Timecards Field List

To find an existing timecard, use the navigation buttons or the Finder in this field.

You enter the employee number of the employee for whom you want to enter or modify a timecard.

Click to select the employee from the Finder. The Finder lists only the employees who are assigned to the user ID that you used to open the company.

For a new timecard, you can enter a number to identify the timecard. To recall an existing timecard for reusing, modifying, or deleting, enter the timecard number or click to select it from the Finder, and enter the Employee number.

Select the Reuse Timecard check box if you want to save the timecard for use in subsequent payroll calculations for the employee. If you choose to reuse the timecard, when you print and approve paychecks the system clears earnings dates indicators but retains all other information.

Enter the end date of the pay period covered by the timecard. Learn more About Pay Period End Date options.

This is a description or name of up to 15 characters for the timecard. The description is printed on timecard listings and you can display it with the timecard number in Finder lists of timecards.

You can enter the number of times during the pay period the employee was late to work, to update the employee's life-to-date number of times late.

To include the timecard in payroll calculation, select the Active check box.

This option lets you produce a separate check for the earnings/deductions entered on the timecard, in addition to any paycheck normally calculated for the employee.

If you select this option, then during Calculate Payroll:

• Payroll will produce a check that consists of pay calculated only for the earnings/deductions (and any taxes they are subject to) entered on the timecard, using the timecard information.
• In addition, Payroll will produce another check based on the information of any eligible earnings/deductions (and taxes) from the employee record, and from any other timecards for which the option is turned off.

If you do not select this option, Payroll will produce a single check that consists of pay calculated from the timecard, the employee record, and any other timecards for which the option is also turned off.

As an example, suppose an employee had three timecards: one with “Print a Separate Check” selected, and two without it. When you run Calculate Payroll, the system produces two checks:

• The two timecards without “Print a Separate Check” would be used with the employee record to produce one check, and
• The timecard with “Print a Separate Check” would be used to produce another check.

For more details about “Print a Separate Check” and how timecards are processed, click this link.

Keep in mind that if you enter onto a separate-check timecard an earning/deduction that includes other earnings/deductions in its calculation base, and you do not enter the calculation base earnings/deductions onto the timecard, the system will not calculate an amount for the earning/deduction you did enter.

All applicable taxes are automatically calculated on the earnings/deductions on the timecard, unless you explicitly enter tax overrides. Employer liabilities are automatically calculated based on the earnings/deductions on the timecard.

The Print a Separate Check option is not compatible with the Regular Rate – Hourly overtime calculation. If the employee's overtime calculation is set to Regular Rate – Hourly, the system will change the overtime calculation method to Hourly Rate and report an exception to inform you that the overtime calculation method has changed.

If this happens, you can print the Pre-Check Register or use the CheckInquiry window to see if any overtime has occurred. If so, use the Overtime Override field to adjust the overtime hours and rate.

Select this option if you wish to override the automatic overtime calculations that payroll normally performs according to your setup options (as dictated by the Overtime Schedules you previously created and assigned to the earning/deduction).

Note that if you select the Overtime Override option on the timecard, Sage HRMS Payroll will clear and disable the Include In Regular Rate Calculation option that is available for specific earnings.

Learn more About Override Overtime Calculations.

Select the earnings/deductions for which you want to enter specific information for this payroll.

Suppose, for example, that an employee has five earnings/deductions to be processed in a pay period. Use one of them to enter the number of hours on a timecard. When you calculate payroll, the system will use the information from the timecard for the one earning/deduction you entered there and information from the employee record for the four earnings/deductions you did not override.

You must enter an earning/deduction assigned to the employee, or click the Finder then select a code from a list of earnings/deductions assigned to this employee.

When you enter an employee earning/deduction onto a timecard, the system draws information for the earning/deduction from the Pay tab of the Employee Payroll window. On the timecard, several fields display defaults, such as:

• Hours
• Rate/Amt/Pct
• G/L Distribution Code
• Regular Expense
• Liability
• Overtime Expense
• Shift Expense
• Advances Receivable
• WCC Group
• Workers' Compensation Code
• Work Classification Code

The G/L accounts displayed on the timecard are those associated with the G/L distribution code entered on the Employees Pay tab. You can override the default at any of these fields.

If the earning/deduction is an accrual, a drop-down menu displays under the Type column with the options for Accrual; choose whether to accrue for this pay period, and Payment; choose whether to pay out for this pay period.

You can enter a date for compensatory/banked time accruals, any accrual payments, and employee earnings that use the calculation methods Flat, Fixed, Hourly Rate, Piece Rate, and Sales Table.

