Tufts Payroll Certification System (ECC): Manage Payroll for Sponsored Awards

Employee Compensation Compliance, or ECC, is the application Tufts University uses to report and certify payroll for all sponsored awards. You can access the ECC system here (it works best in either Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox).

A central feature of ECC is the ability to view and certify statements, of which there are two kinds - payroll and project. Statements are created when an individual is directly charged and/or cost-shared to a project. An employee will only appear on either their own payroll statement OR on a project statement – never both for the same annual period!

There are several ways to learn how to use the ECC system:

  • This IT Guide is a comprehensive explanation and walkthrough of all ECC functionality.
    • If you learn best by reading and referencing, or if you have a specific question and need a step-by-step how-to, this IT guide is all you need!
    • Use the menu to navigate to different sections; be sure to expand the blue accordions on each page to learn about that section (start with the accordions below!).
  • You can take a self-paced interactive training course for RAs, faculty, and PIs that walks through what ECC is and what you'll most commonly be required to do in your specific role.
  • This 2 minute video introducing ECC gives a quick demo of how a faculty or principal investigator (PI) – collectively called a Certifier - will use the ECC interface to certify project and payroll statements.

Payroll vs Project statement

Payroll statement:

  • Looks at a single person.
  • Certified on an annual basis.
  • Lists all projects (both sponsored and non-sponsored accounts) the employee’s salary was directly charged to or cost shared to during the annual period and the respective payroll information for each project.

Payroll statement

Project statement:

  • Looks at a single project.
  • Certified on a quarterly basis.
  • Lists all staff personnel (non-faculty and non-PI) that were directly charged or cost shared during the quarterly period and the respective payroll information for each person.

Project statement

Depending on your role, you’ll have a different part in certifying a project or payroll statement.
 

Certifier (Faculty member, Principal Investigator (PI))

You can view statements that are waiting for your certification.

  • You are responsible for certifying your own payroll statement on an annual basis.
  • Your research administrator has already pre-reviewed your payroll statement and he/she should be contacted should you have any questions regarding your statement.

Primary (or non-Primary) Research Administrator

You can view and manage information related to your department including the projects, awards, and payroll data.

  • Responsible for pre-reviewing both payroll and project statements for employees and projects within your portfolio.
  • Responsible for monitoring the certification process to assure timely certifications.

Central Administrators

You are responsible for the backbone of ECC.

  • Responsible for system related configurations / settings.
  • Responsible for proxy & designee forms.

Tufts University performs an annual certification for faculty and principal investigators (PIs), encompassing payroll from September 1 to August 31.

In addition, Tufts University performs a quarterly certification of all sponsored accounts, which includes payroll for quarters beginning September 1.

The dates of the annual and quarterly certifications are called a Period of Performance and are followed by a pre-review period, then a certification period.