to be added in WebSpace for the survey functionalization so identifying them during the inventory process will be helpful.

Those definitions can be found on these websites: https://finance.uw.edu/maa/primary-use. 

and https://maps.uw.edu/geosims/room-type-definitions.html (along with Excel file download). 

If the employee is paid primarily by start-up funds or department research, the room type should be administrative (e.g., 312, 316). 

But if they are paid by NIH or grant sponsored, the room type should be assigned as research (e.g., 261).

This depends upon how your college decides to handle. For some, the Dean’s office would need to add or remove rooms from a department’s inventory.  For others, you may coordinate with your CAP Account Manager to add/remove space from your department room inventory. Discuss with your department to understand the process expected. 

Capital leases essentially represent capital acquisitions and therefore must be handled in a like manner.  Additionally, capital lease payments may not provide an accurate representation of the center’s depreciation for the asset(s).   For this reason service and recharge centers’ capital lease principle payments must be charged to the center’s reserve account (budget) and not to the center’s operating account (budget).  To recover the cost of the asset(s) the center must determine the appropriate annual center depreciation which may be charged to the center’s operating account and recovered through their recharge rates.  Note, external interest associated with capital leases should be charged to centers’ operating accounts and recovered through the recharge rates.

Service/recharge centers who are presently charging capital leases to their operating account may be grandfathered on this change on a case-by-case basis but only for current capital leases.  Future capital leases for these centers must be handled in the above manner.  If your center is one that presently has this arrangement in place please contact Management Accounting and Analysis so that we may assess your specific situation and advise you of actions to be taken. 

In an effort to ensure centers are costing their rates appropriately a variance analysis report reflecting the previous year’s estimated costs to actual costs must be submitted within 45 days after the close of the rate cycle. The report should include an explanation of any material differences, i.e., +\- 10% or more AND +/- $5,000 or more, from the original cost estimate.  If there are any material encumbrances they should also be reflected.

For example, if the estimate for salaries was $30,000 and the variance +$3,500 an explanation would NOT be required as the variance is less than $5,000 even though it is greater than 10%.  Similarly, if the salary estimate was $75,000 and the variance +$5,500, an explanation would NOT be required because the variance is less than 10%.  Only if the variance dollar amount is equal to or greater than $5,000 AND the variance percentage is equal to or greater than 10% will an explanation be required.

A variance report excel template can be found on the MAA website under Forms/Templates.

On occassion a center may be asked by an external customer to complete a W9 form before a payment can be received.  For more information on how to fill out a W9 visit the following link. 

https://f2.washington.edu/fm/tax

Food purchases are unallowable on service and recharge center operating budgets* unless the following exceptions apply:

• The center has a programmatic requirement for food purchases.  In other words the food being purchased must be essential to the operations of the center.  If this is the case, it should be clearly stated in your rate proposal.
• Centers may purchase meals or refreshments for meetings or conferences IF technical information pertaining to the center’s operations is disseminated.  In such cases an agenda and other documentation must be kept on file to prove the content of the meeting/conference.  If the meeting/conference was not approved ahead of time in your proposal, a food approval form will be required.

Visit the following link for the food approval form, details on how to fill it out, and additional information on food purchases. http://f2.washington.edu/fm/food-approval

*Food purchases are allowable on reserve budgets (program type 21 & 23) if the purchase directly benefits the center, however centers must still comply with UW food approval policies.

Current University guidelines allow for the Technology Recharge Fee to be included on approved service and recharge center budgets, see https://www.washington.edu/uwit/services-2/recharge/.  The percentage of the Tech Recharge Fee to the center should not exceed the FTE percentage of the associated employee assigned to the center.  For example, if an employee is assigned 50% to the service/recharge center, the percentage of the Tech Recharge Fee charged to the service/recharge center should not exceed 50% of the total amount assessed to the department.

 The two most appropriate allocation methodologies are:

• Allocate the fee to individual rates based on the same allocation of the related salary
• Allocate the fee to internal center overhead.

