Processing Payroll

This chapter provides an overview of payroll processing and discusses how to:

• Enter processing instructions.

• Create group lists.

• Create process streams.

Note. Although the focus of this chapter is on-cycle processing, most of the concepts and procedures discussed here also apply to off-cycle processing.

See Also

Viewing and Finalizing Payroll Results

Managing Off Cycle Processing

Running the Absence Entitlement and Take Processes

Understanding Payroll Processing

This section discusses:

• Processing features.

• Processing preparations.

• Processing sequence.

• Processing concepts.

• Status codes and process indicators.

Processing Features

Once you've finished setting up your payroll system, you're ready to run a payroll. Whether you're running the process for a regular payroll or for absence take or absence entitlement, the steps are the same. Your process list and calendar definitions determine who and what gets processed.

To take advantage of the Global Payroll processing capabilities, you need to understand how the system processes payroll and absence runs and what options are available. The next few sections discuss key processing features, preparations, steps for running the process, and status codes for monitoring processing.

Iterative Processing for Preliminary Pay Runs

Iterative processing enables you to process complex, preliminary pay runs quickly with minimal demands on system resources. You launch an Identify phase that flags each payee that meets the selection criteria for your pay run, then launch a Calculate phase that computes net income (or absence take or entitlement, as applicable) for all identified payees. After reviewing the results and making the necessary corrections, you rerun the Calculate phase for payees that have had changes since the last run.

Stream Processing

Stream processing is an optional feature that you can use to reduce processing time. You divide payees into subsets, based on their employee IDs, so that the system can perform calculations for multiple sets of payees at the same time.

Group Lists

Group lists are user-defined subsets of the payee population that are scheduled for processing. This feature enables payroll clerks to work concurrently with different sets of payees.

Troubleshooting Tools

When you run payroll or absence calculations, you can generate an element resolution chain that shows, by payee, how and in what order each element was resolved. This chain also shows how long it took to resolve each element on the process list. Significant system resources are needed to produce an element resolution chain, so we recommend that you use this feature for problem solving only.

See Also

Creating Process Streams

Creating Group Lists

Viewing an Element Resolution Chain

Processing Preparations

The following illustration shows the steps to prepare for payroll processing:

Payroll preparation steps

Here are the steps to prepare for payroll processing:

1. (Required) Create calendars.

   Calendars tell the system which pay group, run type, process list, and calendar period to process. You define pay groups, run types, and process lists during system implementation. You can define calendar periods during implementation or when you set up your calendars.

   Important! You should not edit fields on the Calendar Period, Calendar, or Calendar Group ID pages after you initiate processing (other than to add payees to the Calendar, if you selected the Listed Payees option). To make changes to those pages, you must cancel the pay run.

2. (Required) Create the calendar group ID.

   The calendar group ID identifies the set of calendars to run together and the sequence in which to process the calendars. If you want to use stream processing, you must indicate that when setting up the calendar group ID.

3. (Optional) Create streams.

   To use stream processing, identify the range of employee IDs for each stream. Stream set up is a one time process that may require the assistance of a database administrator.

4. (Optional) Create group lists.

   To use the group list feature, clerks who run the payroll process select the payees for each group list. (Group lists are linked to user IDs.)

5. (Optional) Enter positive input.

   You can enter positive input for the pay period before or after you begin processing. If you enter positive input after you run the Calculate phase, run Calculate again to pick up your changes.

See Also

Using Calendars

Working with Positive Input

Processing Sequence

The following illustration shows the payroll and absence processing steps:

Payroll and absence processing steps

Here are the steps for running a payroll run or an absence run (use the Payroll/Absence Run Control page for steps 1, 2, and 5):

1. Identify payees (Identify phase).

   The payroll cycle begins when you run a process that identifies all payees that are to be processed.

2. Perform calculations (Calculate phase).

   This phase computes each payee's gross and net earnings (for a payroll run) or absence take or entitlement units (for an absence run).

3. Review results.

   If the system encounters problems during the Calculate phase—for example, invalid element definitions or payee eligibility problems—it places the payee in error. You can use various pages to review summary results, errors, and warning messages.

4. Correct any errors and recalculate.

   To correct errors, you may need to update the Positive Input pages or make changes to the data in other applications that are integrated with Global Payroll, such as HR or Time and Labor. You can then run the Calculate phase again to process only the payees that need to be recalculated.

5. Finalize the run.

   When you're satisfied with the processing results, run the Finalize phase to close the calendar group ID.

Processing Concepts

This section explains in detail some of the steps in payroll and absence processing.

Identifying Payees

You begin a payroll or absence run by selecting the Identify phase on the Payroll/Absence Run Control page. The Identify phase loops through each calendar that is linked to the calendar group ID and finds all the payees that belong to the pay group that you identified when setting up the calendars. It then identifies the subset of payees that meet the Payee Selection Criteria on the calendars.

You run the Identify phase once per calendar group ID (or once for each stream, if you're using stream processing). Later, if you add new hires, remove terminated payees, enter positive input, or make other changes that affect payee eligibility, the system detects the changes by looking for iterative triggers when you run the Calculate phase. (You must define iterative triggers for the types of changes to the Job record that you want the system to detect.)

For example, after running the Identify phase, you add five new hires to the pay group. As each new hire is added, the system creates an iterate trigger. When you run the Calculate phase, the system sees the iterative triggers for the new hires and includes them in the population of payees to be processed.

A calendar group ID is considered open from the time that you launch the Identify phase until you run the Finalize phase.

Important! Payees can be linked to only one open calendar group ID at a time. For example, if you're finishing up the payroll for July and you have set up a separate calendar group ID for bonuses, you must finalize a payee's regular July payroll run before you can run his or her bonus calculation. This feature helps ensure that the accumulators are updated in the correct sequence.

Calculating Payees

Once you identify payees, you can perform gross-to-net pay calculations or absence take or entitlement calculations. The system calculates one payee at a time, calendar by calendar. If a calendar that is associated with a payee is segmented—meaning that the payee receives more than one net payment for the calendar—the system calculates the net amount for each segment before calculating the payee's net amount in the next calendar. After the system has calculated a payee's net pay across all calendars, it continues to the next payee.

Usually you run the Calculate phase several times for the same calendar group ID, first for the entire population of payees that you selected during the Identify phase and then for payees with changes or errors. With each iteration, you identify which payees you want to calculate by selecting one of these options:

• Calculate

  This is the Calculate option that you'll select most often. It instructs the system to identify all payees with iterative triggers, including new hires and transfers, payees placed in error during a previous calculation, and those for whom you've manually entered processing instructions using the process indicator.

• Recalculate All

  Occasionally, you might need to recalculate every payee that is associated with a calendar group ID, stream, or group list. The Recalculate All option instructs the system to delete existing calculations and calculate each payee again without identifying the payees; that is, without trying to determine whether each payee still meets the payee selection criteria.

Freezing and Unfreezing Calculations

If your organization is like most, you have a short window of time between the day that you start running the payroll process and your cutoff date. At some point, you might want to stop processing payees with iterative triggers (for example, those with salary adjustments) and concentrate on correcting errors so that you can finalize your payroll. To do this, you instruct the system to freeze calculations for the population that you specify. The Calculate phase ignores any subsequent online changes that you make to payees during the pay run and any positive input that you enter later for these payees. (The system keeps the triggers in case the payee is unfrozen later.) However, if you run the Recalculate All option after payees are frozen, the payees are recalculated.

You can freeze or unfreeze all payees that are in the current process stream, group list, or calendar group ID by selecting the Freeze option on the Payroll/Absence Run Control page or you can freeze selected payees on the Payee Status page.

To freeze calculations for a payee, the following conditions must be met:

• Each payment that is associated with the payee (for all segments of all calendars) must have a calculation status of Payment Calculated. If you freeze or unfreeze one segment for a payee, all of the payee's segments for the calendar group become frozen or unfrozen.

• The selection status cannot be Suspended by User, Suspended by System,or Cancelled.

Suspending Active Payees

When submitting processing instructions, you have the option to automatically suspend all active payees under certain circumstances so that you can process a special run, such as a one time bonus for a small group of payees. The Suspend Active option on the run control page controls this feature. For on-cycle processing, this option is available when you run the Identify or Calculate phase (including Recalculate All). For off-cycle processing, this option is selected automatically and cannot be changed.

When the Suspend Active option is activated, the system does the following when it processes each payee:

• Checks to see if the payee is associated with another open calendar group.

• When this condition is true, the system checks the payee's calculation status in that calendar group:

  • As long as the status is not frozen, the system suspends the payee from that run, so that the payee can be immediately identified and calculated in the new run.