The date is not a required field. For example, on a reusable timecard, you would not need a date on the detail line. However, on a non reusable timecard, entering a date is useful for audit trails, and provides the payroll program with the information required for more precise calculations.

When you enter earnings for an employee who has worked overtime during the pay period, it is highly recommended that you enter a date for each earning entry. The system uses each entry’s date in conjunction with the entry’s Days Worked field, and the employee’s overtime schedule to determine which hours should be paid at overtime rates.

If you do not enter a date for an earning, the payroll program sets the Days Worked field to zero. When Days Worked is zero, the payroll program uses the number of days in the pay period instead, when evaluating if overtime has occurred. Depending upon the overtime schedules you use, omitting the Date field on a timecard may not result in the amount of overtime pay that’s expected for your employees.

The date you enter should fall within the range of the pay period start and end dates.

If the date you enter is earlier than the period start date, the payroll program displays a warning. If you process the timecard under this circumstance, the payroll program calculates regular pay for the detail line, but does not calculate overtime. Learn more about Entering Overtime on a Timecard.

If you are entering an employee compensatory/banked time accrual, any accrual payment, or an earning that uses the calculation method Flat, Fixed, Hourly Rate, Piece Rate Table, or Sales Commission Table, you can enter start and stop times for the hours earned by, paid to, or worked by the employee. The system interprets fractional times according to your response at the Enter Timecard Fractional Hours As field in Payroll Options (either minutes or hundredths of an hour). The hours worked represented by your entries in the Start Time and Stop Time fields display in the Hours field, where fractional entries are always expressed in hundredths of an hour. (You can override the number in the Hours field.)

If you change the entries you make in the Start Time and Stop Time fields, the system recalculates and updates the resulting hours in the Hours field. During payroll calculation, the system uses the entry in the Hours field and not the entries in the Start Time and Stop Time fields to calculate hours-based pay.

If you are entering an employee compensatory/banked time accrual, any accrual payment, or an earning that uses the calculation method Flat, Fixed, Hourly Rate, Piece Rate Table, or Sales Commission Table, you can enter start and stop times for the hours earned by, paid to, or worked by the employee. The system interprets fractional times according to your response at the Enter Timecard Fractional Hours As field in Payroll Options (either minutes or hundredths of an hour). The hours worked represented by your entries in the Start Time and Stop Time fields display in the Hours field, where fractional entries are always expressed in hundredths of an hour. (You can override the number in the Hours field.)

If you change the entries you make in the Start Time and Stop Time fields, the system recalculates and updates the resulting hours in the Hours field. During payroll calculation, the system uses the entry in the Hours field and not the entries in the Start Time and Stop Time fields to calculate hours-based pay.

You can enter the hours associated with any accrual that does not use the Percentage Of Base calculation method, an accrual payment, or an earning that uses the Hourly Rate, Flat, or Fixed calculation method. Because you can use the hours for Piece Rate or Sales Table earnings in the calculation base of another earning/deduction, the system allows you to enter hours for Piece Rate and Sales Table earnings as well.

In the absence of Start Time and Stop Time field entries, the system defaults the number of hours you entered for the earning/deduction in the Default Hours field on the Employees Pay tab of the Employee Payroll window.

Regardless of the hours you enter on a salaried employee's timecard, the employee's pay will never exceed the amount entered in the Rate/Amt/Pct field (that is, the salary). If you are adding advance vacation pay, or any kind of pay that is in addition to a salaried employee's normal wages, be sure that you include the additional amount the employee is to receive in the Rate/Amt/Pct field.

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, the payroll program 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, the payroll program 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 the payroll program should spread the hours. If the Days Worked is zero, the payroll program 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, the payroll program 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 the payroll program to interpret the field.

For example, suppose you entered a date and 8 hours for an earning detail line, and the payroll program 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.  

When you enter a Piece Rate or Sales Table earning/deduction on a timecard, at the Pieces/Sales/Base field, enter the number of pieces completed or the amount of sales during the pay period.

Except in the case of accruals, the amount or percent you enter in the Rate/Amt/Pct field on the timecard overrides the figure you entered for the earning/deduction in the Rate/Amount/Percent field on the Employees Pay tab of the Employee Payroll window. The amount or percent you enter is multiplied by the number of hours worked, the sales or wage base, the number of pieces, or any other unit dictated by the calculation method, to compute the total amount of the earning/deduction for the period.

In the case of accruals:

• If you have linked an Hourly Rate, Fixed or Flat earning to the vacation (or sick) accrual in the Earning And Deductions window, the program automatically enters in the Rate/Amt/Pct field, the dollar value of the vacation (or sick) time that you pay out.
• If you did not link an earning, you must manually enter in the Rate/Amt/Pct field, either the full dollar amount of vacation, sick, or banked time paid or the full dollar value of the Percentage Of Base vacation or sick time accrued.