Centers should choose the methodology that most accurately reflects how costs reflect.

Encumbrances are not the same as accrued expenses.  Encumbrances can represent a number of things, but are most commonly used to represent an outstanding obligation or commitment.  These figures can be used for planning and or budgeting purposes, but they do not represent actual expenditures. 

For example, when a service contract is agreed upon procurement services will set up a purchase order in the system, the total dollar amount of the service contract will then show up as an encumbrance even though no services has been provided or paid for yet.  As services are received and payments made, the encumbrance is reduced. Encumbrance amounts also represent the open balance amounts of an order.  For more information please visit the encumbrance website, http://f2.washington.edu/fm/gca/encumbrances-0.

An accrued expense occurs when an item or service has been received within a certain period, but the payment for it did not post or was not recognized in that same period.

Encumbrance figures should not be included in the financial reports unless it is known that the encumbrance amount meets the accrued expense definition.

No.  Centers are allowed to submit mid year rate adjustments at any point throughout a center's rate cycle.

Please refer to the following website for information on invoice receivables, https://f2.washington.edu/fm/sfs/ir/intro .  Included on the site is a link to a document that explains in detail the receivables procedures including guidlines and standards for the State of Washington.

The main difference between the two is the size of the center.  A service center is defined as generating $1 million or more in total revenue and/or charging $175K or more to UW federally funded budgets within a fiscal year.  A recharge center is defined as generating less than $1 million in revenue AND charging less than $175K to UW federally funded budgets within a fiscal year.  Service centers are required to send their annual rate proposals and financial reports to MAA as well as their Dean's/VP's Office, whereas recharge centers are only required to send their annual rate proposals and financial reports to their Dean's/VP's Office.  All other policies and guidelines apply to both budget types.

eFECS obtains salary and primary position as home department from Workday. Please contact Workday ischelp@uw.edu to futher solve the issue. 

While it is important that the researcher maintains a good relationship with the Program Officer, communicating changes solely through the Program Officer is not sufficient.

Any decrease in effort of 25% or more by key personnel (as noted in the Notice of Grant Award) must be approved in writing prior to the change by the sponsors' Grants Officer.

An increase in effort greater than 25% for key personnel should also be reviewed to assess whether there has been a change in the scope of work and the impact, if any, on other sponsored agreements.

Any change in the scope of work must also be approved in writing prior to the change by the sponsors' Grants Officer. All requests must be processed through the UW Office of Sponsored Programs in advance of the change.

Normally it is acceptable for the effort commitment to be met over the project budget period and not tied to each FEC cycle. It is common for effort to vary from FEC cycle to FEC cycle provided the PI (or key personnel as designated in the Notice of Grant Award) does not (a) absence him/her self from the project for three consecutive months or more, or (b) reduce effort on the grant (direct and cost shared combined) by 25% or more over the budget period.

A PI can reduce their effort 5%, 10%, etc. without any impact on the award. However, prior approval must be obtained if the reduction falls under a sponsor requirement. For most NIH research (non-K) awards, a change of 25% or more requires prior approval. PCORI also requires approval for a greater than 25% change. There are no repercussions for a less than 25% change in either of those circumstances.

From a strict policy stand point, the terms and conditions of the award continue unless amended, so reducing effort by 25% or more would require sponsor approval.

The PI may, however, request that the sponsor approves eliminating or reducing the cost share during the no-cost extension process. While the University may approve the no-cost extension, the reduction of effort must be granted by the sponsor.

K awards present a unique case as they generally carry the requirement for a 75% commitment of total professional effort.

Consistent with the spirit of the Bayh-Dole Act, reasonable levels of activity related to pursuing intellectual property can be charged to grants.

These activities may include making an invention disclosure, meeting with UW’s tech transfer office (CoMotion) to discuss an invention disclosure, meeting with a patent attorney about a UW invention and/or reviewing internal actions on patent applications.

