Requirements - Payroll (PAY)

Overview

Manufacturing firms utilize the Payroll/labour distribution system to accomplish several objectives:

• Processing of regular hourly and salaried payrolls
• Payment of sales commissions
• Processing of bonus and incentive payrolls
• Maintenance of payroll and payroll tax information
• Distribution of labour expense to the GL and WIP subsidiary ledger.

Most payroll applications utilize a "master file" for accumulating payroll information for each employee and time card entries each period to generate payroll checks. Salaried employees should have their standard salary stored in their master file record so a check may be generated without additional entries. Hourly time card entries should include labour distribution information that may be available for both hourly and salaried employees.

Many manufacturing firms operate in several States/Countries; therefore, application software with multiplestate/country tax reporting capabilities may be required.

General

• Retain all detailed payroll information online for current calendar and fiscal year
• Support usermaintained tax tables
• Allow default pay codes and hours by pay types with individual override (time sheet not required to calculate pay)
• Designate employees are either "positive" (must submit a time card to get paid), or "exception" (submits a time care only to override default standard hours, pay type or job code)
• Create pay types for pay based on quantities other than hours (miles, piece goods, straight reimbursements, etc.)
• Accommodate the following deduction types:
• Required Country, Federal and State deductions
• City and State income tax withholdings; provisions should exist for "zero" tax withholdings (US)
• Voluntary deductions at a fixed or percentage amount each pay period
• Union dues, meals, loans, etc.
• Medical/dental insurance payments (National Insurance UK)
• Compute overtime premium and distribute the premium portion of the pay to separate GL accounts by cost center
• Compute the workers' compensation insurance premium based on employee class and gross wages (exclusive of overtime premium), and distribute the workers' compensation accrued to separate GL accounts by cost center

Time Collection and Entry

• Enter and edit time card data online or in batch
• Generate preprinted time cards for employees with default employee number, department, pay type and job code, and alpha sorted by department. Select on active employees that must submit a time card to get paid (positive)
• During entry, validate employee number and active status
• During entry, prefill key default employee fields, including hours, pay type, job code/rate and department with override
• Support userdefined reasonableness ranges for hours, quantities and pay types, that can be overridden by authorized individuals
• Enter time card data into current or future pay periods
• During entry, assign employee hours and expenses to work order, project code or account numbers
• Automatically assign time to a labour code or split among multiple labour codes with override during time input
• Allow multiple rates for an employee per pay period
• Allow multiple rates based on jobs worked
• Batch or online interface to an automated time collection system
• Remote data entry with full online access
• Enter pay and generate paychecks for inactive status employees (e.g. employees on leave, retired, furloughed, etc.)
• Process labour and attendance transactions for all employees
• Enter attendance data from realtime data collection devices
• Display all employee labour and attendance transactions online to be used in the balancing of employee payroll
• Compare an employee's attendance and labour distribution to ensure they are consistent. The system must produce an exception report identifying all employees whose attendance and labour distribution are not in balance, and provide a means for resolving such discrepancies so that labour distribution processing can be completed

Benefit Deductions and Contributions

• Enter status changes or deduction changes with future pay period effective date
• Track yeartodate withholdings against established Federal, state and local limits
• Deduct additional or fixed amounts of Country, state or local taxes from regular or special payroll
• Vary the tax rate based on deduction or pay type, (commissions, retirements plans, profit sharing distributions, etc.)
• Override any withholding or deduction amount for specific payroll run
• Automatically apply deductions in paycheck processing according to a userdefined schedule of timing
• Activate or deactivate specific deductions for any payroll cycle
• Accommodate different calendars for each pay group reflecting respective holiday schedules, etc. Also accommodate different holiday schedules for foreign locations (e.g., Canada, Mexico)
• Accrue and drop sick and vacation hours based on Companydefined parameters for multiple classes of employees
• Automatically compute employee benefits based on userdefined calculation parameters and criteria (e.g. shortterm disability, workers' compensation, longterm disability, etc.)
• Support an unlimited number and type of exemptions in payroll system
• Carry forward certain deductions which were not taken on current pay cycle (e.g., deductions eliminated to produce a positive net paycheck when deductions exceed gross pay)
• Prioritize benefits identifying the order in which deductions will be taken from an employee's gross pay (e.g. legal deductions taken first, health insurance second, savings third, etc.)

