Batches contain manual adjustments to the earnings and deductions for employees that will be included during pay run processing. Batches are used to add hours to an employee payroll, pay a bonus, or correct payroll errors.
The life cycle of a batch starts when the batch is created, then earnings or deductions are added, and ends with updating the batch status before running a pay run. Once a batch has been processed with a pay-run it will be removed automatically.
Setup a New Batch
The steps to create & setup a batch:
Open Canadian Payroll > Payroll Data Entry > Payroll Data Entry.
Create a new payroll data batch by pressing Insert.
Tip:Insert a batch quickly by pressingCtrl→Inserton the keyboard.After pressing Insert a form will open where the batch can be setup:
Enter the batch Description.
Tip:Providing the reason the batch was created might be a good idea.Select the Pay Ending Date of the batch pay-period.
Select the Pay Groups to process with this batch.
Notes:Pay Groups must have matching pay-period pay-ending dates to be selected in the same batch.
When a Pay Group is selected the Pay Ending Date will be changed to the nearest pay-period pay-ending-date for that Pay Group.
Create the Payroll Data batch by pressing
OKnow.
The batch will be added to the list of batches in Payroll Data Entry, and the batch will open automatically in a new window.
Payroll Data Entry: Adding a Bonus Payment
Any non-regular or infrequent payment can be considered a bonus payment—performance bonus, profit sharing bonus, long service award, vacation payout without time taken, to name a few.
Keep in mind that a bonus will increase taxable income for the period when it is paid. This will affect the amount of taxes taken off the employee paycheck and if not correctly taxed may create a tax burden for the employee receiving the bonus. It is recommended to use the Bonus Tax Method for bonus payments because the resulting tax deduction is more accurate.
The Bonus tax method calculates tax on total annual earnings twice, once with and once without the bonus payment, then uses the difference of these two amounts as the bonus tax. This is a more accurate tax calculation than if the bonus was paid as regular earnings of an employee and taxed using the regular tax method (period basis).
Adding Bonus Pay
One employee has been really great and you want to pay them a bonus in the upcoming pay-period with their normal payroll. Because this is a one-off payment, the bonus will be added to the employee earnings for the pay-period using a batch in Payroll Data Entry.
Select the employee from the Employee drop-down.
Open the Earnings tab and insert a new earning for the bonus.
TipEarnings are inserted by pressing Insert at the bottom of the Earnings tab.
Now, enter the earning data:
Select the bonus Earning Code.
Add the $5000 bonus by selecting Amount from the Units drop-down then entering 5000.00 in the Rate field.
Close the earning form and insert the earning into the batch by pressing OK.
NoteAfter pressing
OKa new earnings form will open. (This enables multiple earnings to be entered in quick succession.)Press
Cancelon the new form to stop entering earning data and return to the batch.
Close the batch by pressing Exit.
With the bonus earnings for the employee inserted into the batch, you are now ready to complete and process the batch.
Changing Batch Status
Once you've finished adding the batch status controls access to the batch data, and only batches which have a status of Complete will be included when processing a pay run.
Batch status The batch status can be changed between Complete and Incomplete at any time, up until processing a pay run when the status will change to In Process.
|
Update the status of a batch by selecting the batches you wish to change the status of and press
Set Status.ShortcutPress
Son the keyboard to quickly set the status of selected batches.Press
Yesfrom the confirmation pop-up to change the batch status toComplete.
Processing a Bonus
Processing a pay-run with a bonus is similar to a normal pay-run and the same procedures should be followed.
When processing a pay-run there are some additional checks that can be performed to ensure that the bonus was calculated and taxed correctly:
Review the estimated annual income for the bonus tax from the progress listing.
(If the amount is incorrect, it can be overridden from the employee profile tax-factors tab.
Review the bonus tax calculation by enabling “Show Tax Factors”. A detailed listing of the variables and values used during the calculation will be output to the progress listing.
Troubleshooting
When processing a pay run, no estimated annual earnings are displayed.
The progress listing can be scrolled to view previous messages.
Is Suppress “Annual Income” message during processing enabled?
Was the batch excluded while processing the pay run?
Is the Earning Code on the bonus earning using the Bonus tax method?
When reviewing the Payroll Register there is too much tax taken from payroll with bonus.
Is the Earning Code on the bonus earning using the Bonus tax method?
Is the correct estimated annual income amount used when processing the pay-run?