Understanding Compensation Rates

You base employee compensation on various rates of pay, including:

  • Basic compensation:

    • Normally paid each payroll period.

    • Might involve multiple components, such as regular pay and merit pay.

    • Normally defined as an hourly or salary amount.

  • Additional rates of pay:

    • Not necessarily paid each period.

    • Might include pay for working under hazardous conditions, working in a different job, or completing a certain task.

You typically assign compensation rates to an employee, a job code, or the general employee population. Each rate might represent an hourly rate, a flat amount, or an addition to the base hourly rate. Use the Compensation Rate Code table to establish compensation rate codes that identify the compensation rates you assign to employees and their job codes.

Because compensation rates are independent of earnings codes, you have the flexibility to associate any earnings code with a rate. You can also associate all employee-specific rates with each job change.

You can view totals of:

  • All base compensation.

  • All components that comprise base pay and additional pay.

Paysheets reflect total base compensation and any rate code that you specify on an Additional Pay record to indicate an alternate rate of pay. You can apply an alternate rate of pay to various earnings (such as regular, overtime, other earnings). This rate can represent earnings from a prior or future period. You can enter this rate manually on the paysheet or derive it from the compensation rate codes specifically defined for the job code, employee ID, or the general employee population.

The payroll calculation derives the necessary rates to calculate earnings.

All types of check processing, except manual checks, support additional rates. This includes:

  • On-cycle

  • Off-cycle

  • Online

  • Reversal

  • Reversal and adjustment

  • Gross-up

  • Final check

All rates of pay used during the Pay Calculation COBOL SQL process (PSPPYRUN) are available for reviewing, reporting, and audit trails.