The term matching often is a source of confusion. The National Science Foundation and some other sponsors explicitly indicate that they view matching and cost sharing to be synonymous. In addition, 2 CFR Part 200 Subpart A 200.1 Definitions refers to "cost sharing or matching" without distinguishing between the two. See also, 2 CFR Part 200 Subpart D 200.306 is Cost Sharing or Matching.

For the purpose of UW policy, these terms are considered to mean the same thing. For more information, refer to 1.6.1.1. of the Guidelines for Cost Sharing.

Cost sharing may redirect departmental, school, or central resources from other mission-critical uses to support sponsored research agreements. Cost sharing may reduce the flexibility of researchers to conduct other research by obligating their effort to specific projects. It may increase the requirements for capturing, monitoring, and documenting for audit all commitments and expenditures of cost shared funds. Cost sharing may also decrease the UW’s recovery of indirect costs (F&A costs) by the addition of cost sharing to the research base.

UW salaries and fringe benefits are already captured in the UW’s financial system. They’re easy expenses to document, and their value is straightforward to verify. Typically, payroll cost sharing does not require a new outlay of cash. Non-payroll expenses may require a new outlay of University resources. When non-payroll expenses are used as cost share, they may be difficult to document, and their value may be challenging to determine.

See the list of salary account codes included or excluded from ECC at: Salary Account Codes Included In/Excluded From Certification in ECC.

Salary codes that are included in the effort reporting system (ECC) can be used to meet cost sharing obligations.

In limited circumstances, some of the salary codes not included in ECC may be used to meet cost sharing obligations.

Yes, the dean's or director's office should approve any instance of cost sharing. This is to ensure that proposed cost sharing is consistent with the overall policy to minimize cost sharing on sponsored projects.

The Effort Commitment and/or Cost Share Update Form is used when there is a change in the specifics of cost share from what you proposed initially or what has been entered into the system. The form is used to make any changes to payroll cost sharing, e.g., corrections to dates or personnel changes. The form should also be used when you want to notify RSP that a non-payroll or third party cost sharing expense has occurred. See instructions for completing the Update Form. Note that this form is also used to initiate changes to sponsor paid effort commitments.

Departmental staff should send the update forms to their Dean’s or Director’s office for approval. Dean’s or Director’s offices should send approved update forms to costshare@rsp.wisc.edu. Please also see Page 1 of the Update Form instructions for specific requirements in submitting the form.

If the cost share change will reduce an effort commitment, by more than 25%, you may need to contact the sponsor. See UW-Madison Effort Guidelines, Section 1.3.3. The RSP staff person processing the update form will not make changes to the payroll cost share until the effort commitment reduction has been approved. Once approval is received, the update form should be completed and it, along with a copy of the approval, should be submitted by the department to the Dean’s Office. The Dean’s Office should send the approved update form and effort reduction approval to costshare@rsp.wisc.edu. The effort commitment data will be updated by the RSP Effort Team.

If the cost share change will not require sponsor approval, an update form for a change in effort should be submitted using the effort commitment update option of the Update Form. A separate Update Form should be completed for the cost share changes being requested. The completed forms should be submitted by the department to the Dean’s Office. The Dean’s Office should send approved update forms to effort@rsp.wisc.edu and costshare@rsp.wisc.edu with the respective forms.

After a non-payroll expense (including third party cost sharing) has been incurred that is to be used as cost sharing for a project, submit the Effort Commitment and/or Cost Share Update Form. Follow the instructions for "Required Supporting Documentation for Non-Payroll" cost sharing. The information submitted will be loaded by RSP into the Cost Share Bolt On and will subsequently appear in the WISER Cost Share Expenditures tab.

With the implementation of RAMP, cost share is now a completely manual process. Information for cost sharing is documented in RAMP as attachments. The cost share functionality of RAMP is not currently being used.

Regardless of voluntary or mandatory cost share, a cost share budget, including budget justification, is added to the RAMP record as an attachment(s). If cost share is part of the proposal budget, a separate proposal budget labeled as cost share should be uploaded. If not part of the proposal budget, Excel templates for a basic budget and a complex budget are available on the RSP Cost Share webpage in the Pre-Award section. If the sponsor has a specific format, or you have your own, it may also be used.

