Cost Share and Computed Effort

Additionally, you must certify the cost share, if any, that the project has in the cost share system.  The payroll plus cost share is what constitutes the computed effort amount, which should be the minimum amount to certify, unless less effort was truly expended, in which case, salary transfers and/or cost share changes must be completed to match the actual effort expended.

If the entire row for a sponsored project shows 0%, or if you have a commitment but no payroll or cost share, a cost share update for PI should be submitted to formally add voluntary cost share so the PI meets their minimum 1% commitment on a federal project, or to meet whatever commitment the .  That indicates that you are putting the minimum effort required to administer the award.

A few other guidelines

• The amount you certify should be the minimum required amount for a given project, but it doesn’t indicate that you didn’t put more effort into the project that period.  A certification indicates that you put in at least that much effort.  Further effort on the project may have been expended, but it can remain undefined in the non-sponsored category as long as you have met the minimum requirement with your certification.
• You are allowed to put in more effort on a project than what you committed so long as the scope does not change.  The only way to enter more effort than what is shown in ECC is to submit a cost share update that provides voluntary cost share.
• Commitments can be changed.  A reduction of less than 25% of your commitment (e.g. less than 10% on a 40% commitment) on a project can be submitted internally to the UW’s commitment tracker without prior approval from a sponsor.  A reduction of over 25% of the commitment can be done with sponsor approval.