Payroll Certification Process

Payroll statements are certified annually, and project statements are certified quarterly.

From start to finish, the process of a payroll or project statement looks like this:
Period of Performance -> Pre-Review Period -> Certification Period -> Post-Certification Tasks

Statements flow through a series of statuses; there are 9 possible statuses a statement might go through. For example, a principal investigator (PI)’s payroll statement might be listed as the following, amongst other statuses:

  1. Building black gear
    • Payroll data is continuously loading to ECC and the statements are being created and updated accordingly.
  2. Ready for Pre-Review yellow magnifying glass
    • The statement is ready for review by the research administrator (RA).
  3. Ready for Certification red x
    • The statement has been reviewed by an RA and is ready for certification by the faculty member.
  4. Certified green star
    • The faculty member has certified their statement.

Tufts University performs an annual certification for Faculty, Grant Managers, 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.

At a high level, each role's main responsibility is:

Certifier (Faculty, PI)

  • Certifying your own payroll statement on an annual basis.
  • Certifying project statements on a quarterly basis (PI only).

Primary (or non-Primary) RA

  • Pre-reviewing payroll effort and project statements for employees and projects within your department.
  •  Monitoring the certification period to assure timely certifications.

Central administrators

  • System related configurations / settings.
  • Proxy & designee forms.


Detailed responsibilities matrix:

Payroll Certification - Roles and Responsibilities

Central Administrator

RA

Certifier

Understand how salary charges are distributed and verify that salary distribution reasonably reflects the work performed on the projects being charged

     X

     X

     X

Review salary charges on all sponsored projects on a monthly basis

  

     X

     X

Communicate any changes in labor distribution to their Primary RA or Post Award

 

 

     X

Electronically certify their individual payroll statement and any quarterly project statements

 

 

     X

Pre Review individual payroll statements and project statements associated to your DeptID

 

     X

 

Request a proxy or designee

 

     X

     X

Initiate any payroll adjustments including retroactive pay and labor distribution in PeopleSoft Labor panel

     X

     X

 

Monitor that certifications are completed within the certification period

     X

     X

 

Review and approve or reject proxy and designee requests

     X

 

 

Assign a Proxy to a Payroll Statement

     X

 

 

Assign a Designee to a Payroll Statement

     X

    

Setup required Cost Share accounts

 

     X

  

Monitor new account codes to flag as part of IBS

     X

 

 

All project and payroll statements will have an icon and/or label marking their current status.

While many parts of ECC are automated, at each status, an action might be required from an individual to move the statement to the subsequent status.

This table lists each possible status, what that status means, and the next action associated with it.

Status

Description

Action Needed to Change Status

black gear

Building

This status indicates that a statement is not yet ready for certification.

This occurs during the Period of Performance, when payroll and profile data are being loaded and the statements are building.

Automatic:
From this status, statement will automatically advance to the next status when the Pre-Review Period begins.

green check

Auto Approved

This status is for statements that are auto approved.

The system automatically moves statements that have no sponsored payroll associated to them into this status when the pre-review period begins.

Automatic:
From this status, Statement will automatically advance to the next status when the Certification Period begins.

yellow magnifying glass

Ready for Pre-review

This status indicates that a statement is ready to be pre-reviewed.

This status occurs before the statement is released to the Certifier for certification.

RA needs to log into ECC and review the statement.

yellow arrow

Pre-reviewed

This status indicates that a statement has been pre-reviewed by a department or central administrator.

Automatic:
Statement will automatically advance to the next status when the Certification Period begins.

red !  or red x

Ready for Certification

This status indicates that the statement is ready to be certified.

Statements move to this status when the Certification Period begins, and the statement requires an individual to certify the payroll charges for the period.

Certifier needs to log into ECC and certify the statement.

green star

Certified
 

This status indicates that an individual certified their statement.

Automatic:

Statement will advance to the next status when the Certification Period ends.

yellow dollar sign

Certified, Payroll Pending
 

This status indicates that an individual certified their statement and a payroll transaction occurred after the fact.

The payroll transaction creates a PAR task and the statement remains in this status until the Primary RA processes the PAR task.

Primary RA needs to log into ECC and process the PAR task.

red circular arrows

Ready for Certification,
Re-opened
 

This is the status of a statement that has been re- opened, and statement needs to be re-certified by the individual.

Certifier needs to log into ECC and re-certify the statement.

red dollar sign

Ready for Certification, Re-opened, Re-opened by Payroll Adjustment

This is the status of a statement where a payroll transaction was applied, and the statement needs to be re-certified by the individual due to changes in the payroll dollars on the statement.

Certifier needs to log into ECC and re-certify the statement.