Prorating Hours to Determine Overtime

During the Calculate Payroll process, Sage HRMS Payroll prorates the Hours field of each timecard detail line that contains an hourly, flat, or fixed earning code. Essentially, this means that payroll spreads the hours across the number of days worked, as follows:

• Proration Moves Forward

  If you have entered a date on the timecard detail line, the hours are spread among the days from that date onward (that is, proration moves forward from the detail date). For example the Date is October 18, and the Days Worked is 3, the hours are spread among October 18, 19, and 20.

• Proration Moves Backwards

  If you have not entered a date on the timecard detail line, the hours are spread among the days that precede the pay period end date (that is, proration moves backwards from the period end date).

  For example, suppose you entered a period end date of October 19. If you did not enter a date on the detail line, payroll sets the Days Worked field to zero, and then assumes that the “days worked” is the number of days between and including the start and end dates. Assuming a weekly pay frequency (which implies 7 days), payroll automatically calculates a start date of October 13 (that is, 7 days prior to the end date October 19). The hours are then spread among Oct. 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, and 19.

  Note the following for the same example:

  • If you changed the default start date (on the Calculate Payroll window) to October 10, payroll would spread the hours from October 10 to 19.
  • If you changed the Days Worked (on the timecard) from zero to 5, payroll would spread the hours among October 15, 16, 17, 18, and 19, even if the start date was October 13.

  This field indicates the number of days worked for the earning entered on a detail line of the timecard, and is used for overtime calculation.

  During the Calculate Payroll process, payroll uses the Days Worked field:

  • Together with the overtime schedule assigned to the detail line to determine if overtime has occurred. (If an overtime schedule was not assigned, payroll does not calculate overtime and the Days Worked is irrelevant.)
  • To prorate the Hours field of a timecard detail line. For each detail line, the Days Worked field determines over how many days payroll should spread the hours. If the Days Worked is zero, payroll uses the number of days in the pay period (which is determined by the pay period start and end dates) as the “days worked.”  

  The Days Worked field can be set on the timecard in the following ways.

  • If a date is specified for the detail line, payroll automatically calculates and displays an entry in the Days Worked field as:

  The Hours field on the timecard divided by the employee’s Regular Hours Per Day field.

  • If no date is specified for the detail line, the Days Worked defaults to zero.
  • You can change the entry in the Days Worked field, depending on how you want payroll to interpret the field.

  For example, suppose you entered a date and 8 hours for an earning detail line, and payroll calculated Days Worked to be 1. However, the 8 hours were actually worked during 2 days, so you would enter 2 in the Days Worked field.  

The program then sums the hours for each day, and determines which hours are subject to overtime, using the earning’s assigned overtime schedule.

If the Days Fall Outside the Pay Period

On a timecard, you should enter the Date and Days Worked fields of a detail line so that the days subject to proration will fall within the start and end date range of the pay period; otherwise the results may not suit your intentions.

• If, during timecard entry, you enter data that would result in hours being prorated among days that are beyond the timecard’s Period End Date field, you will see a warning that says "The combination of the Date and Days worked results in daily entries that go beyond the Period End Date of this timecard." For example:

Suppose you enter on a non-reusable timecard:

• Period End Date = November 15
• Date on the detail line = November 13 
• Days Worked = 4

This implies that payroll should prorate the Hours field among 4 days — November 13, 14, 15, and 16. However, November 16 falls after the period end date of November 15.

Because payroll will not allocate any hours to the days beyond the period end date, Sage HRMS Payroll will allocate the November 16th hours to the last day (November 15).

If this does not suit your intentions, you can change the data on the timecard so that the hours will be allocated on the days before or on the period end date (for example, change the detail line’s date to November 12). Or, if this suits your intentions, you can close the warning and proceed.

After you run the Calculate Payroll function, print the Pre-Check Register to verify your results.

• If you enter a date for a detail line on the timecard that is earlier than the start date of the pay period, you will see a warning that says "The date entered falls outside the normal range for this employee's pay frequency." For example:

Suppose you enter on a non-reusable timecard:

• Period End Date = November 15
• Date on the detail line = November 7 
• Days Worked = 5

Assuming a weekly pay frequency, Payroll calculates the start date as November 9. The date on the detail line (November 7) is earlier than the calculated start date of November 9, so Payroll issues the warning.

Again, you can choose to proceed or change the data.

Reusable timecards. On a reusable timecard, you cannot enter a period end date, but the program determines the period end date during Calculate Payroll. If the days are found to be outside the start and end dates, then a warning is issued in the Payroll Processing Exceptions report, which you can print after the Calculate Payroll process completes. 

Published: May 17, 2017
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