Setup and Employee Payroll
Depending on the type of payroll you do, once you complete the Payroll setup steps, the system may have all the information it needs to calculate payroll. When you run Payroll Calculation, the system generates the earning/deduction and tax data needed for producing paychecks from the earning/deduction, tax, and employee records.
When you're ready to process payroll, you can use the Process Payroll map to guide you though the steps through to printing checks and direct deposit advices.
Timecards
You enter timecards for employees whenever processing payroll directly from employee records will not produce the desired result for the current pay period. Timecards allow you to enter specific information that the employee record does not generate, such as vacation, sick, or compensatory/banked time taken; units produced for a piece-rate earning; or unusual hours or shifts worked during a pay period. They also allow you to override data provided by the employee record, such as an employee's rate of pay or the amount deducted from a paycheck for a particular tax.
Data you can enter on a timecard includes any earning/deduction or tax that has already been assigned to an employee on the Pay tab or Taxes tab of the Employee Payroll window. The system processes timecards in conjunction with the information in the employee record. Suppose, for example, that an employee has been assigned earnings A, B, C, and D. If you override earning B on a timecard, the system processes earnings A, C, and D according to the information in the employee record and B according to the information entered on the timecard.
General Ledger Account Distribution
When you make a timecard entry, the system defaults the account numbers you associated with the employee earning/deduction via the distribution code. If you use cost center overrides, the system replaces segments of the distribution accounts with the employee earning/deduction-specific segment codes you entered on the Pay tab of the Employee Payroll window. The system displays the resulting accounts in the Timecard earning/deduction field.
The Timecards window provides one last opportunity before processing to modify the G/L accounts to which payroll expenses and/or liabilities post. You can accept the G/L accounts displayed by the system or you can override them with any valid, active G/L account set up in your chart of accounts. To change the timecard accounts, you can either enter a new account in each account column or use the G/L Segments Override window to override particular segments of all the G/L accounts associated with a specific employee earning/deduction.
Calculate Payroll
The Calculate Payroll window takes the information in the employee record and the information on employee timecards for a range of dates (determined by the pay frequency of the employee and the pay period end date) and calculates the amounts to be included in or deducted from an employee's pay for the period.
When you run Calculate Payroll, you can select the employee pay frequencies to process and, within those pay frequencies, the earning/deduction frequencies to include. You calculate payroll for a range of employee numbers or for a selection list. (If you choose both of these, you will get a range of employee numbers within the selection list.) You can also calculate payroll based on ranges of employee class codes.
Print Payroll Checks
You can print payroll checks and check stubs after you enter timecards, calculate payroll, and make any needed corrections or alterations to the payroll you processed.
Before printing real checks, you can print one or more sample checks to test the alignment of check forms. After printing the actual paychecks, the system asks you to approve them. The system updates payroll totals with the results of payroll processing when you approve the printed paychecks. If you discover an error after printing paychecks but before approving them, you can manually void the printed checks, correct the errors, and recalculate payroll without having to adjust any payroll records.