Time and effort reporting is a necessary part of sponsored projects administration.  Unfortunately, interpretations of federal guidelines (OMB Circulars A-21, A-110, and A-122) vary by institution, and furthermore, the meshing of federal guidelines with state and internal policies and procedures has been a struggle for many institutions.  Their struggle has been two-fold, both in developing concrete policies and procedures and in finding software solutions that implement them.  While many institutions have used consulting firms to overcome these issues to some extent, the accompanying cost has been high, often well into the 6 and 7 digits.   Other institutions with more limited budgets have opted to use paper or spreadsheet solutions.

Fortunately, there is a better solution.  One that is affordable, powerful, and easy to implement-- Effort Administrator.  Effort Administrator is developed by IT Works, a national technology company with over twenty years of experience implementing grant and research management solutions and working with administrators from top research intensive institutions.  Effort Administrator is an internet based software solution that has been developed based on the input of research administrators from these institutions.  Effort Administrator is flexible and can be configured to implement the effort certification and reporting policies of your institution.  It is an effort certification system that integrates with your existing grant management, accounting, payroll, and human resource software systems.  Effort Administrator allows institutions to base their effort certification records on time sheet data, salary distribution records, or payroll records and according to their own schedule (by week, month, quarter, semester, etc.).

Effort Administrator provides improved compliance management; delivers better financial information to individual business units within your institution; and reduces the administrative overhead.   Its multi-tiered certification and approval system allow individual users to add, modify, and/or approve their own time records and allows administrators to review, approve and certify records for their organizational unit.  The certification process starts with the end user.  Depending on the type of implementation, research faculty and staff enter their own time records; or review, modify, and approve records that have been provided to them.  An internal routing system passes completed certification records onto administrative users when it is their turn in the approval process.  A notification system reminds users of outstanding or incomplete records.

IT Works delivers Effort Administrator as a turn key effort certification system and provides software development, implementation, training, and consulting services to all clients.  Our implementation services include software configuration, data conversions, testing, and interface development.  Our training services can be provided on site or via web based conference calls.  Nationally recognized research administration consultants are available for institutions looking for help with the development of internal policies and procedures.