Link Accrual Earning

This field appears only for vacation and sick accruals. To enable the program to automatically calculate the dollar value of vacation (or sick) time paid out in a timecard enter the earning that is associated with the vacation (or sick) accrual. The earning you enter must have an employee calculation method of Hourly Rate, Fixed, or Flat.

In order for the program to calculate the dollar value of the accrual payout:

• If you entered an Hourly earning in the Link Accrual Earning field, ensure that you have entered an hourly amount in the Rate/Amt/Pct field for that Hourly earning in the employee’s record.
• If you entered a Fixed or Flat earning in the Link Accrual Earning field, ensure that you have entered for that Fixed or Flat earning in the employee’s record:
• A fixed or flat amount in the Rate/Amt/Pct field, and
• The hours associated with that amount, in the Default Hours field.

For example, assume for a Vacation accrual, you enter a flat Salary earning in the Link Accrual Earning field. You then pay out eight hours of accrued vacation in an employee’s timecard. Assume the flat Salary earning is assigned to the employee’s record, with $1000 in the Rate/Amt/Pct field and 40 in the Default Hours field. The Payroll program will automatically calculate the dollar value each of the eight hours as $25 ($1000 / 40), for a total accrual payout value of $200.

In the example, if you did not enter the Salary earning in the Link Accrual Earning field, you would have to manually enter the dollar value of the eight hours ($200) in the Rate/Amt/Pct field of the timecard.

The system does not display an amount or percentage in the Rate/Amt/Pct field for piece rate or sales table earnings. If you accept the zeros in the field for these earning types, the system uses the appropriate amount or percentage from the piece rate or sales table you set up for the earning.

To override the piece rate or sales table for an entry, in the Rate/Amt/Pct field enter the amount or percentage to be used in the calculation of the earning. The rate or percentage you enter will be multiplied by the number of pieces or the sales base to arrive at the amount of the earning/deduction.

This field is only available for deductions that are setup with a Flat calculation method. Double-click the field to select Yes or No. If you select Yes:

• the rate defaults from the Employer Rate/Amt/Pct field on the Employee's Pay tab of the Employee Payroll window, and
• whether or not you override this rate/amount in the Employer Rate/Amt/Pct field , the value entered will act as the flat primary rate and will apply to the deduction.

You can edit the Deductions Flat primary and secondary rates in Setup > Payroll> Earning/Deduction Codes.

This field is only available for deductions that are setup with a Flat calculation method. Enter an Employer contribution rate or amount to override the default when applicable. The system will warn you if the Employer contribution Maximum has been reached or exceeded.

A timecard with Override Employer Rate/Amt/Pct set to No, and three segment detail rows, will distribute the rate as follows:

A timecard with Override Employer Rate/Amt/Pct set to Yes, and three segment detail rows, will distribute the rate as follows:

This field defaults to the G/L distribution code specified for the earning/deduction (or tax) in the employee's record.

The system defaults the Regular Expense account you associated with the employee earning/deduction via the distribution code. If you use cost center overrides, the system replaces G/L account segments with the employee earning/deduction-specific segment codes from the Pay tab of the Employee Payroll window. You can type over the account or you can open the Segments Override window to select a different override segment code.

The system defaults the Liability account you associated with the employee earning/deduction via the distribution code. If you use cost center overrides, the system replaces G/L account segments with the employee earning/deduction-specific segment codes from the Pay tab of the Employee Payroll window. You can type over the account or you can open the Segments Override window to select a different override segment code.

The system displays the Overtime Expense account you associated with the employee earning/deduction via the distribution code. If you use cost center overrides, the system replaces G/L account segments with the employee earning/deduction-specific segment codes from the Pay tab of the Employee Payroll window. You can type over the account or you can open the Segments Override window to select a different override segment code.

The system displays the Shift Expense account you associated with the employee earning/deduction via the distribution code. If you use cost center overrides, the system replaces G/L account segments with the employee earning/deduction-specific segment codes from the Pay tab of the Employee Payroll window. You can type over the account or you can open the Segments Override window to select a different override segment code.

the system defaults the Advances Receivable account you associated with the employee earning/deduction via the distribution code. If you use cost center overrides, the system replaces G/L account segments with the employee earning/deduction-specific segment codes from the Pay tab of the Employee Payroll window. You can type over the account or you can open the Segments Override window to select a different override segment code.

The workers' compensation group (policy) entered on the employee's record will automatically display for the earning/deduction on the timecard, but you can override it.

