Payroll Reversal Pack K Rollup 2

HRMS Family Pack RUP 2 was released on Jun 2007.
Due to current project schedule i didn't had much time to test the new functionality.
This week i had the chance to install the PF K RUP 2 to my test instance, the lot of functionality which i was expecting is here now...

The first thing which i would like to highlight is Payroll Reversal functionality.
If you want to reverse assignments that have been processed as part of a payroll run or QuickPay run, you can now reverse them as a group by assignment set instead of reversing by individual assignment only. Any assignment sets that you use for reversals can also use the normal assignment set features such as:

• Include or exclude specific assignments
• Make formula-based amendments

The original reversal by single assignment is still available, and you can continue to access it from the Assignment window.

Payroll Reversal Details http://ramesh-oraclehrms.blogspot.com/2007/09/payroll-reversal.html

Defining Assignment Set http://ramesh-oraclehrms.blogspot.com/2007/08/assignment-set.html

Try it out!!!

Changing Salary Basis

An interesting scenario came in one of my current projects with my customer who are already using Oracle HRMS for past three years
They wanted to change the salary basis from Monthly to Period (Biweekly). It is a common scenario that many company may change their Salary basis from monthly to biweekly or Bimonthly, but the interesting thing in this project is they wanted to modify the history salary information for all the employees from Monthly to Biweekly.

The first thing that came in my mind was the Auditing issue that we might run since we are touching the most sensitive information of the employee data (SALARY), But the HR Users clearly informed us they can provide us with the exact data that need to be loaded.
Another advantage was the customer is not using Oracle Payroll,Oracle HRMS system is not a transactional system

We followed the following approach

• Remove the salary proposal for the employee for whom we need to modify.
• Update the Assignment with the new Salary Basis in Correction mode
• Reload the salary with the same Change date as we unloaded

We used WebADI for unloading Salary information, updating assignment with the new salary basis and loading the salary proposal for the new salary basis.

We used WebADI custom Integrator with the following API

• HR_MAINTAIN_PROPOSAL_API.DELETE_SALARY_PROPOSAL
• HR_ASSIGNMENT_API.UPDATE_EMP_ASG_CRITERIA
• HR_MAINTAIN_PROPOSAL_API.UPDATE_SALARY_PROPOSAL

Try this out!!!

Balance Adjustment

When we process the payroll, there are times that the users might have deducted excess tax or other deduction, So we might need to correct the Balances for the correct YTD and the for year end reporting

There are two methods of doing it.
By defining an Balance Adjustment Element or if we know the exact amount to be corrected then we can able to adjust using the Adjust Balance Form. The latter one is very simple and it is an easy option to adjust the balance

Follow the below steps to adjust the balance using the Adjust Balance form, if we know the exact amount to be adjusted

Fast Path > Adjust Balance > Select the Assignment for which we need to adjust the balance
Set the Effective date

• Select the element who's pay or the Input Value need to be adjusted
• Select the Consolidation set to control the further Post-run Processing
• Check the costing Check box if you need the balance adjustment to be costed
• Save the work

Try this out!!!

Payroll Reversal

After running the payroll and if post run processing has already occured we cannot correct the payroll by Retry, even in case of roll back we need to roll back the complete Payroll for correcting an entry for one or two assignment.
In these cases we can use Payroll Reversal. In short Payroll Reversal helps to correct the run result for an single assignment

To Reverse the Payroll run for an assignemnt
(R) US HRMS Manager
(N) Fast Path > Reverse Payroll Run
Select the Assignment that you need to reverse from the LOV, Tick the Reverse Check Box for the Payroll that we need to reverse and save the work. Consolidation set for the run will be automatically displayed for the Reversal
Now the Run Result is been reversed to the Value before the payroll Run. Now you can modify the Entry and start processing your payroll again.

Try this out!!!

Payroll Rollback

Once the Payroll /Quick Pay process is completed if there is some issue or if some correction need to be made. We can either

• Retry
• Reverse
• Rollback

In this blog i am trying to explain how to rollback a Payroll process.

What Rollback does?

In simple word to explain Rollback process reset the Run Result and the Latest balance back to the value before running the Payroll Process.

Rollback process has to be run in the same reverse sequence of the Payroll Run. for eg. for processing the payroll, we run the following process in sequence Payroll run, Prepayment, costing, Transfer to GL. Similarly for the Rollback we need to run in the reverse sequence Rollback Transfer to GL, Rollback Costing, Rollback Prepayment, Rollback Payroll Run.