Payroll Calculation and Generation

• Process multiple companies and departments independently of each other (e.g., separate organization, subsidiary, office or executive payroll)
• Calculate payroll based on miscellaneous, weekly, biweekly, semimonthly and monthly pay periods
• Accommodate multiple pay schedules, shift differentials, premium hours, unit incentives, per diem, bonuses, advances against bonuses, etc.
• Compute pay based on hourly rate and hours worked, or salary rate and time in position, including applicable differentials
• Automatically adjust the pay of employees that begin, change or stop work within a pay period
• Accommodate employee pay from other sources (e.g., bonuses, ESOP) while not affecting tax liabilities or company payroll totals
• For manual checks, automatically calculate the appropriate withholding and deduction amounts online with override
• For manual checks, identify the number of pay periods for calculating taxes and deductions
• Generate standard, interim payrolls that include only specified employees (e.g., pay advances, commission checks)
• Update current and historical data when employees transfer from one area to another
• Prevent multiple paychecks per employee in the same payroll run
• Cancel paychecks and the reverse all calculations, benefit and tax deductions, history and accounting distributions
• Automatically project monthly cash requirement to cover payroll and tax amounts for all payroll types
• Accumulate gross pay in a single total amount for employees holding multiple positions or working in multiple departments in a single pay period
• Update salary data to reflect acrosstheboard adjustments (e.g., current, prospective and retroactive)
• Calculate gross pay amounts for both current period and retroactive prior periods
• Pay retroactively by percent of earnings, fixed dollar amount, variable dollar amount, or a combination of these. Also, retropay should be appropriately distributed, based on when the employee would normally have been paid
• Process both current and prior period adjustments as an integral part of the payroll cycle
• Identify all adjustments on a pay period discrete basis
• Process adjustments related to gross pay on a begindate/enddate basis
• Adjust vacation and sick leave balances automatically according to amount(s) used and accrued within pay period
• Compute and deduct a garnishment, child support amount, or levy, up to the percentage(s) allowable by law
• Automatically calculate workers' compensation accruals per month for each state
• Automatically convert part or all of vacation accrued to regular income at beginning of new fiscal year for specific population of employees, based on pay rate at time of conversion
• Maintain state earnings and tax payments as individual amounts for employees working in more than one state (up to 10 states) or residing in other than their work state
• Support multistate taxing of an employee within a pay period
• Compute and report taxes for Federal, state and other tax authorities and provide for change
• Separate marital status codes for state and Federal taxes
• Compute the employee contribution for health insurance deductions and test the deduction against any limits associated with specific health plans for both current and prior periods
• Calculate shift differential amounts based on actual hours actually worked
• Apply the basic Tax formula separately to components of the total of pay entries (e.g., leave balance should, on option, be paid to terminating employees in a single check, with multiple pay periods separately taxed to ensure the employee is not taxed at an inappropriate rate)
• Compute an employee's labour distribution based upon actual (for hourly employees) and scheduled (for salaried employees) hours, standard pay rates, and specific account number or work order number information collected or used by the labour distribution process
• Allocate to specific account numbers or work orders process/production labour which is initially pooled into a single collection account. The subsequent allocation to specific cost objectives shall be based upon predefined distribution formulas which may use contemporaneous data maintained in other applications, e.g., shop floor control
• Calculate and apply a specific account or work order number for each amount charged during the overhead application for direct-charging employees based upon the employees home organization, the applicable overhead rate (from an overhead rate table), and a predefined overhead application base (e.g., direct labour hours, direct labour dollars) for each labour distribution processing period

Paychecks and Payroll Distribution

• Support electronic payroll deposit to employee bank or other financial institution accounts that is accommodated by the Federal Reserve
• Support electronic payroll deposit (direct deposit) to one or more financial institutions for any portion of an employee's net pay
• Print paycheck numbers on preprinted check stock
• Automatically void alignment checks
• Print paychecks in userdefined sort order (e.g., by location, alphabetically by shift, alphabetically by department)
• Print multiple checks per employee for a pay period (e.g., regular payroll check, bonus check, advance pay)
• Print multiple pay periods for a single check (e.g., vacation and regular pay produced onto the same paycheck), with taxes and other deductions adjusted for multiple pay periods
• Print checks for a range of department numbers on a remote printer
• Generate one paycheck per employee for multiple rates, job codes and organizational entities
• Generate one paycheck per employee for pay covering multiple pay periods with correct tax and other deduction calculations
• For employees using direct deposit, generate paycheck stubs in a separate print run
• Print current and yeartodate earnings, deduction information and pay stub with Englishlike explanations
• Add specified message on all paycheck stubs in a payroll run
• Print vacation and sick time balances and accrual rates on paycheck stub
• Automatically generate GL distributions for all payroll transactions that include automated and manually generated payrolls, based on userdefined account designations
• Automatically allocate payroll distribution between accounting periods, with manual override, based on number of business days for payrolls that cover multiple accounting periods

Check Reconciliation and Adjustments

• Manually void or reconcile checks by entering the check number and the employee number
• Manually void or reconcile a series of checks
• Automatically reverse amounts, history and generate accounting adjustments for voided checks
• Reconcile or void paychecks online or in batch
• Automatically reconcile paychecks with a magnetic tape provided by a financial institution
• Automatically create prior period accounting adjustments, for payroll adjustments that effect payrolls in prior accounting periods
• Identify and report all gaps in the check sequence
• List of outstanding checks
• Online reconciliation of voided, canceled and returned checks
• Identify the discrepancies between the amount disbursed and the amount cleared

Reports

Employee Change Notification – Profile of changes made to employee information to be sent to the employee for notification

Time Transaction Batch Control – Lists employee time transactions by batch with subtotals and totals of all regular time, overtime, shift differentials, etc.