  • If the calculation status is Frozen, the system suspends the payee in the new run that you're submitting.

See Also

Setting Up Triggers

Status Codes and Process Indicators

Status Codes and Process Indicators

Status codes and process indicators play an important role in payroll and absence processing. Status codes help you monitor and interpret the processing results; process indicators enable you to manually enter processing instructions for specific payees. This section focuses on how the codes are created and how to interpret them.

Status Codes

The system creates two sets of status codes as it identifies each payee for processing:

• One selection status code for each payee for each calendar, which it stores on the Process Stat (process status) record. During the first run of the Identify phase, each payee's selection status is set to Active or Inactive to explain why the payee was identified for processing. With each iteration of the Calculate phase, the system updates the status to explain why the payee was included in or excluded from processing.

  The system keeps a record of excluded payees only if they were suspended or canceled. If the payee simply no longer qualifies for selection (for example, the payee is assigned to a different pay group), the system does not record this, and the payee's process and status records are deleted.

• One calculation status code for each payee, per calendar segment, which is stored on the Segment Stat record. If a calendar has no period segmentation, a payee has one calculation status. Calculation status tells you the most recent action that has been completed for the segment, for example, identified, calculated, in error, or frozen. Before you run the Calculate phase for the first time, the status code for each identified payee is Identified.

This diagram shows how they system creates status codes when it identifies payees for processing.

Status codes created when payees are identified for processing

Process Indicators

Sometimes you might need to cancel a payee from a payroll or an absence run; temporarily suspend a payee from processing; freeze, unfreeze a payee; or take some other action at the payee level. You do this by entering a process indicator that tells the system what action to take during the next iteration of processing. For example, if the selection status for payee A is Active, and you need to cancel that payee from the pay run, set the payee's process indicator to Cancel. The next time you run the Calculate phase, the system deletes all calculation results for payee A and changes payee A's selection status to Cancelled. You update the process indicator on the Payee Status component.

Important! Changing a process indicator updates all of a payee's segments that are in the same calendar group ID.

Status Code and Process Indicator Definitions

The tables below list the status codes and process indicators. Selection status (one per payee per calendar) and calculation status (one per calendar segment) are system-maintained; the process indicator is user-maintained.

See Also

Viewing Payee Status and Updating a Payee's Processing Instructions

Common Elements Used in This Chapter

Entering Processing Instructions

When you're ready to begin a payroll or absence run, create a run control ID and enter your processing instructions:

1. Access the Payroll/Absence Run Control page.

2. Indicate which payees you want to process (options vary by processing phase).

3. Select the phase of processing to execute (always select the Identify phase the first time). To initiate processing for a calendar group, the calendar group must first be identified.

4. To produce an element resolution chain or generate performance statistics, select the appropriate option.

5. Select the language to use for the Log File.

6. Click the Run button.

Note. The Description and Process Name (as they appear on the Process Scheduler page) are GLOBAL PAYROLL, GPPDPRUN. The same name applies to absence and pay runs.

Because processing is iterative, you return to the Payroll/Absence Run Control page several times throughout the calendar group processing cycle to update your instructions. For example, after the Calculate phase runs, you'll want to check the results, make corrections, access the Payroll/Absence Run Control page again (using the same run control ID), and enter instructions for the next phase of processing. Repeat this process as often as necessary until you're ready to finalize the run. The system deletes the run control record each time a processing phase is completed.

If a pay run is aborted, you can correct the problem, use the Restart Information link on the run control page to view the restart information, and resume where processing left off. You don't have to start the pay run at the beginning. It is very important to continue using the same run control that was sued when the process was aborted. The information needed for the system to start up where it left off is stored on the run control. A new run control should not be used.

In this section, we discuss how to:

• Enter processing instructions for payroll, absence, and entitlement processes.

• View information about an aborted run and restart the process.

See Also

PeopleTools: PeopleSoft Process Scheduler PeopleBook

Pages Used to Enter Processing Instructions and Define Run Control Parameters

Entering Processing Instructions

Access the Calculate Absence and Payroll page (Global Payroll & Absence Mgmt, Absence and Payroll Processing, Calculate Absence and Payroll, Calculate Absence and Payroll).

Payroll/Absence Run

See Creating Process Streams.

Processing Phases and Options

Select the processing phase to run. You can run some phases together, such as Identify and Calculate. Sometimes selecting one option makes other options unavailable.