If payroll will be used to meet a cost share requirement, the RAMP Payroll Cost Share Form should be completed. This form indicates the dates cost share will be provided, the amount of the individual’s time, in percent, that will be cost shared, and the UW funding to be used for the cost share. A link to the form is on the RSP Cost Share webpage in the Pre-Award section. The information from this form will be used by the RSP Set Up Team to enter the payroll cost share commitments into the cost share bolt-on. This is for voluntary and mandatory cost share commitments.

For mandatory cost share, a payroll cost share term will be added and will appear on the Requirements tab in WISER. The terms allow for limited comments. If additional information is needed, please reach out to the assigned Post Award Accountant.

In a parallel and separate process, the department enters payroll data to a level sufficient to meet the cost share requested. If payroll is already on the cost share funding, confirmation that the amount is sufficient to meet any/all cost share needs should be completed.

Any updates to payroll cost sharing for existing awards are entered in SFS Extensions directly by the RSP Cost Share Team, based on the submission of a Effort Commitment and/or Cost Share Update Form or an additional increment of time/funding.

No-Cost Extensions no longer have an automatic update of cost share. If additional cost share/cost shared effort is needed during the no-cost extension period, an update form should be submitted.

For Payroll Cost Sharing
Each weekend, the payroll cost share calculation runs, which compares information in SFS Extensions with payroll information. If the calculation is successful, the cost share information posts to the Proj_Resource table in the Shared Financial System (SFS). Information is stored in the Data Warehouse, drawn from there, and appears in the WISER Cost Share Expenditures tab. If the calculation is not successful, then an entry appears on the cost share error report. As a separate process (and after the cost share calculation runs), payroll cost share data is loaded manually into ECC on a weekly basis.

For Non-Payroll Cost Sharing
Non-payroll cost sharing requirements are entered as Terms and appear in the Requirements tab in WISER. After an expense has been incurred, a Effort Commitment and/or Cost Share Update Form and accompanying documentation are submitted to RSP. The information is entered into SFS Extensions in the Cost Share Bolt On, gets written to the Proj_Resource table in SFS, and is stored in the Data Warehouse. WISER draws the information from the Data Warehouse and displays it in the Cost Share Expenditures tab.

For Third Party Expenditures and Unfunded F&A
Third Party cost sharing is entered as a Term and appears in the Requirements tab in WISER. After an expense has been incurred, a Effort Commitment and/or Cost Share Update Form and accompanying documentation are submitted to RSP. The information is entered into SFS Extensions, gets posted to the Proj_Resource Table in SFS, and stored in the Data Warehouse. WISER draws information from the Data Warehouse and displays it in the Cost Share Expenditures tab.

Information is loaded on a weekly basis into the ECC system. The process is manual and typically takes place on Monday or Tuesday.

The cost share calculation runs once a week, typically over the weekend. Salary and fringe information should be loaded and available in WISER on the Monday following the calculation. The F&A for these expenses, however, calculates 2-6 days later or for prior month updates F&A may not calculate until month end processes are run.

Depending on when an update was entered, it can take about two weeks for the new information to appear in WISER and ECC.

The University began using its current Shared Financial System in February 2008. The Cost Share Bolt-On was created as part of SFS, and information can be captured in it as far back as January 1, 2008, but not before.

First, your department may want to consider increasing the cost sharing of the PI, Co-I, or senior/key personnel on the grant to meet the cost sharing commitment. If you choose to use the salary and fringe of the LTE, then you should submit the Cost Share and Commitment Update Form. Another option would be to use a non-payroll expense to meet the cost sharing requirement.

Salary and fringe for the principal investigator and co-investigator would be considered payroll cost sharing. Remember that the Dean’s office should review this cost sharing request. They may advise you not to quantify a cost sharing commitment in the proposal for the PI/Co-I. In that case, you would enter $0 in the budget and indicate that the PI/Co-I will provide adequate oversight of the project and that other University resources would be available as necessary to support the project. Should the project be funded under these circumstances, you may need to cost share 1% of the PI’s time. The alternative would be to commit a certain percentage of time for the PI/Co-I and, should the Dean’s office approve this cost sharing, you would have to identify a source to pay for that salary and fringe. Also note that, if the sponsor allowed you to use F&A on the salary and fringe as cost sharing, the F&A would be considered non-payroll cost sharing.