Calculate Hours Worked from Balances for the US

Calculation of worked hours is required for state unemployment insurance (SUI) reporting. You report this data in positions 423-426 of the W record for SUI_ER tax codes on the quarterly tax file.

You can use balances to define what hours to include for SUI reporting. There are two balances for accumulating the hours worked for state unemployment reporting.

Balance name	What it does
SUI Eligible Hours	This balance has no predefined feeds. If you don't define a feed, the payroll calculation doesn't accumulate hours for this balance nor the State Worked Hours balance. You must define the balance feeds using the elements with hours that are eligible for reporting of state unemployment at the start of a quarter. During payroll calculation, this balance accumulates the hours for any state using the elements fed to it. If you perform these configurations after the start of the quarter, they apply to the hours worked on the subsequent payroll runs only. You must perform balance adjustments to the State Worked Hours balance to resolve this shortfall.
State Worked Hours	When you define a balance feed for SUI Eligible Hours, the payroll process accumulates the hours appropriately and feeds them to this balance. During payroll calculation, this balance accumulates based on: SUI Eligible Hours balance SUI state Wage basis rules defined for the SUI state Setting of the SUI state specific value definition The Quarterly Tax Filing extract first checks if the SUI Employer Reduced Subject Wages are greater than 0 for the quarter and given state, then it checks if the State Worked Hours balance has a value greater than 0. If not, the extract derives the hours using the run result method. Note: The run result method will be discontinued effective January 1, 2023. If you have not performed the necessary configurations, the Quarterly Tax Filing Extract reports the hours as 0.

Using these balances and their associated wage basis rules and value definitions, you can control what hours are reported on the quarterly tax file.

Note: The quarterly file for SUI reporting includes only quarter-to-date hours. It doesn't include year-to-date hours.

Wage Basis Rules

The Component Group Rules task provides the State Unemployment Hours component under the Regional component group. Use this component to define any wage basis rule overrides for calculating hours worked. Because there are no predefined wage basis rules for hours worked accumulation, all hours fed to the SUI Eligible Hours balance are accumulated.

The payroll process applies these wage basis rules to the State Worked Hours balance accumulation during its calculations. It doesn't apply them to the SUI Eligible Hours balance.

Value Definitions

State and territory-based calculation value definitions are available in support of calculating hours worked based on balances.

These value definitions use this naming convention.

<state abbrev> SUI Include Hours Worked in All States

Use them to define if hours worked in other states contribute to the SUI state worked hours.

The default for these value definitions is to allow hours in other states to contribute to the given SUI state worked hours. The payroll process accumulates these hours in the SUI state's State Worked Hours balance. If you change a state's default value definition, the process accumulates only the hours for that state into the balance.

Note: This value definition setting has no impact on SUI Eligible Hours balance accumulation.

For example, assume an hourly employee is paid in a weekly pay period and their SUI state is California. They have 32 regular hours in California and 8 regular hours in Idaho. You have fed your regular hours element to the SUI Eligible Hours balance. You have left the default for the CA value definition to allow accumulation of hours from other states.

In this case:

1. The payroll process feeds 32 hours to California's SUI Eligible Hours balance.

2. It feeds 8 hours to Idaho's SUI Eligible Hours balance.

3. As a result, it feeds 40 hours to California's State Worked Hours balance (32 CA hours + 8 ID hours).

   Because California is the person's SUI state, no SUI wages or worked hours are accumulated for Idaho.

Configuration and Overrides

Perform this configuration effective as of a calendar quarter start or calendar year start. If you perform these configurations after the start of the quarter, they apply to the hours worked on the subsequent payroll runs only. You must perform balance adjustments to the State Worked Hours balance to resolve this shortfall.

Note: By default, the payroll process accumulates all hours fed to the SUI state's Eligible Hours balance. As a result, it accumulates those hours into the State Worked Hours balance.

You can override this behavior using:

• Regional wage basis rules

• Value definitions

To calculate hours worked based on balances:

1. Define balance feeds to SUI Eligible Hours with a proper effective date. Determine which elements with hours that you want to feed to the balance, such as salary elements, overtime elements, vacation elements, and so on.

   You don't need to feed the State Worked Hours balance. It already has a feed predefined and is populated during payroll calculation by the State Unemployment Hours element.

   Note: You can use this element for balance adjustments to the State Worked Hours balance. If you create your own balance adjustment element, then you would need to define a feed for it to the State Worked Hours balance.

2. Define wage basis rules if any of your SUI states require exclusion from certain types of earnings hours.

   This configuration is necessary if you're feeding SUI Eligible Hours from an Earnings element that has hours counted for some states but not others.

   Some states have specific requirements for what type of hours to include for state unemployment reporting. For all other states and territories, there is no special requirement of what to include.

   State	Regular hours	Overtime hours	Vacation hours	Sick hours	Holiday hours
   DC	X	X
   MA	X	X	X	X	X
   MN	X	X	X	X	X
   OR	X	X
   RI	X	X	X		X
   WA	X	X	X		X
   WY	X	X

   An X indicates the hours are subject to state unemployment reporting for that state.

3. Review the state-specific Hours Worked value definitions, and update them as needed to account for hours worked in other states.

   For example, by default, Illinois allows hours worked in other states to contribute to the hours worked for Illinois. You would perform these steps to exclude hours worked in other states.

   1. From My Client Groups, click Show More.

   2. Click Calculation Value Definitions under Payroll.

   3. Select your US legislative data group (LDG), and enter State Unemployment as the value definition group.

   4. As the name, enter the 2-character abbreviation of the state you're changing plus SUI Include Hours Worked in All States.

      For example, to view the value definition for Illinois, enter IL SUI Include Hours Worked in All States.

   5. Click Search.

   6. Click the value definition in the search results.

   7. Enter an appropriate effective as-of date.

   8. In Calculation Values, click Add Row.

   9. Enter the following to exclude hours worked in other states.

      For this column	Enter this
      From Value	0
      To Value	999999999
      Text	N

   10. Click Submit.