See Also

Creating Process Streams

Finalizing a Payroll or Absence Run

Canceling a Payroll or Absence Run

Viewing an Element Resolution Chain

Restarting the Process

Access the Restart Information page (click the Restart Information link on the Calculate Absence and Payroll page).

Phase, Identify Program Option, and Step	These fields identify where processing stopped, if the program made a commit during processing. Run Phase displays Initial, Iterative, Cancel, Identify, Calculate, Finalize, Complete.
Restart Program, Next Step, and Restart Number	These fields contain information only if the process was aborted during the Identify phase.
Restart EmplID	If the failure occurred during the Calculate phase, this field displays the employee ID number of the first payee that is to be calculated when you restart the process. Note. When you restart the Calculate phase for a group list, the system uses the definition of the group list as of the restart time.

Debugging and Tuning

Access the Debug and Tuning Options page (click the Debug and Tuning Options link on the Calculate Absence and Payroll page).

Performance Tuning

Debugging

Several trace options are available during the Calculate phase. These options enable you to request an element resolution chain—a file with detailed results of the Calculate phase—for payees that will be calculated during the next run.

Note. If you are calculating a large number of payees, selecting Log SQL Time, Trace Elements in Error, or Trace All Elements can degrade system performance. We recommend that you use these options for troubleshooting only. (These options require the same level of system resources.)

Creating Group Lists

A group list defines a subset of payees that you can process at the same time. Group lists are linked to user IDs. You can process any group list that you create. You can use group lists with the Calculate, Freeze, and Unfreeze phases of processing after you run the Identify phase for the calendar group. Group lists and streams are mutually exclusive: if you select a group list for processing, you cannot also select a stream number, and vice versa.

Following are some key characteristics of group membership:

• You can update the members of a group list at any time. The system uses the current definition of the group list.

• The system ignores payees in a group list that are not associated with the pay calendars that are being processed.

• You can include a payee in more than one group list; however, we recommend that you do not.

  If users start concurrent processes for the same calendar group, but with different group lists that include the same members, the second process stops soon after it begins. This enables the user to remove duplicate payees from the group list.

Warning! If you run the Calculate phase by group list only, the system doesn't detect changes to the payees that are added or removed from a calendar after the initial Identify phase, this is because "only payees within the group are processed." To process overlooked payees, run the Calculate phase for the entire population (without group lists) before finalizing the run.

Page Used to Create a Group List

Creating a Group List

Access the Group Lists page (Set Up HRMS, Product Related, Global Payroll & Absence Mgmt, Payee Groups, Group Lists, Group Lists).

EmplID

Select the EmplID for each person to include in the group.

Note. You can view or edit only groups that are created with your user ID.

Creating Process Streams

This section provides an overview of stream processing, lists prerequisites, and discusses creating streams.

Understanding Stream Processing

Stream processing is an optional feature that provides added flexibility to payroll processing. You can divide payees into subsets, or streams, based on employee ID ranges, and run calculations for either of the following:

• Only those payees in the stream that you select.

• Two or more streams at the same time.

By starting more than one stream at a time, you shorten the processing time significantly—the system processes the streams simultaneously, rather than going through a single, extended run. Using streams can also help control the sequence of each run and establish break points, to commit the results of your payroll run to the database.

You must process each stream before you can finalize the calendar group ID. The Finalize phase is not stream-oriented because it affects all payees that are processed with the same calendar group ID.

Prerequisites

Stream processing requires preliminary steps. Perform steps 1 and 2 once. Perform steps 3 and 4 each time that you use stream processing while running a payroll.

To prepare for stream processing:

1. Create the streams.

2. Partition tables in the database.

   A database administrator needs to partition tables, using employee ID as the key.

3. When creating calendars, select the Stream Processing check box on the Calendar Group ID page.

4. Select the streams to process through the Payee/Absence Run Control page.

   To process several streams at once:

   1. Select the processing options for the first stream.

   2. Using a different Run Control ID, enter the instructions for the next stream.

   3. Repeat step (4b) for each stream.

      You can run the streams all at once or at different times.

Page Used to Create Streams

Creating Streams

Access the Streams page (Set Up HRMS, Product Related, Global Payroll & Absence Mgmt, Payee Groups, Streams, Streams).

Enter a stream number and the EmplIDs of the first and last payees to include in the stream.

Note. You cannot include the same EmplID in more than one stream.