Payroll processing takes in batches of payroll data and generates the final payroll for each employee in the pay run.
These batches of payroll data usually contain the earnings of the employees (additional deduction or benefit amounts or overrides for salaried employees can be included as well).
Additional deduction and benefit amounts are generated automatically during payroll processing.
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Make a batch of employee earnings
To get things moving, we will add the employee earnings by hand into a batch of payroll data and then move onto payroll processing.
Batches of payroll data can be created, modified, and removed from the payroll data entry window located at Canadian Payroll > Payroll Data Entry > Payroll Data Entry.
The payroll data entry cycle involves three stages:
Starting at the payroll data entry window a new batch needs to be created that will hold the payroll data.
The batch is setup from the batch setup window by entering a pay ending date and selecting one or more pay groups.
Finally, the payroll data of employees from the selected pay groups is entered from the batch data window.
From the payroll data entry window you can:
Add, modify, and remove patches of payroll data using
Insert,Modify, andDelete.
With a batch of payroll data selected from the list you can
Change the status of the batches by pressing
Set Status. You can either do this for individual batches, or multi-select.Change the Description, Pay Ending Date, and the selected Pay Groups of an incomplete batch by pressing
Details.View the total amounts for the earnings, deductions, and benefits in the batch by pressing
Totals.View any overrides in the batch by pressing
Overrides.Print a comprehensive report on the batch by pressing
Print.
We need to add a batch now that will hold that payroll data for our group of employees. We add a new batch by pressing Insert at the bottom of the payroll data entry window which opens the batch setup window.
From the batch setup window we enter a Description of the data in the batch, the Pay Ending Date of the pay period, and select the Pay Group of our employees.
The
Descriptionof a batch is optional, but entering one will help us quickly locate this batch again if we need to make any changes later.The
Pay Ending Datewe selected here corresponds to the last day of the pay period.We then select the pay group of our employees by moving the corresponding Pay Group into the
Selectedcolumn ofPay Groups.More than one Pay Group can be selected if they all have the same Pay Ending Date.
If the selected Pay Groups have a different Pay Ending Date than the one entered for the batch you will be prompted to update the batches' Pay Ending Date to the next closest Pay Group’s Pay Ending Date.
To finish creating the batch we press OK. The batch setup window will be replaced by the batch data window.
Entering the employee earnings into the batch
After creating the batch of payroll data, the batch data window will open. From this window the earnings can be inserted for the 5 employees in our small department.
To keep things simple, each employee will be paid 80 hours at their default pay-rate.
On the batch data window:
You can change between employees using the arrow buttons at the top or by selecting an employee from the dropdown.
You can add earnings, deductions, select employee overrides, and view totals from the corresponding tab.
For each of the 5 employees we are going to perform the following steps to add the 80 hours of regular pay to their earnings.
Select the employee using the controls at the top.
Insert earnings for 80 hours of regular pay for that employee.
From the batch data window we first need to select the employee to add payroll data for. Then we can add the earnings for that employee to the batch of payroll data from the earnings tab.
We add the earnings by pressing Insert at the bottom of the earnings tab which opens the insert earnings window.
From the insert earnings window new payroll earnings can be added, modified, or removed for the selected employee. There are many fields on this window but the ones we are interested in are the Date, Earning Code, and the Units and Rate fields. (It is alright to leave the other fields unfilled if they are unneeded.)
The
Datefield here should correspond to when the earnings occurred within the pay period. Because we entered a lump sum of 80 hours for the entire pay period, we have chosen to use the last day of the pay period.The
Earning Codeof Earnings code used here corresponds to the employees' normal rate-of-pay.The
UnitsandRatefields are used to enter the earnings for the employee. In this case the employee’s earnings are 80 hours at a rate of $25 an hour.The type of unit for the Unit field can be changed from the drop-down to the right. In this example we have left it at Hours, which is the default for this selected Earning Code.
The employee’s regular rate of pay can be overridden on the Rate field. By default, this field will be filled using the employee’s base rate for the selected Earning Code.
We save the earnings we have entered to the batch by pressing OK.
The insert earnings window will remain open after you press OK. The earnings are inserted but the window remains open to allow more earnings to be entered quickly. Just press Cancel to close the window whenever you have finished entering earnings for an employee. |
- From which tab can you add earnings to the batch?
Earnings are added from the
Earningstab.- What happens when you press OK on the insert earnings window?
The earnings are inserted into the batch but the window remains open to allow further earnings to be quickly entered.
- How could you pay any employee $2000 dollars for a single pay period?
The easiest way to do this is to enter $2000 a period of earnings for the employee.
Change the type of unit to
Periodsand enter 1 into theUnitsfieldEnter $2000 into the
Ratefield.
Confirm the batch data is correct
Once you have entered all the payroll data into a batch it is a good idea to verify that the data is all correct. The easier way to do this is to print the batch as a report. Viewing the data in a new form like this tends to let you catch mistakes you may have missed while entering data.
We will need to return to the payroll data entry window to print the batch.
Press
Printto open the print batch window.From the print batch window:
The batches to include in the final report can be selected,
The ordering can be changed from employee number to employee name,
The printer options can be controlled.
Press
Print Previewto open the report as a PDF file (orPrintto send it to the selected printer).
The payroll data listing report that we see for the batch might look like the one below. You can see a listing of each employee:
Under each employee is listed the payroll data that is included in the batch: the code, how many units, and the rate of pay are all listed.
To the right, each employee’s amounts are totaled.
A grand total of all the employees is included at the bottom of the listing.
In this example we see that the employee Mell Nicholson has earnings for code 001 for 80 hours at $26 an hour. The total earnings for Mell are shown at $2080 (with a total of 80 hours). At the very bottom we see that the total earnings in the batch for all employees are $9680 (with a total of 400 hours).
Complete the payroll data batch
The status of the batch of payroll data we created for our group of employees is Incomplete and we need to change the status to Complete before it will be processed with payroll.
From the payroll data entry window:
Select the batch then press
Set Status.When prompted if the batch is complete press
Yes. This will change the status of the batch toComplete.
Once a batch is completed it will be available for payroll processing.
You cannot make changes to completed batches. The status of the batch must be changed back to incomplete. You can change the status to incomplete by pressing |
Continue on to Payroll Processing
In Part II of this series of articles we will cover the payroll process from start to finish: