Setting up Earnings for an Employee

For each employee who is included in Payroll, you can add earning payroll items on the employee record. These payroll items are used to determine the employee's gross pay.

Before you can set up earnings for an employee, you need to create earning payroll items. For information, see Creating Payroll Items.

Important:

If you use the Compensation Tracking feature, and you set up Payroll to copy compensation tracking information, note the following. Enter the compensation tracking information on the Compensation Tracking subtab in the employee record. For more information, see Integrating Employees’ Base Pay Information with Payroll.

Also, make sure that the primary payroll item has a rate (not a multiplier), is not derived from another payroll item, and has an item type of either Earning:Salary or Earning:Wage.

To set up earnings information for an employee:

Go to Lists > Employees > Employees.
Next to the Employee's name, click Edit.
Click the Payroll subtab, and then click the Earnings subtab.
In the Earning field, choose one of the payroll items that you set up for earnings.

For example, you may have set up a payroll item called Regular Hourly Wages.

An employee should not have both wage and salary items during the same time period. If you previously selected a wage item for the employee, the wage item must be inactivated to add a salary payroll item.
In the Rate field, enter the rate that applies to that type of earning for this individual.

For example, if you are setting up wages for an employee, you might enter 22.00 for an employee earning $22 per hour. If you are setting up annual salary for an employee, you might enter 45000.00 for an employee earning $45,000 per year.
If this payroll item is the employee's main pay item, check the Primary box. The Primary box has the following uses:
- You can use the Primary attribute to filter records for reporting and search purposes. This lets you obtain lists of employee salaries and wages, without the clutter of information from other earning payroll items. The following related fields are available as search filters and displayed as search results: Primary Earning Type, Primary Earning Item, and Primary Earning Amount.
- If you use the Compensation Tracking feature, and you set up Payroll to copy compensation tracking information, note the following. The Compensation Tracking feature uses the Primary box to determine which payroll item to automatically update. Make sure that the primary payroll item has a rate (not a multiplier), is not derived from another payroll item, and has an item type of either Earning:Salary or Earning:Wage. For more information, see Integrating Employees’ Base Pay Information with Payroll.
In the Default Hours field, enter the default number of hours this person is paid for this earning type. To create an additional pay using the rate and default hours, check the Default box.
- If you select a payroll item with the type Earning:Salary, the system calculates the amount even if you leave the Default Hours field blank. This is also true if you enter 0 (zero).
- If you select a payroll item with the type Earning:Wage, the hours entered in time tracking are used to calculate earnings. In addition, checking Default will add an earning amount equal to default hours multiplied by rate, regardless of hours entered by time tracking.
- If you select a payroll item and you leave the Default Hours field blank or enter zero, then the earning type is not calculated.
To prevent the use of this item for this employee, check the Inactive box.
If this item is to appear on the paycheck every time you run payroll, check the Default box. This additional pay is not calculated if you leave the Default Hours field blank or enter zero.
Enter the Effective Date and Expiration Date for the payroll item. These dates are checked against the payroll period ending date to determine which payroll items are affected.
Click Add.
Continue adding earning items as necessary.
Click Save.

You can also set up a one-time earning item for an employee.

To set up a one-time earning item for an employee:

Go to Transactions > Employees > Create Payroll > List.
Click Edit on the paycheck batch that includes the employee for whom you want to add the one-time earning item.
On the Complete subtab, click the Paychecks subtab.
Click Edit on the name of the person for whom you want to add the one-time earning item.
On the Earnings subtab, from the dropdown list, select the earning item.
Click Add.
Click Save.

Note:
Ensure you recalculate the payroll batch after you make these changes.

To set up earnings information for an employee:

To set up a one-time earning item for an employee:

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