Using the Pay Wizard (Payroll NZ)

The Pay Wizard is a series of screens that guides you through the pay batch process, from creating a new pay batch to closing that pay batch.

An example of the Pay Batch Wizard is shown below.

Open

As highlighted in the example above, the Pay Wizard screens consist of four main sections; the Batch Details section, the Search fields, the Payee List section and the Batch Totals.

The Batch Details section displays details that identify the batch, such as a unique system-defined batch number and the pay group and date range of the pay period for which the batch has been created.

The Search fields allows you to search for specific payees within the batch. For more information, see Searching For Data below.

The Payee List section lists the payees that are included in the batch. Details are displayed about each payee, such as the payee number, first name and surname and pay quantities. You can double-click any payee that is listed to display the Payee Pay Details screen, which shows detailed information about the pay details of the selected payee at each stage of the pay batch process that has been completed.

The Batch Totals show a summary of the overall pay figures for all payees in the pay batch, such as total taxable wages, total gross and net deductions and total reimbursements.

When processing a pay batch, you can navigate away from the Pay Wizard screen at any time and the batch will be saved at its current stage.

When you are ready to resume processing the batch, you can select the batch in the Payroll > Pay Process > Pay Run > Pay Batch List screen and re-open the Pay Wizard. The Pay Wizard will re-open the batch at the stage at which the process was stopped.

Searching for Data

To locate a specific payee within a batch so that you can view their pay details, use the Search fields in the table header.

Type any character(s) into a search field in a column and it will display only those rows that match the combination. For example, using the pay batch that contains First Names Frank, Peter, Jane, Hannah, when 't' is entered this returns the row that contains Peter. The search does not remove the payees from the pay batch. They are hidden until the entry in search bar is removed or you move to another stage.

Removing Payees from a Pay Batch

A payee, who is initially included in a pay batch, can be removed from the pay batch at any stage of the pay batch process prior to the batch being closed, thereby preventing the payee’s pay being processed in the batch if necessary.

To remove a payee from a pay batch, follow the procedure below.

How to Remove Payees from a Pay Batch
	On the Pay Wizard screen, click the checkbox next to the name of the payee to be removed from the pay batch so that a tick is displayed against the payee, as shown in the example below. Open If you want to remove multiple payees from the pay batch simultaneously, repeat this step for each payee who is to be removed.
2.	At the top of the Pay Wizard screen, click Remove Payees. A confirmation message opens, prompting you to confirm the removal of the selected payee(s) from the pay batch.
3.	To continue to remove the selected payee(s), click Delete. The confirmation message closes and the selected payee(s) are removed from the pay batch.

Moving Between Pay Batch Stages

To complete a pay batch you must progress the pay batch through each of the pay batch stages. You can do this one stage at a time or you can skip between pay batch stages.

Skipping pay batch stages allows you to omit pay batch stages that are not relevant to your payroll process or where you will not be making any manual adjustments.

For example, if you do not expect to be making any manual adjustments in a pay batch at all, you can skip directly from the Manual Items stage (first pay batch stage) to the Review stage (last pay batch stage). At the Review stage, you can then run reports to check the payroll data that has been processed in the batch and, if you then find that a manual adjustment does actually need to be made at a certain pay batch stage, you can skip back directly to the relevant stage, make the necessary adjustments, skip forward to the Review stage again and close the batch.

When you skip forward between pay batch stages, all stages in between are still calculated without the need to click through each stage.

The example below shows how you can progress a pay batch to the next stage or skip forward to another pay batch stage.

If you need to return to a prior pay batch stage, you can do so one stage at a time or you can skip back to a specific stage, as shown in the next example.

Viewing Pay Batch Reports

The Payroll module provides standard payroll reports that can be run at any time by payroll staff to check and reconcile payments that are made during the course of payrolling payees.

Standard payroll reports can also be run during the pay batch process to check the payment information that is processed at that pay batch stage. For example, at the Tax stage of the pay batch, you can run the Tax Withholding report to check the tax amounts that have been calculated in the pay batch. This helps you identify any potential adjustments that might be required before you proceed to the next stage of the pay batch. Once a report becomes available at a given pay batch stage, it remains available for each subsequent pay batch stage.

To run a payroll report during the pay batch process, click Report at the top of the Pay Wizard screen. The Pay Report screen will open in a separate web browser window tab, as shown below.

You can then select the relevant report that you want to run in the Report Name field, key or select any other filtering criteria and click Show Report to run the selected report.

See also: