Effort Certification
The required, periodic confirmation that the salary charged to a grant matches the effort actually devoted to it.
Because federal awards pay for people's time, institutions must verify that the salary charged to each project reflects the effort the individual actually spent on it. Effort certification is the formal, after-the-fact attestation that reconciles payroll charges to real activity.
Effort is expressed as a percentage of an individual's total institutional activity, not a 40-hour week, which is why person-months are used to translate commitments into budgetable salary.
Effort reporting is a top audit target; mismatches between committed, charged, and certified effort are common and costly findings.
Track this in GrantsManager
GrantsManager gives PIs and administrators one real-time view of proposals, awards, budgets, and compliance, so terms like this stop living in spreadsheets.