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About the Employee Payroll window

Setting up Employee Payroll

After you complete setting up earnings/deductions, taxes, and all other items you are ready to add your employees to the payroll program.

The process of adding and configuring employees uses all of the information you are required to set up, such as:

  • Overtime Schedules, Shift Differential Schedules, and Workers’ Compensation codes. You can assign schedules and codes to each employee.
  • You can assign a work classification code to each employee.
  • You can associate each employee with up to four class codes you set up in the Class Codes window and with employee specific segment codes for the G/L segment names you set up in G/L Integration.
  • You assign an overtime calculation method to each employee. You also define information about the employee’s pay frequency and the number of regular hours normally worked in that pay period.

    If the employee's pay frequency is Biweekly and overtime calculation is FLSA-Hourly, you can choose whether to calculate overtime on a weekly basis.

  • You assign to each employee the appropriate earnings/deductions and taxes you set up for your payroll company on the Earnings/Deductions and Taxes windows.

Linking all of these items to your employees provides the crucial network of information needed by Calculate Payroll when it is time to process payroll.

To set up or maintain employee payroll-specific records, use the Employee Payroll window in Employees > View/Edit Employee > Payroll tab > Employee Payroll.

The Employee Payroll window Includes

  • On both the Pay tab and the Taxes tab, you assign to the employee the pay factors (accruals, advances, benefits, deductions, earnings, expense reimbursements, and taxes) used in calculating the employee’s paycheck.

    The Pay tab and Taxes tab allow you to configure each earning/deduction or tax specifically for an individual employee.

  • The EFT tab allows you to enter the employee’s bank information to enable direct depositing of the employee’s paychecks.
  • Review the Employee Payroll Field List to learn more about the tabs and fields in this window.

Key Considerations for Employee Setup

Assigning Class Codes to Employees

During the setup process, you can use the Class Codes window to set up the codes that define up to four classes that you can use to sort or categorize employees. Then, on the Employee Payroll window, you can enter a class code for each employee for each of the classes you chose to define.

For example, assume you set up codes for British Columbia, Alberta, Ontario, Quebec, and Nova Scotia for Class 1, which represents the location of the home office in which an employee works. As you add each employee to the system, you can enter the code for one of the five provinces at the Class 1 field. Then, you can calculate payroll, sort paychecks, and print reports according to the home offices from which employees operate.

For example, assume you set up codes for California, Colorado, Ohio, Delaware, and Texas for Class 1, which represents the location of the home office in which an employee works. As you add each employee to the system, you can enter the code for one of the five states at the Class 1 field. Then, you can calculate payroll, sort paychecks, and print reports according to the home offices from which employees operate.

Overriding G/L Cost Center Accounts for Each Employee

If you had selected the Use Cost Center Overrides option on the Payroll G/L Integration setup window, and have set up the necessary cost center information, you can set up cost center override posting at the employee level (Cost Center tab) and at the earning/deduction level when you add employees (Pay tab).

Assigning an Overtime Calculation Method

For each employee, you select a method for calculating overtime. The payroll program automatically calculates overtime based on the overtime calculation method, overtime schedule and regular hours, specified on the Employee Payroll window.

You can override the automatic overtime calculation for an employee when you enter a timecard.

Click here for more information on overtime calculation.

Assigning Earnings/Deductions to Employees

Before you can assign an earning/deduction to an employee, you must set up the earning/deduction record itself in the Earnings and Deduction Codes window. The frequencies of the earnings/deductions you assign to an employee must be the same as, or less frequent than, the pay frequency of the employee.

The Employee Pay tab of the Employee Payroll window allows you to associate with each employee the earnings, deductions, and other pay factors used in payroll calculation.

In addition to entering each earning/deduction code, an employee or employer override amount or percent, and the distribution code for the G/L accounts to which employee amounts should post, you can also specify default hours for each Flat, Fixed, Hourly Rate, Piece Rate Table, or Sales Commission Table earning. By entering default hours for these earnings, you can process payroll for the employee without needing to enter timecards.

Other information you can tailor specifically for an employee includes the earning/deduction start and end dates and, in the case of an accrual, the carry over date.

You can turn an employee earning/deduction on and off by entering Yes or No at the Calculate? field. If you enter No, the system ignores the earning/deduction during payroll calculation.

You can also change the workers’ compensation group and code, which default from the Classes and Schedules tab of the Employee Payroll window.

If you are assigning a nontaxable advance and its associated repayment deduction to an employee, be sure to assign the advance first. When you add the repayment deduction, the system verifies that the advance it was designed to repay is already assigned to the employee.

Assigning Taxes to Employees

On the Taxes tab of the Employee Payroll window, you assign to each employee the taxes used in payroll calculation. In addition to entering each tax code, you also enter the distribution code for the G/L accounts to which tax amounts should post.

If you use cost center overrides and you have chosen to override segments of expense accounts only or expense and liability accounts, the system distributes tax amounts proportionately to the expense and/or liability cost center segments to which the employee’s taxable wages post.

On the Taxes tab of the Employee Payroll window, you assign to each employee the taxes used in payroll calculation. In addition to entering each tax code, you also enter a withholding method; an override amount or percent, if appropriate; any extra withholding for the tax; and the distribution code for the G/L accounts to which tax amounts should post.

If you use cost center overrides and you have chosen to override segments of expense accounts only or expense and liability accounts, the system distributes tax amounts proportionately to the expense and/or liability cost center segments to which the employee’s taxable wages post.

Assigning Optional Fields to Employees

On the Employee Payroll window, you can assign optional fields to an employee, an employee’s earnings/deductions, or an employee’s taxes, if you have defined employee optional fields on the Setup > Payroll > Optional Fields setup window.

Entering Employee Information for EFT (Direct Deposit)

On the Employee Payroll window, the EFT tab allows you to enter the employee’s bank information to enable direct depositing of the employee’s paychecks.