Salary advance in same payperiod with out-of-cycle pay stub

General support regarding TimeTrex, such as
configuring policies/taxes or processing payroll.
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gregory
Posts: 102
Joined: Fri Oct 28, 2011 3:39 pm

Salary advance in same payperiod with out-of-cycle pay stub

Post by gregory »

Was excited about having multiple pay stubs in a single pay period for a given employee with end of year bonuses, etc. coming up.

Our employees receive a monthly wage plus overtime. Halfway through the month we pay employees a fixed amount without any deductions that is approx half the monthly pay. We would like to issue a paystub for this payment. Is there a way to automate this? We can automate the end of month deduction of the advance through Taxes/Deductions so that the final paystub shows the correct net amount paid on that day. Not sure how to automate the out of cycle pay stubs as they are the same amount every month for each employee.

Thanks,

Gregory
shaunw
Posts: 7839
Joined: Tue Sep 19, 2006 2:22 pm

Re: Salary advance in same payperiod with out-of-cycle pay s

Post by shaunw »

Out-of-cycle pay stubs aren't really designed to be "automated", as by definition they should be one-off corrections or bonuses that are mostly manually entered. You could create pay stub amendments for the amount that you advance each month and create out-of-cycle pay stubs that just use those, but you would have to manually create those pay stub amendments or import them each month.

Another possibility, though it would essentially prevent you from using the out-of-cycle pay stubs for what they are designed for, each Tax/Deduction record (under the "Eligibility" tab) has a setting to define what payroll run type they apply to. So if you changed all your existing Tax/Deductions to apply to just "Normal (In Cycle)" payroll runs, then create a new Tax/Deduction that handles your Advance amount and only applied it to "Bonus/Correction (Out-of-Cycle)" payroll run types. Now anytime you generate out-of-cycle pay stubs no tax/deductions will be calculated on them and the advance amount will be included on them (even if you are doing a real correction run and don't want it to be included), but it won't be included on regular payroll runs.
gregory
Posts: 102
Joined: Fri Oct 28, 2011 3:39 pm

Re: Salary advance in same payperiod with out-of-cycle pay s

Post by gregory »

Tried using out-of-cycle pay stub for en ex employee to account for bonus, loan remainder, etc.

I select new paystub, Status:open or Paid (makes no difference), Type: Bonus/Correction(out-of-cycle), Pay period: an open one 4/1-4/30/2016, Payroll run:1, Pay start Date: 4/1, Pay End Date: 4/30 or 4/15 (no difference), Payment date: 4/15 or 4/1 (no difference).

add items with amounts using the + button to earning and miscellaneous.

The save button ungreys, but clicking it does nothing and provides no message. When click Cancel get message have modified data without saving.

What is needed to enable the apparently enabled Save button?

Thanks,

Gregory
shaunw
Posts: 7839
Joined: Tue Sep 19, 2006 2:22 pm

Re: Salary advance in same payperiod with out-of-cycle pay s

Post by shaunw »

Are you able to replicate the issue on our public demonstration server?
http://demo.timetrex.com/interface/html ... sword=demo
gregory
Posts: 102
Joined: Fri Oct 28, 2011 3:39 pm

Re: Salary advance in same payperiod with out-of-cycle pay s

Post by gregory »

On the demo version I get something strange but not the same.

Create new employee, assign to pay period schedule, etc.

Create pay stub select current (& open) pay period, add miscellaneous pay stub item and amount press +. Get pop-up message in red about no hours for employee ... Save button is NOT enabled

Add regular time $0.01 save button IS enabled (here is where differs from our onsite install). Press Save and get pay stub, but it ONLY shows the $0.01. The amount entered under the miscellaneous pay stub account is not there and cannot be added through edit screen. On our install Save is enabled but does not do anything.

We want to use out of cycle pay stub for advance so it would not have any earning, deduction, etc. Do not see how to do it.

