Category

Finance & Accounting
Sponsored Projects/Research

Submitted By

Lin Kaplan, jkaplan2@uccs.edu, Senior Sponsored Projects Accountant

Project Team

Lin Kaplan, jkaplan2@uccs.edu, Senior Sponsored Projects Accountant

Project Description

The Summer Salary Tool is an excel tool designed to help departments determine accurate summer research pay amounts and increase the efficiency of approving submitted summer research pay requests.

With just the payee’s salary and funded summer commitments, the tool: calculates the appropriate amount of summer pay based on the payee’s request, time worked, and effort committed; verifies that no proposed summer research pay will exceed any monthly or summer thresholds; and exports supporting documentation showing the values used to reach the requested figures to submit along with any submitted summer research pay requests.

The tool includes three distinct calculation methods (time, amount, or effort %) as well as detailed instructions for usage to ensure the tool can be used comfortably by the broadest number of users. Regardless of which calculation method is chosen, the tool provides all values needed to complete HR’s “Additional Pay for Summer Sponsored Research” form.

Project Efficiency 

This tool automates and standardizes the summer salary calculation process on our campus which has led to a streamlined review process, campus-wide consistency, and stronger internal controls surrounding summer research pay.

For departments: this tool takes all the guesswork and variance out of calculating summer research pay for their faculty and the ease of exporting the completed calculations tabs to PDF makes it easier than ever to supply supporting documentation along with Additional Pay requests.

For Sponsored Projects Accounting: the tool transformed what had been a largely manual review process into an intuitive and expedient operation with consistent supporting documentation.

Project Inspiration 

In all honesty, this tool was inspired by a simple desire to make the review/approval process for submitted summer salary requests a little easier and quicker for my own department but it ended up being beneficial for our broader campus in a manner I hadn’t initially considered. After the first draft, we realized that this tool could be used by departments and would allow for the creation of a standardized summer research pay calculation process for our whole campus which would streamline matters, strengthen our internal controls, and add some consistency to the task.

What Makes You Happiest about this Project?

I am delighted that this tool has been well-received by those on our campus who support sponsored projects and that it seems to have greatly improved the efficiency of the summer salary review process within my own department. Serving others is what drives me to work in higher education and oversee sponsored projects so that my innovation is able to help others brings me tremendous joy. That the tool is flexible enough to be useful for the other campuses and this innovation’s efficiencies could potentially extend beyond UCCS and help even more people is just icing on the cake.