Certification of Effort for Non-exempt (Bi-weekly) Staff

Duke University is responsible for obtaining certifications on staff effort for salaries charged directly on sponsored projects. Please refer to GAP 101.5 Time Reports- General, Section III. Biweekly Payroll for the specific procedures.

The general procedure for certifying effort for non-exempt employees is outlined below.

1. The payroll labor distribution system produces a preprinted time report for each employee for each biweekly time period. The employee completes the time report by entering hours worked (including all applicable premium hours) and not worked (but for which payment is being claimed, e.g. vacation, sick leave, etc.) and certifies the accuracy of the data.
   
   
2. The person who has first hand knowledge of all work performed by the employee reviews the report, certifies the correctness of the hours recorded, and certifies that the distribution of wages for the period represents a reasonable estimate of the actual effort expended. When distribution corrections are necessary, submit a Biweekly Direct Code Charge Report to reflect the correct distribution, in accordance with GAP 101.523 Time Reports - Biweekly Direct Code Charge Report. Corrections made after the pay period are done by completing a Cost Distribution form in accordance with GAP 200.150 Cost Transfers on Sponsored Projects. This process reconciles the Personnel Activity Reporting System with the cumulative payroll information recorded in the general ledger.
   
   
3. Each department accumulates the time reports for their employees, retains the yellow copy, and sends the originals to Corporate Payroll for processing. The yellow copy of the timecard is retained to compare to the Gross Pay & Distribution report sent to the department. This detects keying errors and reduces the possibility of someone falsifying the time report after it has been approved.

Note: The distribution on the time report is the latest distribution available at the time the primary and secondary time reports are prepared and sent to the departments. If a Staff Change form has been submitted subsequent to the distribution of the time report, and prior to the close of the pay period for which the time reports represent, write "PAYROLL CHANGE" across the distribution codes to indicate knowledge of the change that has been submitted.