Sage HRMS Payroll allows you to add or correct timecards after calculating payroll, and to run Calculate Payroll multiple times to correct errors you discover in a payroll run.
If you discover errors in your payroll data after calculating payroll, and you have not yet printed and approved paychecks, you can use the Timecards window to correct the errors and Calculate Payroll to reprocess employees. If the payroll errors arose from entering the wrong selection criteria on the Calculate Payroll window, you may need to run Calculate Payroll with the correct selections only.
Print and review the Pre-Check Payroll Register immediately after calculating payroll to catch any payroll mistakes as early as possible.
If you have not yet printed and approved paychecks for the pay period when you discover the errors, you can correct the data for the affected employees, recalculate payroll for those employees only, and merge the recalculated data with the current unposted activity. Alternatively, you can erase the existing activity for the period and recalculate payroll for all employees.
Correcting Payroll Data Tasks
Correcting Employee Information
You may need to recalculate payroll because of errors in your employees’ pay and tax information. If you discover this type of error after calculating payroll, you can correct the employee pay and tax information on the Employee Payroll window, and then recalculate payroll.
Adding and Correcting Timecards
If you determine that errors in your payroll data were caused by entering timecards incorrectly, you must first correct the timecard data before reprocessing your employees. The system retains timecard data for a pay period until you print and approve paychecks for the period.
Use the Timecards window to add or correct timecards.
For example, suppose that when you ran Calculate Payroll for the pay period, you forgot to record vacation time taken by the employee. As long as you have not printed and approved paychecks, you can re-enter Timecards, add the accrual payment to the employee’s timecard, and then recalculate payroll for this employee only, using Calculate Payroll Merge option (explained in the section about recalculating payroll, to follow), to correct the error in the unposted activity.
Recalculating Payroll
Be sure to correct employee records and timecard data, if necessary, before running Calculate Payroll to reprocess employees whose data contained errors.
When you attempt to calculate payroll using a pay period end date for which you have calculated payroll before, if you have not yet printed and approved the paychecks, the system displays a message informing you that unposted activity exists.The message offers three options to proceed:
Use Calculate Payroll Merge option to add or reprocess employees and merge the new payroll data with the original payroll data.
For example, suppose that when you ran Calculate Payroll for the pay period end date, you omitted an employee from the payroll run. You can reselect Calculate Payroll, select the correct frequency and employee, click the button, and then click when the dialog box shown above displays. The system merges the current payroll run containing the previously omitted employee with the existing payroll run.
When you recalculate an employee’s pay using the Merge option, Calculate Payroll replaces the employee’s data from the previous payroll calculation with the recalculated data. If no data exists for an employee from the previous payroll calculation (as in the example just given), the new payroll data is simply added to the unposted activity.
The system erases employee data for future pay period end dates too because recalculating an employee’s pay for a pay period can affect the tax calculations for any future payroll processing, when you select Merge, the system erases not only the current pay period run for an employee but any unposted payroll activity for the employee that uses a pay period end date later than the end date for which you are calculating payroll.
Use Calculate Payroll Erase option to delete unposted activity for the pay period end date and recalculate payroll for all employees who need to be paid in the pay period.
For example, suppose that when you ran Calculate Payroll for the pay period, you forgot to include earnings/deductions with a frequency of Weekly. You can run Calculate Payroll again, complete the window including the omitted earning/deduction frequency this time, choose the Process button, and then choose when the dialog box shown above displays. The system erases the previous activity for the period and calculates payroll correctly for the pay period.
The system erases employee data for future pay period end dates too. Because recalculating payroll for a pay period affects employee tax calculations for any future payroll processing, when you click , the system erases not only the current pay period run for all processed employees but all unposted payroll activity with a pay period end date later than the end date for which you are calculating payroll.
The button at the bottom of the Calculate Payroll window provides a quick way to delete from the system all unposted activity for any pay period.
Reprint the Pre-Check Payroll Register After recalculating payroll for any of your employees, regardless of whether you erase or merge with existing unposted activity, be sure to reprint the Pre-Check Payroll Register.