As with any effort charged to sponsored agreements, effort associated with the pursuit of intellectual property must be directly related to the sponsored project that is being charged. Where more than one award or activity contributed to the development of the intellectual property the effort distribution should be based on proportionate support provided under the awards or other equitable relationship.

The effort must also occur within the award period for it to be eligible for direct charging. These activities should be included within total University effort for effort reporting purposes.

Cost-share commitments may arise when the proposal reflects a level of effort devoted to the sponsored project that is greater than the funding allocated for the commitment (e.g., 15% effort commitment but only 10% funding requested). They also may arise when the faculty member’s salary exceeds a sponsor’s limitation on the amount of salary that can be reimbursed, as in the case of salary  caps imposed by the National Institutes of Health

This message indicates that cost share adjustments have been manually entered to reflect the actual effort performed. Click 'View Details' link, to review the cost share adjustments made. Before certification, cost share effort percentage may be adjusted using the 'Adjust/View Cost Share' button. If the 'Adjust/View' button is not available, contact the department's ASTRA authorizer to request the 'View and Update Effort Report' role.

Changes can only be made to certified cost share by the faculty member recertifying the FEC. To accomplish, this contact GCA via Grant Tracker for requested changes to pledges. The faculty member should not recertify the FEC until the requested changes have been processed and appear in eFECS.  Contact efecs@uw.edu for recertification questions.

Yes, with the following caveat. Regardless of whether the cost sharing is percent effort or dollars, if there is a specific commitment of effort by the PI or other key personnel, and the re-budgeting is caused by or results in a significant reduction (i.e. 25% or more) of that commitment, prior approval from the sponsor for this change needs to be obtained. Additionally, significant adjustments between effort and non-effort categories may imply a scope change. If this is the case, the sponsor must be contacted to approve the change.

Cost shared effort, as well as effort paid directly from the grant, is averaged over the FEC cycle for faculty reporting on both academic and calendar cycles. This may result in a percentage appearing on the FEC that is less than the committed amount.  For example, if the grant was only active for half of the cycle, a 10% percent commitment will appear as 5% on the FEC.  For faculty on an academic cycle, eFECS will identify if the commitment is for spring and upload the full 10% (the un-averaged percent) to the spring quarter in the Cost Share Module.

Yes, the relationship between the amount of effort charged directly to the grant and the amount cost shared is secondary to the PI meeting the combined (total) percent of his/her committed effort.

If the cost share is committed based on percent effort, and necessary approvals have been obtained (e.g., reduction of 25% or more) the reduction need not be prorated between the direct charged and cost shared effort commitment. It is critical however, that the total adjusted commitment be met which could be via direct salary charges only, cost share only or a combination of both. If the cost share is mandatory, i.e., dollar based, specific approval from the sponsor is required unless other sources of cost sharing are permissible and substituted.

The same way as space occupied by outside persons and paid by external entities or organizations (e.g., external researchers).  If they have an UWID, you will be able to search for their name and add them as an occupant, however, since they are not paid by UW their activity will automatically be defaulted to Other Institutional Activity (OIA).

Visitors

The space survey is used to determine the Facilities portion (“F”) part of our F&A rate.  Administrative (“A”) related rates are capped by the Federal government at 26%, while the Facilities rates are not.

All of the space occupied by the department should be functionalized regardless of how long a department occupied a given space.   

If a space is occupied by different occupants during the year, space functionalization should take into consideration use of all occupants during the base year.  The current owner/assignee should coordinate with all prior occupants of the space.   

Full Year Vacancy: Space should be functionalized as Vacant only if it is currently vacant or under renovation and expected to be vacant for the full 12 months of Fiscal Year 2023 (7/1/22-6/30/23).   

Partial Year Vacancy:   If space was occupied for part of FY 2023, that space should be functionalized according to how the space was used when occupied.  

This may occur but in a minority of the SLU space.  If there are questions as to budget funding, the department should follow-up with the Office of Sponsored Projects (OSP).

