Fixing a salary charge on the wrong grant.
A payroll accounting adjustment moves it, but that is four events: payroll, overhead and revenue, billing, and effort. Approving it only covers the first.
Why one fix is really four events
Salary on a federal grant has to follow the work actually done, and most universities set a deadline for fixing it, often 90 days.
Some start that clock when the error is found and some from the original charge, so find out which one your institution uses.
The usual trigger is an email from a principal investigator: twenty percent of a postdoc's salary for May, June and July should have been on the grant.
People treat that as one step. It is four, and if you only watch the first, the grant looks fine when it is not.
A worked example
Say the postdoc earns $9,000 a month. Twenty percent is $1,800 a month for three months.
- Start the adjustment. Pick the three months, point the cost at the grant and attach the PI's explanation.
- Check the award dates. May and June fall inside the grant. July does not, because the grant ended June 30. July needs another home, or an extension first.
- Check the fringe. Employer costs do not always move with the salary. A fringe rate usually follows it; employer costs in their own pay lines move only if someone adds them.
- Check the overhead. Once salary lands on the grant, indirect costs and revenue follow it.
- Check effort. Q2 was already certified, and you just changed Q2 payroll. That certification is now out of date and needs to be redone.
What to check after you approve
Dates, fringe, overhead, certified effort and the next invoice. Approving the adjustment is not the end; it is the start of four checks most teams never write down.
Two ways to take this further
The free health check runs sixteen checks on your grants area, and the free Effort Certification Review tests your own export in your browser.
The Sponsored Award Review is the scored version, $1,950 for your whole institution.
More guides like this: Workday Grants guides from an independent consultant.