Including Prior Period Timesheets in Pay Batches

Description

Pay groups can now be configured so that late timesheets for prior pay periods can be included when processing a pay batch for the pay group in the current (open) pay period.

If a pay group is configured in this way, when a normal (non-adjustment) pay batch is created for the pay group for the current period, the pay batch will include unpaid timesheets that have a pay period end date that falls on or before the current pay period end date rather than including only those timesheets that belong to the current pay period only.

Similarly, if an adjustment pay batch is processed any unpaid timesheets that have an end date that falls on or before the adjustment period end date will also be included and paid in the adjustment pay batch rather than just those timesheets that belong to the adjustment period.

Where a pay group has been configured that Prior Period Timesheets Included is unchecked and if a contractor has payment terms, it is usual that the payment terms due date will be later than the current period end date or normal pay date (for the United Kingdom). Therefore, the timesheet will always appear in an adjustment pay batch.

Including timesheets belonging to multiple pay periods in a single pay batch has implications on tax, deductions, leave payments and payslips. For more information, see Including Prior Period Timesheets in Current Period.

To identify if prior period timesheets are included in a pay batch and the periods to which those timesheets belong, several enhancements have been made to the Pay Batch Wizard that is used to step through each stage of the pay batch process.

The following new fields have been added to the header of the Pay Batch Wizard:

Prior Period Timesheets Included - displays Yes if the corresponding pay group is configured to include prior period timesheets in the current period, irrespective of whether there are any prior period timesheets in the pay batch. This field displays No if the pay group for the pay batch is not configured to pay current period and prior period timesheets together.

Batch Period Range - displays the entire date range for which timesheets are included in the pay batch. For example, if the current pay period is 24/01/2022 - 30/01/2022 but there are prior period timesheets included from the period 17/01/2022 - 23/01/2022 then this field displays 17/01/2022 - 30/01/2022 (i.e. start date of earliest period - end date of current period). Alternatively, if there are no prior period timesheets in the pay batch, this field displays N/A.

These new fields are highlighted in the example below.

A column labelled Prior Period TS has been added to the payee list on the Pay Batch Wizard screen to allow you to identify which payees in a pay batch have prior period timesheets in the pay batch. The Prior Period TS column displays Yes if the corresponding payee has one or more prior period timesheets in the pay batch. An example of this is shown below.

A new column labelled Worked Period has been added to the Pay Batch Item section in the Payee Pay Details screen, which is displayed when you view an individual payee’s pay details in a pay batch. The Worked Period column displays the period to which each of the payee’s pay items corresponds and therefore allows you to identify if the pay item corresponds to the current period or if a pay item is from a prior period timesheet. An example of the Worked Period column is shown below.

The Worked Period column has also been added to the Pay Batch Item section on the Payroll > Pay Process > Pay Enquiry > Pay Batch Summary screen for closed pay batches, as highlighted in the example below.

When you create an adjustment pay batch the Payroll > Pay Process > Pay Batch > Create Batch screen lists the number of timesheets that are available to be paid for each respective adjustment period that is available for pay group that you select.

The timesheet count shown for each adjustment period on the Create Batch screen is inclusive of timesheets that correspond to each respective adjustment period. The timesheet count does not include timesheets that correspond to prior periods but will be included in an adjustment batch due to the Prior Period Timesheets Included setting being enable for the pay group.

Benefits

This enhancement allows late timesheets to be paid without the need to process separate adjustment pay batches and therefore this reduces the overall number of pay batches that have to be run to process payees' pay.

Configuration

To enable the ability to include timesheets for prior periods in pay batches, a new field labelled Include Prior Period Timesheets in Current Period option must be ticked on the Payroll > Maintenance > Pay Group > Pay Group Entry screen, as highlighted below.