Processing Concepts

This topic 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.

• Final Calculation

  This is an indicator that allows a customer utilising the HCM Lockdown framework to run a final calculation if they want the system locked down, from the initiation of their final calculation through the completion of the Finalize phase. Even after the final calculation, it is possible to run the calculation again.

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.