Departmental research includes research, development, and scholarly activities that are not separately budgeted and accounted for (e.g., bridge, start-up funding). Departmental research is funded from budgets that are not restricted to a specific project.  Space used to conduct departmental research should be functionalized as departmental research as part of the Instruction & Departmental Research function (IDR).  

Organized research projects required a proposal or other application to obtain funding, have a defined scope of work associated with the project, anticipate a "deliverable" result, and require that periodic financial and progress reports be submitted to the sponsor.  Space used to conduct organized research should be functionalized as organized research (OR). 

1. Research grants, contracts, and cooperative agreements sponsored by the Federal government and Non-Federal agencies and organizations (e.g., states, cities, foundations, corporations, etc.). 

2. University funded research separately budgeted and accounted for on a specific project basis (e.g., Royalty Research Funds). 

3. Sponsored research training of individuals in research techniques (or research training). 

4. Federally sponsored clinical trials.   Note, Non-federally funded (or industry funded) clinical trials are considered Other Sponsored Activity (OSA). 

5. Research cost sharing related to organized research projects and included on effort reports. 

WebSpace will be updated on a recurring basis during the Space Survey (January-April 2023).  The new project/budget should be available within that time-frame so that the space can reflect latest project/budget activities. 

It is a federal requirement that all salaries charged either directly to a federally funded sponsored agreement and/or to non-sponsored sources for the fulfillment of a cost-share commitment being met via faculty effort not charged directly to the sponsored agreement, be supported by records that provide assurance that the charges reasonably reflect the work performed.  The UW meets these requirements via the faculty effort certification reports (FECs).

FECs are semi-annual reports designed to meet the federal requirements described above.  Thus, a faculty member will receive, and must complete, an FEC if he or she is paid by the University of Washington and

• Performs effort paid on federal and/or nonfederal sponsored projects; and/or
• Performs cost-sharing on federal and/or nonfederal sponsored projects.

While technically a federal requirement, the UW presently requires this certification for all sponsored agreements regardless of funding source.

The federal government requires that charges to federal awards for salaries and wages be based on records that represent a reasonable approximation of the work performed on those federal awards relative to the total activity for which the University compensates the faculty member. As part of meeting this requirement, faculty review and certify their effort.

Charging and certifying salaries that are not properly supported could lead to audit findings, disallowances, fines, suspension and debarment, as well as other sanctions at the institutional and/or individual level.

The purpose of the FEC is to certify that the compensation (institutional base salary) charged to each sponsored agreement is reasonable in relation to all other compensated UW activities. Thus, faculty completing FECs must take into consideration research, instruction, administration, service and clinical activity (excludes clinical incentive payments). See GIM 35.

Institutional base salary (IBS) is the annual compensation, including A/B salary as it relates to tenured faculty, paid by the University of Washington for an employee’s appointment, whether that individual’s time is spent on research, instruction, administration, service or clinical activity. IBS excludes any income that an individual is permitted to earn outside of duties for the University of Washington.

The components of IBS are base salary (regular salary, summer salary, paid professional leave and salary for retired faculty); administrative supplements (ADS); endowed supplements (ENS); and clinical salary (UW Physicians (UWP) and Children’s University Medical Group (CUMG)).  Note, clinical incentive salaries are excluded from IBS.

There are several changes to GCCRs in ECC:

• Name Change: In ECC, Grant and Contract Certification Reports (GCCRs) will be referred to as Project Statements.

• Electronic Processing: Currently, GCCRs follow a manual paper process. In ECC, this process will be electronic.

• Record Retention: In the current state, responsibility for retention falls to units for GCCRs.
  In the future state, Project Statements will be stored electronically in ECC, and retention will be managed by Post Award Fiscal Compliance (PAFC) in conjunction with the Records Retention Team.
  Note: In the future state, units will still be responsible for retaining GCCRs that were created before ECC go-live. The full retention period for these records in 12 years.

• Recertifications: In the current state, adjustments for GCCRs are made directly on the paper statement (via manual edits) or programmatically on the next statement. In the future state, recertifications for Project Statements will occur in ECC in the period of performance. This ensures all records stay together and is a best practice for effort reporting.