Note: if the costing details are imported into GL then we cannot rollback the process.So it is always advisable to run the Transfer to GL process after all validation and checking are done and run this process when we feel no more modification are needed

List of Process type that can be rolled back in PF K RUP1

• Advance Pay Element
• Balance Adjustment
• Bank or Post office Payment
• Batch element entry
• cheque writer
• Costing
• Costing of Payment
• Estimate costing
• ext/Manual Payment
• Magnetic report
• Magnetic Transfer
• Pre-Payments
• Purge
• QuickPay Pre-Payment
• Quick Pay run
• Report Generator
• Retro Costing
• Retro Pay
• Retro Pay by Action
• Retro Pay by element
• Reversal
• Run
• Transfer to GL
• Void Payment

Quick Pay Process

• For processing the payroll for a single employee we can use Quick pay
• For employee who is leaving and for whom we need to pay by check or cash
• When an employee is joined after the payroll run has been completed for the period we can use Quick pay to process only for this particular employee instead of completely rollback the Payroll Process and starting it again.

Follow the process to run the Quick Pay(N) Assignment > (B) Others > Quick Pay

• Set the effective Date for the Quick pay
• Date Paid and Date Earned will be defaulted to the effective date
• Select the consolidation set
• Select the Run Types (it varies from Legislation to Legislation)
• Save the Quick Pay Definition
• Submit the quick pay by pressing the start Run Button.
• Status should be changed from un-processed to Complete.
• If any errors fix the error and press the retry button
• Once the Quick Pay run is completed we need to process the PrePayment
• We can run the Prepayment from the Quick Pay window by just clicking the button start PrePayment Or combine it in the Batch PrePayments processing for the assignment’s Payroll (this can be used when a new employee is joined after the payroll run is completed so we can run the quick pay separately for this employee and combine it with the batch or the prepayment.)

Try it out!!!

Payroll Retry

Once the Payroll run is completed there may be chance that few assignment may end up in some errors or few assignment may be processed with some old element entries or payroll department would have processed with limited information or the payroll analyst would have forgotten to modify the formula for earning/deduction element which will affect certain group of Employees, We can uses retries for correcting these mistake which occurred in the Payroll Run provided there are no Post run process taken Place

We can retry a single assignment, set of assignment, or Mark a large payroll Process for Retry

To retry Single assignment

• It can be done in the quick Pay form by clicking the Retry Button, this is the convenient method for retying if we have very few employees to be corrected

To retry for small number of process

• In the Payroll Process window, Query the process based on the payroll and the Action type, Mark the process for retry by checking the Retry check box
• This effectively marks all the assignment attached to the process

To Mark a Large Payroll Process for Retry

• If we need to retry the payroll, run the Process 'Mark Payroll Run for Retry' this has two parameters Payroll run and the Assignment Set

Note:

• If any post run process has occurred then we need to rollback the Post Run Process and then mark the process for retry
• Any assignments having a status of Error after a payroll run, those assignments are automatically retried when you run the payroll again

Try this Process!!!

Payroll Processing

Before we start the Payroll Run. We need to assign the necessary element for the employee

For the normal payroll run we will include all the elements and process all the assignment
But under certain circumstance we may need

• Include or exclude certain element or assignment
• Include or exclude certain group of assignment
• Include or Exclude certain classification of element

For the above conditions we may need to create an Assignment set or an Element set

Creating Assignment Set

Example for the use of assignment set is. We need to process the payroll for the night shift employees before the day shift employees as they need to receive the Pay advice the night before the rest
For complete details of setting up the Assignment set please refer the blog http://ramesh-oraclehrms.blogspot.com/2007/08/assignment-set.html

Creating Element Set

• Enter the Element Set name
• Choose the classification as ‘Run Set’
• Save the work
• Select the Include button and add the required element to the set

The Payroll Process

• Quick Pay
• Payroll run

Quick Pay

Follow the link for the Quick Pay in Detail

• http://ramesh-oraclehrms.blogspot.com/2007/09/quick-pay-process.html
  

Follow the steps to run the Payroll Process
1) Payroll Process
Parameters: Payroll Name
Consolidation Set
Element Set
Assignment Set
Date Earned
Date Paid
Run type
2) PrePayments
Parameter: Payroll Name
Consolidation set
Start Date
End Date

3) Run the check writer Process (Enabled for few legislation)
4) Run the Direct Deposit Process
5) Payslip Archive Process

If the costing is enabled then
6) Run the costing Process
7) Costing of Payments (if you want to cost at the payment method level)
8) Transfer to GL

From the GL side, import the Journal Entry

Try it out!!!

