Effort reporting is the method of certifying to the granting agencies that the effort required as a condition of the award has actually been completed. Federal regulations require that any individual committing effort on a federal or federal flow-through contract or grant certify that the salary charged or cost shared by the institution is reasonable in relation to the effort expended on that project. Uniform Guidance 2 CFR 200 (formerly 2 CFR Part 220 and OMB Circular A-21) sets the criteria for acceptable methods of charging salaries and wages to federally sponsored projects, and requires that institutions follow acceptable methods for documenting the distribution of effort for all project personnel.
Log into ERS Effort Reporting System using your UCLA Logon ID and Password
What is Effort?
Effort is the proportion of time spent on any single professional activity and is reflected as a percentage of the total professional activity for which an individual is employed by an institution. Total professional activity at UCLA includes teaching, clinical practice, research, preparing proposals, administrative responsibilities or any other duties performed for UCLA.
Effort Reporting Periods
Effort reports are released twice a year; fall and winter quarters in April and spring and summer quarters in October with certification due dates in July and February respectively. Announcement is made to campus when effort are released including due dates.
Non-Academic and 11/12 Academics
- Fall: October, November, and December
- Winter: January, February, and March
- Spring: April, May, and June
- Summer: July, August, and September
9/12 Academics
(Employees that work 9 months out of the year but are paid over 12 months)
- Fall: July, August, September and October
- Winter: November, December, January and February
- Spring: March, April, May, and June
- Summer: June, July, August and September (Only Additional Compensation DOS codes)
What is the Effort Reporting System (ERS)?
The University of California Office of the President, in partnership with the five largest UC campuses (UCLA, UC Berkeley, UCSF, UCSD, and UC Davis), has developed a new web-based Effort Reporting System (ERS) that replaces the existing paper-based Personnel Activity Report (PAR) system.
Three system-wide work groups were involved in the project (a Management Steering Group, a Requirements Group, and a Technical Advisory Group) that included representatives with a wide range of perspectives representing the Controller’s offices, budget and planning, research administration, extramural fund management, information technology, and research-intensive academic departments. Each participating campus formed a local Campus Work Group that met on a regular basis to provide input into the process. ERS automates, streamlines and simplifies the effort reporting and certification process and provides comprehensive information on all effort expended on federally sponsored projects.
Since salary expense represents the largest direct cost component on sponsored projects and effort reporting processes are currently under scrutiny by the Office of Inspector General, this system reduces the compliance risks inherent in the current process and protects the campuses from sizeable audit disallowances and the loss of federal funding, which could be consequences of having an ineffective effort reporting system. It displays effort report detail that is clear and understandable to the user; captures certification electronically so that the system can monitor completion and provide an audit trail; provides a simple method of correcting and re-certifying reports, and notifies individuals and departments of reporting deadline requirements. Effort reports must be certified within 120 days from the end of the Service Period. Certifiers will be notified well in advance of time for certification.
Department administrators in conjunction with department DSAs should designate who should have access to the various roles in ERS. Access to ERS is grantable by DSAs through the Distributed Access Control Security System (DACSS).
As the Department Security Administrator you are responsible for granting access to those users who will be able to View, Review/Edit, Certify, and View Payroll Detail for others. You will also be assigning the ERS Coordinator role.
There are two main system-generated authorizations that do not require individual set up in DACSS:
- Employees are automatically authorized to view, edit and certify their own Effort reports and to view their associated payroll detail information
- Principal Investigators are automatically authorized to view, edit and certify Effort Reports and view the payroll detail for employees paid on any of their projects.
In order to access the system, the user must have a UCLA Logon ID. To set up a UCLA Logon ID, please go to UCLA Identity and Accounts Manager web page.
Off campus users will require a UCLA Logon ID to establish a UCLA Virtual Private Networking (VPN) connection, which can be obtained at the Bruin Online web page.
If you have technical questions regarding VPN set-up, please contact the BOL Helpdesk at (310) 267-HELP (4357) or send an email to consult@ucla.edu.
If you have questions or need help with ERS, please contact the ERS Helpdesk at ershelp@research.ucla.edu.