Thanks
shaunw
Posts: 7839
Joined: Tue Sep 19, 2006 2:22 pm

Re: Salary advance in same payperiod with out-of-cycle pay s

Post by shaunw »

Pay Stubs must have some earnings, otherwise they are considered invalid.
gregory
Posts: 102
Joined: Fri Oct 28, 2011 3:39 pm

Re: Salary advance in same payperiod with out-of-cycle pay s

Post by gregory »

What is the correct way to document an advance given say on the 3rd of a month and deducted from the amount paid on the 31st of the month when payroll is run?

It would appear to me, that you do an out-of-cycle paystub to a paystub account for advance (which is not an earning) with a positive amount and at the end of month do a pay stub adjustment of to the same paystub account with a negative amount so the MTD and YTD is netted to $0.

Is there a better way?

Thanks
shaunw
Posts: 7839
Joined: Tue Sep 19, 2006 2:22 pm

Re: Salary advance in same payperiod with out-of-cycle pay s

Post by shaunw »

Advances are really just mini-loans, so there are several ways to handle that situation, one way is to simply just document the advance in TimeTrex at the end of the month as a deduction from their full pay stub, so they don't get paid it twice of course.

The more involved way is what you are doing, where you create an out-of-cycle pay stub where you would have to show the advance as an earning, then deduct it from the pay stub at the end of the month with a pay stub amendment.

You won't want to use positive and negative amounts, since that won't get the desired outcome. The "real" pay stub at the end of each month should look similar to this:

Earnings:
..Regular Time: $1000

Deductions:
..Advance Paid (on 15th of Month): $400
..Income Taxes: $100

Net Pay: $500

If you did create an Advance pay stub on the 15th of the month, it would just look like this:

Earnings:
..Advance: $400

Net Pay: $400


The "real" pay stub at the end of the month must have the full earning amount of course so taxes can be calculated on it properly, then the amount of the advance is just deducted from that so its not paid twice.
gregory
Posts: 102
Joined: Fri Oct 28, 2011 3:39 pm

Re: Salary advance in same payperiod with out-of-cycle pay s

Post by gregory »

In earlier versions the concern was that the advance and the deduction were not on the same line, in fact were in different sections of the pay stub already. So the YTD which in really nets to 0 showed non-zero amounts. In places where there is severance pay this is undesirable as the total gross is higher than real amount which can have consequences.

If our way doesn't work and calling it earnings is not desired, is there a third way?

Seems kind of arbitrary to limit out-of-cycle pay stubs. What is benefit of requiring an earning? I guess we could pay $0.01 if we can get the miscellaneous to appear.

Thanks,

Gregory
shaunw
Posts: 7839
Joined: Tue Sep 19, 2006 2:22 pm

Re: Salary advance in same payperiod with out-of-cycle pay s

Post by shaunw »

If you want TimeTrex to generate checks or direct deposit files for you, those are only based on the "Net Pay" amount, hence the reason why earnings need to exist in a pay stub.
gregory
Posts: 102
Joined: Fri Oct 28, 2011 3:39 pm

Re: Salary advance in same payperiod with out-of-cycle pay s

Post by gregory »

I must be missing something on the use of out-of-cycle paystubs which seemed like a great idea, but in practice have so many arbitrary limitations. Still doing testing on what we need to do (country requires monthly pay rates, but that salary be paid on the 15th and 30th of each month). Created out-of-cycle pay stub with regular earnings (about 1/2 of monthly salary) for the 15th. When I try running Normal pay stub for employee it fails saying paystub already exists. Tried changing payroll run value, but no luck.

I would think whenever there is an out of cycle paystub, there will automatically be more than 1 paystub per pay period, but have not been able to generate more than 1 despite different ways of entering the out of cycle one.

Thanks
shaunw
Posts: 7839
Joined: Tue Sep 19, 2006 2:22 pm

Re: Salary advance in same payperiod with out-of-cycle pay s

Post by shaunw »

Did you set the out-of-cycle pay stubs Status to PAID before generating any other pay stub? While TimeTrex does support multiple payroll runs in a single pay period, it won't start a new payroll run unless all pay stubs in the prior run have been marked as paid.

A payroll run can be thought of as a "batch" or mini-pay period, you must start and complete each batch on their own before moving on to the next batch.
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