Time and Effort Reporting

The institutional system for documenting that salary and wages charged to, or cost-shared against, a federal award correspond to the effort an employee actually performed on that award, satisfying the internal-control standard at 2 CFR 200.430(g). It covers the full cycle -- budgeting effort at proposal stage, recording/monitoring effort during the award period, and after-the-fact review or confirmation (often called effort certification) that reconciles charged percentages against actual activity -- and does not correspond to any single federally mandated form; institutions design their own compliant forms or systems (Plan Confirmation, After-the-Fact Activity Records, Multiple Confirmation Records, or electronic effort-reporting platforms) as long as the underlying system provides reasonable assurance charges are accurate, allowable, and properly allocated based on records reflecting total compensated activity not exceeding 100 percent.

ByCASRAI Editorial Board

· Last updated 23 Jul 2026

Worked examples

Is an instance

A university's central sponsored-programs office maintains an electronic effort-reporting system that, each semester, generates a statement for every federally funded employee showing the percentage of Institutional Base Salary charged to each award and each non-sponsored activity, summing to 100 percent; the employee or a supervisor with direct knowledge reviews and confirms the statement, and any material discrepancy from the original budget triggers a cost transfer.

Is an instance

A research institute uses a Plan Confirmation system: salary is initially charged based on the effort proposed in the budget, and a periodic after-the-fact review compares that budgeted percentage against records of actual activity, adjusting the charge only when the variance is material -- an acceptable interim-estimate approach under 2 CFR 200.430(g) that produces a time and effort report without a signed certification at every pay period.

Looks similar, but isn't

Not an instance

A department head fills out the same effort percentage on a form every reporting period without reviewing what the employee actually worked on, and no one with direct knowledge of the work ever reviews or attests to it -- this produces a document that looks like a time and effort report but does not satisfy 2 CFR 200.430(g)'s internal-control standard, because it isn't based on records reflecting actual activity.

Time and effort reporting is the umbrella term for the whole institutional process of documenting that salary and wages charged to (or cost-shared against) a federal award reasonably reflect the effort an employee actually devoted to that award over a given period. It spans the full cycle from budgeting effort at proposal stage, through recording and monitoring effort during the award period, to the after-the-fact review or confirmation that reconciles what was charged against what actually happened. The compliance standard governing it is 2 CFR 200, specifically section 200.430 (Compensation — personal services), which since the Uniform Guidance took effect on December 26, 2014 requires a system of internal control reasonably assuring that charges are accurate, allowable, and properly allocated — rather than mandating any single certification form.

There is no single federally mandated template

This is the most common point of confusion behind searches for a "time and effort reporting template": 2 CFR 200.430(g) does not prescribe a specific form. It sets required characteristics of the underlying system — records must reflect an employee’s total compensated activity (not exceeding 100 percent across every funding source and duty, not just the federal award in question), interim budget estimates are acceptable if the estimation process produces reasonable approximations of actual activity, significant changes in work distribution must be documented as they occur, and the system must include periodic after-the-fact review with adjustments where the estimate and actual activity diverge materially. A federal awarding agency can still require a specific personnel activity report or certification from an individual recipient institution if that institution’s own internal controls fall short — but absent that, institutions design their own compliant forms.

In practice, an institution-built time and effort report typically captures: the employee’s name, position, and institutional base salary basis; the award or account number(s) the effort is charged to; the certification or reporting period; the percentage of total compensated activity allocated to each award or activity (research, instruction, administration, other sponsored projects) for that period, summing to 100 percent; a comparison of budgeted versus actual effort where material variances triggered a review; and an attestation — historically a signature, increasingly an electronic sign-off in an effort-reporting system — from someone with suitable means of verifying the work performed, typically the employee or a supervisor with direct knowledge. This structure mirrors the era before the Uniform Guidance, when OMB Circular A-21 specified formal effort-reporting systems (Plan Confirmation, After-the-Fact Activity Records, and Multiple Confirmation Records) built around periodic signed certification; those methodologies are still in common use today as the internal-control mechanism institutions choose to satisfy 200.430(g), even though the regulation no longer names or requires them specifically. For the mechanics of each methodology, see the companion guide on effort reporting methodologies.

Time and effort reporting vs. effort certification

The two terms are closely related but not identical. Time and effort reporting is the broader system — budgeting, tracking, documenting, and reconciling effort across the award lifecycle. Effort certification is the specific after-the-fact step within that system: the point at which someone with direct knowledge attests that a charged percentage reasonably reflects effort actually performed. An institution can run time and effort reporting through interim budget estimates with periodic after-the-fact review and never use a document called a "certification" at all, provided the underlying internal control meets the 200.430(g) standard — certification is one common way institutions satisfy that standard, not the only one.

Why it matters

Charged effort is a representation to the federal government about how award funds were used. Overstating effort on a federal award, or under-reporting effort actually spent on non-sponsored activity, is a recurring theme in federal audit findings and can support False Claims Act exposure when the discrepancy misstates how funds were used. This is why time and effort reporting sits inside the broader research-compliance framework alongside cost transfers (which correct misallocated charges effort review reveals), institutional base salary (the denominator effort percentages are calculated against), and salary-cap rules such as the NIH salary cap, where certified effort must still reflect true activity even though the dollar amount an award can reimburse is capped.

Related concepts

Effort Certification — the after-the-fact attestation step within time and effort reporting.
Effort Reporting Methodologies — the specific systems (Plan Confirmation, After-the-Fact Activity Records, Multiple Confirmation Records) institutions use to build a compliant time and effort reporting process.
Cost Transfer — the mechanism for correcting a salary charge once effort review shows it was misallocated.
Institutional Base Salary (IBS) — the base against which effort percentages are calculated.
Conflict of Commitment — surfaces when an individual’s total compensated activity, as documented through time and effort reporting, exceeds 100 percent.
Uniform Guidance (2 CFR 200) — the Cost Principles framework containing the 200.430 compensation rule itself.

Use in your systems

JATS XML <role> element

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Schema.org DefinedTerm (JSON-LD)

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