Assignment Set

Assignment set are to be defined for the following purpose

• For processing only the subset of the Assignment for the payroll processing eg: Payroll for the People who work in the night shift need to be processed first as they need to receive the pay advice before the day shift employees
• For generating the quick paint report for the set of assignment
• Can be used in the BEE for creating the identical entry for all the assignment in the Assignment set

Before we start defining the Assignment set we need to decide whether we are going to use Assignment set for the payroll process or for some other process like reporting etc.

Defining the Assignment set

• Enter the name of assignment set (Only Char, ( _ ) and Numbers are allowed and NO SPACE allowed)
• If you need to use this assignment set only for the payroll then select the Payroll from the LOV Otherwise it is an optional field we can leave it blank.
• Save the work

If we want to use the formula criteria for defining the Assignment set choose the button Criteria from the assignment set window

• Enter the Seq Number
• Leave the Condition field Blank for the first line, you can choose either AND / OR depending on the criteria
• Choose the Database Item as the variable for the criteria (all the Database Item will be prefixed by '&')
• Choose the Operator (=, <=, >= , etc..,)
• Enter the Value or choose the Database Item
• Keep entering the other criteria from the second line
• Save the work

If you specifically want to include or exclude any assignment choose the button Amendment button

• Choose the option Inc/Exc from the LOV
• Select the Name from the LOV
• Save the work

Select the Generate Button for generating the Fast Formula for the criteria defined above. The Fast formula will be created with the same name as the assignment set

Try it out!!!

Cost Allocation flexfield and Costing process

Following are the important Key flexfield in HR and Payroll

HRMS

• Job Flexfield
• Position flexfield
• Grade Flexfield
• People Group
• Cost Allocation
• Competence Flexfield
• Personal Analysis Flexfield
• Soft Coded KeyFlexfield

Payroll

• People Group Flexfield
• Cost Allocation Flexfield
• Bank Details KeyFlexField

Setting up of Cost allocation flexfield is an mandatory setup step for the Payroll Setup

Cost allocation Flexfield is used to accumulate the employee costing information, if we use Oracle Payroll we can accumulate the cost associated with the payroll and transfer to GL and if we are not using Oracle Payroll we can able to interface the costing information to the third Party Payroll system

Few important points which should be taken care before creating the Cost allocation flexfield.

• If we are planning to integrate with the GL, then the number segment in the cost allocation flexfield should be same or more than the accounting flexfield.


• We should atleast have one segment for the cost allocation flexfield otherwise will run into error when defining payroll or in other form which is having this flexfield

Cost Allocation flexfiled makes use of qualifiers, we can use the segment qualifiers to control the level at which the costing information can be entered in the system.the various level at which we can cost are

• Element entry
• Assignment
• Organization
• Element Link
• Payroll

If the element is not costed at any level then the final costing information will get accumulated in the suspense account which is defined in the payroll form.

Use the GL Map window to map the cost allocation flexfield with the GL Accounting flexfield, we should map each cost allocation segment with the GL Segment for each Payroll. for the addition segment in the cost allocation flexfield should be mapped to 'Null'

Following are the process that you need to run for transferring the costing information from Oracle to Payroll

• Costing process
• Costing of Payment
• Transfer to GL

Try it out!!!

Assignment action interlock rule failure

During the Payrol Run Rollback Many time we might come accross with the Error message
APP-PAY-07507: Assignment action interlock rule failure

This May be due to multiple resason but one such reason is, there may be some future sequenced process which has to be rollback before we roll back the current process.

To find the list of all future sequenced process Exucute the following Query

select distinct pact.payroll_action_id, pact.effective_date, pact.action_type
from pay_action_classifications CLASS,
pay_payroll_actions PACT,
pay_assignment_actions ACT,
per_assignments_f ASS,
per_periods_of_service POS,
pay_assignment_actions act1,
per_assignments_f ass1
where POS.person_id = ass1.person_id
and ass1.assignment_id = act1.assignment_id
and ASS.period_of_service_id = POS.period_of_service_id
and ACT.assignment_id = ASS.assignment_id
and ACT.action_sequence > act1.action_sequence
and ACT.action_status in ('C', 'S', 'M')
and ACT.payroll_action_id = PACT.payroll_action_id
and PACT.action_type = CLASS.action_type
and CLASS.classification_name = 'SEQUENCED'

