Department of Engineering

Centaur - Guide for Researchers

Researchers who work part time for grants funded by the UK Research Councils and some other funding bodies are required by these bodies to keep an 'all hours' timesheet. These notes should be read in conjunction with the general Centaur help.

Timesheet Requirements

The guidance from RSD as to what time sheet data is required is as follows:

  1. Monthly timesheets should be retained over the life of all Research Council funded projects and these should be completed on a timely basis
  2. Timesheets should include all activities as defined by TRAC (teaching, research (by sponsor type) and other, including time spent supervising PGRs) and keep a record of time spent against individual Research Council projects
  3. Timesheets should be completed on an all hours worked basis totalling the cumulative hours per month (as a minimum time period)
  4. The timesheet should be authorised as a minimum by the relevant line manager.

Centaur will satisfy these requirements provided that you enter all your hours and use appropriate Centaur Projects that represent the different TRAC activities required.

Filling in the Timesheet

Centaur records sheets on a weekly basis. To fill in a time sheet select each project from the project list, enter a task description (optional in terms of what Centaur imposes but please follow funding body guidance on whether it is required), then the hours worked each day for that project-task in the format hh:mm or hh.mm (key pad use) where 2.5 is 2:05 and 2.50 is 2:50. To save the data in the database you must click 'Save for Later'. When there are no further additions to be made, to confirm that you are happy with the data entered, you must select the tick box under each day to be submitted and click 'Submit Selected Days'. Please note that to have submitted a completed sheet you must have selected all days (including Saturday and Sunday and days that have been taken as leave as some people may work during their leave). Where no hours were worked against a project-task on a given day the box may be left blank. Similarly, if you work part time, any days you do not work should be left blank but submitted.

At the beginning and end of each week you will get email reminders if you have timesheets outstanding, and from the beginning of each month you will be provided with a message listing all the monthly aggregations that have not yet been signed by your line manager and received by the Finance Office. On presentation of these (monthly sheet) messages please ensure a copy of the monthly aggregation has been printed out and sent to your line manager for authorization, to then be forwarded to the Finance Office.

A couple of helpful points to speed things up:

  • By selecting the leftmost checkbox on each row of the sheet you are able to save the project and task information into the following week's card.
  • By visiting the favourites tab you are able to organise the top of your project selection list.

Centaur Projects (activities) for recording time

Where your time worked on a project is auditable (i.e. the reason you need to fill in time sheets), you need to account your time to a Centaur Project specific to the grant. The auditors require this data as proof that you have worked at least the number of hours you are contracted to work on the grant. The audit also requires that other time be recorded ('all hours' timesheets), categorised as:

  • Teaching and Supervision
  • Other Research (Commercial)
  • Other Research (Charity)
  • Other Research (EC)

Centaur Projects exist for each of the above. In addition there is a Project "Other Research (specific grant/project)" which allows a user to record specific grant information but this should only be used where it is necessary for other accounting purposes as the category (as in the list above) has to be entered manually when reporting to the funding body.

There may be the need for further projects to be added to your project list (eg Divisional infrastructure). If this is the case please email centaur-admin@eng to request a project to be created.

Recording Leave

Leave booked by Researchers is automatically approved rather than going via a supervisor as is the case for Assistant Staff. It is recorded in units of half a day thus avoiding potential problems with different hours per week for different types of work and appears on the timesheet on a separate line under the main table.

By default, the Leave Calendar tab shows as 'leave' those days on which the Department is closed, and public holidays on which the Department is either closed or operating on a 'Sunday' basis but it is possible to unbook these if they have not been taken as leave.