Before You Set Up the Object Group

There are several factors you must consider when configuring the application to copy balances between employment records.

Source and Target Balances

The source balance is the balance used to read values on the source assignment or payroll relationship. You must choose the source balance based on which calculation results should be visible to the target payroll calculation. For example, when continuing a Total Owed deduction on the target assignment or payroll relationship. You must also copy the Accrued balance, as that's what the payroll calculation checks to determine the remaining amount to deduct.

The target balance is the balance adjusted on the target assignment or payroll relationship. The most common choice for target balance is the same as source balance. However, this choice may not meet every requirement, especially if you need to separate the Previous Balance from the balance calculated within the current legal employer for reporting purposes. To meet these requirements you will require additional manual configuration, such as new balances, and should be done only when necessary.

Source Balance Dimension

To read the balance value on the source employment record you will require a defined balance, which is a combination of the balance and the associated balance dimension. The balance dimension is determined by three factors based on how the copied balance is used on the target employment record.

1. Employment Level: Assignment or Payroll Relationship

2. Time Span: The period over which the balance value must be fetched and copied. For example, an Arrears or Accrued balance for a deduction would require Inception to Date (lifetime) values. On the other hand, annual statutory limits on a pre-tax deduction would require Year to Date values.

3. Context or References: If you want to copy the values separately based on logical partitions such as Tax Reporting Unit, Deduction Reference, State/Province, then select the dimension that contains the necessary contexts. Calculation Breakdown is an implicit context and you can exclude this using a No Calculation Breakdown dimension. For example, if a state imposes an annual statutory limit on employee earnings, which is exempt from state income tax. In this case, you would want to copy the exempt earnings from the source legal employer for the year to date separately for each state. You can do this by using a State Year to Date dimension. The application reads and adjusts the balances for every value of the context, where the balance values differ between the source and target employment records.

Element Entry as a Prerequisite for Copying Balances

The most common use case for copying balances is to bring visibility of calculation results to the payroll calculation on the target payroll relationship. You can use the calculation formula associated with the element entry that uses the balance value to determine the final calculated result. You can choose to copy the balance always or only if such an element entry exists.

Although, copying balances only if an element entry exists might seem like the most efficient method by avoiding copying balance values that may never be used on the target employment record, you must consider the possibility of the following scenario:

• The application assigns an element entry after the copy process. For example, a pre-tax deduction that's subject to an annual statutory limit.