Advanced Payroll Troubleshooting Presented by Bronwyn Betts

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Advanced Payroll Troubleshooting When Basic Troubleshooting Isn’t Enough

Presentation Contents Here’s the game plan for today! 1 Job Costing the Payroll Burden and Job Costing Extra Burden General Ledger and Payroll Posting Dates Fixing Payroll Questions

Job Costing Payroll Earnings 1 Know where your earnings are pointed - Earn Codes. Review the “Non-Labor” Cost Class If blank, it is going to Cost Class “1 – Labor” Identify “”7 – Miscellaneous” 2 Understand that all earnings must be charged to Job Cost, regardless of G/L setups. (We’ll expand on this later.)

Job Costing Payroll Burden 1 Know the cost class your burdens are pointed to: FICA (employers portion only) FUTA SUTA Workers’ Compensation Union Fringes Employer Contributions (optional) Extra Burden (Optional)

Job Costing Payroll Burden 2 Cost class “6 – Burden” is default Calculated individually in P/R Job cost receives as a lump sum figure 3 Cost class for burden can be broken out. However… Understand that changing this affects the how you do job budgets It should only be changed before the first payroll in a quarter.

Job Costing Payroll Burden 4 Common burden issues occur because burden changes FUTA and SUTA have limits per employee. Burden will be higher at the beginning of the year. If you hire new employee, burden is higher. Because they are based on actual rates each week, you cannot tie to a specific burden rate. 5 Using the correction features can correct a job’s burden, but the corrections need to be done one week at a time. Using the history adjustment feature fixes specific burden missteps, but does not affect job costing.

Extra Burden 1 Can be defined as % and/or hourly rate. 3 Can be used for P/R reports only, for P/R & G/L, P/R & J/C, or P/R, G/L, & J/C 2 You can have multiple Extra Burdens defined 4 Set up and sequence set up in found in the Burden Control File (not P/R Control File)

General Ledger and Payroll 1 Payroll will never post if the G/L is not balanced. Compute errors will happen. 2 Accrued accounts are expected to use balance sheet accounts. Understand that if you choose to “credit” an expense account instead: It does not affect job costing It cannot be used if you have divisionalization set up on a G/L account. 3 Know your expense account hierarchy and use it wisely.

General Ledger Hierarchy in P/R Budgeted Cost Code 1 Rarely used, but if you add a cost code to a budget, the P/R expense account on the master is copied to the budgeted cost code. It can be changed. Master Cost Code 2 Not used often, but any G/L account defined in the P/R expense account will override the P/R department and the main maintenance account. P/R Department 3 Most commonly used, the P/R department defines the G/L account(s) to expense for earnings and burdens. If blank, any setup on the maintenance items will be used. Maintenance Item 4 All maintenance items require an expense account. But they are commonly changed based on the P/R department used on the timecard. This eliminates multiples of maintenance items for field, shop, admin, etc.

General Ledger and Payroll 4 Changing G/L setups frequently is ill advised. It is hard to research. Plan and set things up on a specific time frame, such has the beginning of a year, quarter, or month. 5 All G/L accounts that are expenses should be marked at the setup level to require job costing, even if they are indirect or G&A accounts. This affects Overhead Allocation correctly Over/under if matching up to G/L G/L by Job Report As stated before, regardless of the job distribution setting for the account, it will go to the job.

Posting Dates 1 When pay periods are determined, the post date (aka check date) is also determined. 2 Post date is when reports and taxes are affected. G/L for P/R is also posted on the check date but that can be changed in the P/R Control File. 3 P/R and P/R adjustments should always be consistent. (For example, if your weekly check date is Friday, everything should be posted on Fridays.) 4 Recommend that voids or adjustments be posted on an upcoming check date, not past.

Fixing Payroll 1 Researching needs to be done in small increments. 2 Determine what happened and if it is consistent. If it is consistently happening, is it a setup error or a user error. 3 Make large/impacting setup changes to take place on first P/R in a new month or quarter.

Questions?

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