This Query will return the list of all future sequence process which need to be rolled back first before we rollback the current process

Hope this helps :)

Defining Payroll

Sample Setup Steps for Defining Payroll

Before Defining the Payroll you need to make sure that you have defined the Payment Method.
You can refer the blog for defing the payment method
http://ramesh-oraclehrms.blogspot.com/2007/08/payroll-payment-method-definition.html

(N) Payroll > Description

• Set the Effective date
• Enter the Payroll Name
• Select the Payroll Type you want to Use from the List e.d Bi-weekly, Bi-Monthly, Monthly etc.
• Enter the End date of the Payroll's First Period
• Enter the number of years you want the Payroll Calendar period to be opened, Note certain process needs this date to be extended to the future e.g PTO carryover process needs payroll calendar to be opened till the end of the accrual term
• In the date offset region you can either enter positive or negative values for the number of days before and after the period end date: Check Date: is the date on which the Paycheck become negotiable; Schedule Run: Is the date scheduled for the regular each period Cut off Date: This date provides the information that that final date for entering and modifying any payroll information before the Run Pay Slip: This is always a positive number which Will prevent your employee from viewing the payslip before the actual payment is been made. Note: These Offsets date default for the calendar you can modify the date for each period based on your needs by selecting the period
• Select the Default Payment Method. this Default payment method will be used when the employee is not have the valid personal payment method
• Select the consolidation set. One consolidation will be created once you create a BG.
• In the costing region select the costing account and the suspense account. these segments are based on the Cost Allocation Flex field setup
• Select the option Negative Payment check box, if you want the the prepayment process to calculate the Negative amount
• Multiple Assignment attribute is enabled only for few legislation, This attribute enables the employee to get single payment for multiple assignment
• Further Payroll Information is completely based on the localization, each localization will have their unique attribute. This Further information Will be enabled only for the payroll customers
• Save the work
• You can select the Valid Payment Method for this employee in the Valid Payment Method form
• Select the Period dates form, you can see the periods with the default offset date defined above. If you need to close the payroll period you can change the status which will prevent from modifying the payroll period.

Try this out!!!

Payroll Payment Method Definition

The first step to start the payroll Setup is Payment Method

In the Planning and Analysis Phases come up with the Plan of type of Payment Method the company is going to follow

Type of Payment Method

• Check
• Direct Deposit
• Cash

Check will be the default pay method for the payroll.
The Direct Deposit varies from Legislation to Legislation e.g NACHA in US, GIRO in Singapore etc..,

We need to also analysis whether we are planning to Reconcile with Cash Management,

Once we freeze the requirement, follow the below steps for defining the Payment Method

• Set the Effective date
• Enter the Payment Method Name e.g Check, NACHA
• Select the Payment Method type NACHA for Direct Deposit, Cash for Cash Payment etc
• Currency Will be defaulted to the BG but you can change it if required
• If the Payment method controls the payments to third party then select the option Third Party Payment e.g Payment for Benefit Carrier
• Country will be defaulted from the BG
• Enter the Bank Details, Bank Details field varies from Legislation to legislation. For few legislation the flexfield uses Value Set, for few other legislation it is Free Text

Now if you are in 11.5.10 CU 2 and Family Pack less then PFK.RUP1 the Next step will be select the Set of books and enter the cash account.

If you are in 11.5.10 CU2 PFK.RUP1 follow below steps.

• Select the costing Tab you can able to select various option of costing based on your needs and if you need to transfer the payment details to GL select the option transfer to GL
• Select the General Ledger Tab, Select the Set of Book Enter the Cash account and Cash Clearing account for the purpose of Reconciliation. Error Account and the Control Account are optional. These segments comes from GL accounting Flexfield
• Once we select the Cash account in the General Ledger Tab and save. Automatically the cash account and the Set of book information is populated in the Reconciliation Tab
• In Others Tab if we use the Direct Deposit as the Payment Method then we need to enter the details of the Direct Deposit In Singapore we need to enter the Company Code. In US we need to enter few details about the NACHA
• Save the work

Note:

• From PF.K.Rup1 the payment method can be costed which was not available in the previous release.
• The Bank Defined in Payroll should match with the Bank Defined with the AP otherwise reconciliation will not work as expected
• For the Third Party Payment always choose the option either Cash or Check

Try it out!!!