Payroll Adjustments – Lists all manual payroll adjustments

Payroll Register – Shows gross pay, net pay, commissions and deductions based on the payroll factors entered. Any voided checks or manual checks that are taken into account prior to the payroll calculations should be reflected

Current Earnings Register – On demand report, showing earnings total and by state for current period, showing details of all pay types (taxable and nontaxable) for all employees

Tax Liability Reports – Prints automated tax liability reports that reflect total withholdings and deductions by type. Should reflect employee and employer contributions by type

Year-to-Date Earnings Register – Printed in employee sequence, shows the monthtodate, quartertodate, prior quarter and yeartodate earnings and deductions for each active and inactive employees

Deduction Register – Showings the deductions for current and yeartodate for each employee printed in employee number sequence

Tax Deduction Register – Shows the taxes for the employees in all of the tax withholding categories

Carry Forward Report – Shows deductions taken (not to include taxes) as a result of carry forward or other activity (e.g., garnishment of wages) and the balance due, by employee

Accrued Leave Register – Shows available vacation and sick leave and holiday hours by employee, including hours taken current period and yeartodate

Provides for "Excess Overtime Flag" report based on userdefined criteria

Forms

• Pay Slips
• Tax Statements
• 1099 (US)
• State Wage and Tax Statement (US)

Inquires

• By Employee:
• Non-regular time
• Benefits and tax data
• Employee earnings summary
• Salary expense by period analysis
• Allow all elements of employee master file to be displayed on line by employee
• Inquire and void a check

Interfaces

• Accounts Payable – Posts summary vouchers to benefit vendors for taxes, benefit plans and deductions
• GL – Posts summary distribution of wages payable and tax and benefit withholding accruals
• Benefits Administration – Receives changes in individual employee benefits and premiums based on changes in selection, eligibility and plan costs
• Benefits Administration- Posts employee and employer premium payments
• Personnel (HR) – Posts wages earned for all active employees during the calendar year
• Personnel (HR) – Receives payrelated data (name, address, positions, status, pay type, frequency, benefits, deductions, etc.)
• Position Control – Receives valid position data and salary ranges
• Position Control – Posts labour expenditures for reconciliation of position and encumbrance data (title changes, hires, salary changes, terminations, actual FTE, etc.)
• Time Collection – Receives employee time card detail, including employee number, hours worked, pay type, work order number, department number, location and cost center
• Order Entry/Accounts Receivable – Receives sales representative commission information
• Bank Reconciliation – Receives automated upload of bank reconciliation check information from the bank system

Key Fields

• Benefits/Deductions Data (from the Benefits Administration system)
• Employment Data (from Personnel Data system)
• Position Data (from Position Control system)
• Payroll Data (from the Payroll system)
• Pay differentials
• Overtime eligibility
• Vacation and sick leave accrual
• Benefits
• Deductions
• Pay frequency (weekly, biweekly, etc..)
• Pay Type (hourly, salary, etc.)
• Work State (US)
• Resident State (US)
• W4 Data (US)
• Pay rate (hourly and annual)
• Direct Deposit Account
• Pay Codes
• Regular
• Pay advance
• Shift pay
• Awards
• Jury duty
• Bereavement pay
• Retroactive pay
• Bonus
• Other expenses
• Nontaxable moving expense
• Taxable moving expense
• Educational refund
• Deferred compensation
• ESOP (employee stock ownership plan) base
• Language pay
• Director's fees
• Group insurance
• Sick leave
• Vacation
• Holiday
• Pay Adjustments
• Pay advance recovery
• Guaranteed net
• Tax assessment
• Garnishment
• Alimony
• Child Support
• Wage assignment
• Accumulation Data (Current, MTD, QTD, YTD)
• IT Income Tax (employee's and employer's portion)
• Insurance Contributions (employee's and employer's portion)
• SDI/SUI Unemployment and Disability Insurance
• Workers Compensation
• Gross Wages
• Actual hours by pay type
• Vacation and sick leave (current accrual and YTD balances only)
• Individual benefits and deductions (current accrual and YTD balances only)
• Taxable wages
• Exempt wages
• Paycheck Disbursements types
• Electronic funds transfer (EFT)
• Composite check
• Mail to home address
• Hand delivery