After 7/14/23, salary transfers impacting pay periods ending 6/30/23 and prior will need to be done using a Journal Entry.

Salary transfers that affect Sponsored Awards after 7/14/23, must also follow a manual process to update the FEC. Contact efecs@uw.edu to initiate the process.

If you have cost transfer questions that do not impact sponsored awards, submit a ticket via UW Connect Finance (available beginning 7/6/23). To learn more, refer to Customer Support.

Recertifications after 10/11/23 will follow a manual process. Contact efecs@uw.edu if there is an FEC that needs recertification.

Certifications of outstanding FECs will be done via a manual process that has been developed by the Effort Reporting Team. To initiate the process of manual certification, please reach out to efecs@uw.edu with the faculty’s name and period end date of the FEC that needs to be certified.

The last day to make effort report changes depends on what you’re trying to do:

• Payroll Adjustments/Retro pay – After 7/14 this is a manual process. Contact efecs@uw.edu.
• Certifications, recertifications (if it’s available), comments, view/adjust cost share –  Update in eFECS until 10/11

For more information about the timeline, refer to Faculty Effort Certification (FEC).

WebSpace is a web-based space survey tool developed by Maximus that will be the system of record for the space survey a part of the 2023 F&A rate proposal.   

WebSpace can be accessed using the following url: https://webspace.maximus.com/uw/ with your UW NetID.  Ensure you requested access to the system and attended the training. 

First, please check if you can follow the detailed steps of adding cost share: How to Add K Award Cost Share to the FEC | Management Accounting & Analysis (uw.edu)

If budget is not identified as K award, please look up the Grant Contract number using the Budget Profile Report on MyFD. For budgets to be recognized as a K-Award budget, the grant contract number for the specific biennium (currently, 2021), must have a K award recognized 3 characters value, within the substring of the 3rd through 5th characters. K Award budgets - eFECS displays a K award type when the faculty has pay on a budget where the third, fourth and fifth places in the Grant Contract number field in match:    K01,K02,K05, K07, K08,K12, K18, K22, K23, K24,K25, K26, K30, K43, K76, K99, KL2. If this is the reason, GCA (gcahelp@uw.edu) could be contacted to update grant contract number.

If budget is NIH Subaward, because of grant contract number NIH provides, FEC coordinator would need to select “ Short- Term shift” as cost share type instead of “ K-award (K)” on the draw down selection when adding cost share.

If a faculty member is clearly not being compensated (must be for entire pay periods) by the University then proposal preparation time would be considered volunteer time, i.e., performed on one’s own time. As such, no alternative (non-sponsored) funding needs to be obtained since no UW compensation is being received. However, if partial salary is being paid during the period in question this effort would be considered part of said compensation and a non-sponsored funding source needed.

The FEC process is conducted on a semi-annual schedule for faculty on 9 month appointments. Spring (3/16-6/15) and summer (6/16-9/15) effort is combined into a single FEC (March 16 - September 15). The rate of pay one can receive from a grant for work during the summer portion of this cycle is based on their 9 month academic year salary rate. While summer salary is considered part of institutional base salary, it is generally a unique line/designation in grant proposals.

For example, if the 9 month salary is $3,000 per month for a full-time appointment and there is a commitment of 50% effort for two months during the summer portion of the spring/summer cycle, the rate of pay for those two summer months would be $1,500 per month for 50% effort per month. On the FEC, the summer compensation will be added to the compensation received during the spring quarter for each sponsored budget and for 'Other Salary Sources'. The percent for each budget will then be calculated by dividing the total compensation charged to the budget divided by the total compensation received over the two quarters, i.e., FEC period.

A space survey is the process of determining what percentage of campus space is used for organized research. This includes determining in which rooms organized research occurs, assigning budget numbers and occupants, and calculating the amount of time spent on major University functions such as organized research and instruction. The results of the space survey are used to help allocate costs within the Facilities and Administrative (F&A) rate development process.