You can override the Workers' Compensation Code from the Employee Payroll window for earnings/deductions on the timecard.

You can override the overtime schedule from the Employee Payroll window for earnings/deductions based on hours worked on a timecard.

You can override the default shift schedule set at the Employee level for earnings/deductions based on hours worked on a timecard.

You can override the shift from the Employee Payroll window for earnings/deductions based on hours worked on a timecard.

For reported tips earned by Quebec employees, enter an amount in the Pooled Tips field that represents:

• Tips not based on tippable sales. An example would be tips received by a cloakroom attendant.

Notes: Tippable sales means the sales amount on which tips are collected.

• The net amount of tips paid to (and received from) other employees through a tip-sharing arrangement.

If you want to assign optional fields to this earning/deduction or tax, click the Use Optional Fields column to open the Optional Fields entry table. You must have already defined optional fields in Payroll Setup Optional Fields setup, as described in Optional Fields.

On the Optional Fields entry table, enter or change optional field information as you require.

• You can accept or change any default values that appear.
• To add a different optional field, press Insert on the keyboard, then use the Finder to select the code for the optional field you want to use. Note that you can select only optional fields that you set up previously for the earning/deduction or tax, using the Optional Fields setup window.
• If an optional field requires validation, you must enter a value that is specified for the optional field in Common Services. (If the optional field allows a blank, you can leave the field blank.) Otherwise, you can enter any combination of characters that is consistent with the type of field (text, amount, date, and so on).
• To delete an optional field, click it on the list, and press Delete on the keyboard.

When you are finished, click the Close button to return to the previous window.

You can specify the account for employer expense, if applicable.

You can specify the account for employer liability, if applicable.

The work classification code entered on the employee's record will automatically display for the earning/deduction on the timecard, but you can override it.

This field is available for specific earnings on the Employee Payroll window and the detailed timecard.

You can edit this field only if the employee's overtime calculation method (on the Pay tab of the Employee Payroll window) is one of the Regular Rate options, and if the earning is one of these types:

• Salary & Wages that uses an employee calculation method of Flat, Fixed, or Hourly Rate.
• Reported Tips.

Use this field to indicate whether or not this earning will be included in the Regular Rate overtime calculations.

The default selection for this field comes from the Earning/Deduction Codes. To change it for the employee, double-click the field on the table to switch between Yes and No.

After selecting the Overtime Override option, these two columns display in the detail table. You can edit these two fields only for an earning that uses an employee calculation method of fixed, flat or hourly rate.

Enter information in the table, or highlight the line in the table, press F9, and enter the information on the details window. In the OT (Overtime) Hours Override field, enter the number of overtime hours worked. In the OT (Overtime) Rate Override field, enter the overtime rate. Learn more About Override Overtime Calculations.

To override the taxes that would normally be calculated for an employee, click the Taxes tab. Enter the timecard tax overrides. You can enter any tax code and amounts (including 0.00) to override for the pay period the tax calculated by the system, including any extra withholding amounts.

To use a timecard entry to override the calculated withholding amount for the tax, enter the correct withholding amount.

If you want to assign optional fields to this earning/deduction or tax, click the Use Optional Fields column to open the Optional Fields entry table. You must have already defined optional fields in Payroll Setup Optional Fields setup, as described in Optional Fields.

On the Optional Fields entry table, enter or change optional field information as you require.

• You can accept or change any default values that appear.
• To add a different optional field, press Insert on the keyboard, then use the Finder to select the code for the optional field you want to use. Note that you can select only optional fields that you set up previously for the earning/deduction or tax, using the Optional Fields setup window.
• If an optional field requires validation, you must enter a value that is specified for the optional field in Common Services. (If the optional field allows a blank, you can leave the field blank.) Otherwise, you can enter any combination of characters that is consistent with the type of field (text, amount, date, and so on).
• To delete an optional field, click it on the list, and press Delete on the keyboard.

When you are finished, click the Close button to return to the previous window.

Use the Finder to select the optional field codes you want to use for each type.

You can define an unlimited number of optional fields for each type, providing the optional fields are set up in Payroll Setup Optional Fields for use in your system. When you select an optional field code the program displays the description for the optional field.

If you want to set a default value for the optional field, double-click in the Value Set column to change it to Yes.

The Yes flag in the Value Set field alerts the data entry clerk that a seemingly blank optional field actually has an entry. By looking at the Value field, you cannot tell whether it has a “blank” default value or no value at all.

Type the value, or use the Finder to select one.

• If the optional field you selected requires validation, you must select a value that is defined for the optional field. However, if the optional field allows blanks, you can leave the default value field blank.
• If you select a value, the description of the value will appear in the Value Description column.