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• System Government Costing April Facts and Reminders

  Apr 19, 2023 10:00 amAccounting and BudgetingBuying and ContractsBuying and ContractsFY 23

  Does your service center have multiple lines of service? If so, how are salaries and wages being allocated to the different lines of service? If your service center is not tracking employee's time, it is most likely out of compliance with policy.

  Service centers must allocate salaries and wages to the appropriate line of service. Estimates should not be used to allocate salaries and wages. Rather, service centers must track employee time to know where they spend their time related to each line of service. Here are a few things to remember about tracking time:

  • If an employee only benefits one line of service, the total salary can be included to that line of service.
     
  • If an employee benefits multiple lines of service, the percentage of their salary that corresponds to the amount of time they spent on each line of service needs to be allocated to those lines of service.
     
    • The best practice for allocating to multiple lines of service is for departments to continually track time. Service centers can manually track their time using excel or paper timesheets. Time can also be tracked with internal systems or technology, such as an iPad, utilized by the department.

  • A time study can be used to support allocation when time has not been tracked to assist with creating percentages for the department to use to allocate. Time studies may vary in length but must be long enough to ensure sufficient data is captured to accurately reflect where employees’ time is spent. Time tracking should then continue to be a part of the service going forward.

    • If a unit has neither tracked time nor performed a time study then it should contact System Government Costing to determine the best way to allocate salaries and wages. Units should then take steps to implement time tracking going forward.

  To avoid being out of compliance with university policy, 3E service centers should be tracking their employee's time by line of service.

  Contact
  If you have questions about calculating service center rates, feel free to consult System Government Costing's Who to Ask list to find an expert who can help.