Effort Reporting and Personnel Activity Reports (PARs)

The federal government requires that the effort expended on sponsored projects by faculty and other employees be accurately matched with when the effort is charged to those projects. To document and ensure that employee time is being accurately apportioned, any person paid with federal funding (sponsored or nonsponsored); paid on a nonfederal sponsored project; or providing cost share for a sponsored project must certify that their effort has been accurately charged. At the University of Idaho those certifications are done electronically via periodic Personnel Activity Reports (PARs).

For faculty and professional staff, individual PARs must be completed each academic term. For other employees, PARs must be completed monthly. Notifications are sent in advance of each PAR due date, directing the employee to the VandalWeb location for PAR completion. If upon review of the PAR you determine that payroll has been incorrectly expensed, the departmental payroll administrator should be notified to initiate a payroll cost transfer. The Office of Sponsored Programs Cost Accounting Unit should then be notified that your PAR will need to be reset and recertified upon completion of the payroll cost transfer. Failure to certify your PAR in a timely fashion is subject to suspension of project funding until the PAR is complete. See APM 45.09 for additional information.