Pay Period Schedules
MAIN MENU > Payroll > Pay Period Schedules
Pay period schedules are critical to the operation of TimeTrex because they define when a pay period begins and ends. In addition, the schedule defines the transaction date, which is the date that employees are paid. While most companies use only a single pay period schedule, TimeTrex allows for multiple pay period schedules. However, you can only assign an employee to one pay period schedule at a time.
Pay period schedules constantly repeat themselves, similar to recurring schedules for employees. When you add a new pay period schedule, you define one or two full pay period start and transaction days. TimeTrex automatically determines the schedule pattern and repeats it indefinitely.
If you pay by check, you should set at least one day between the end of the pay period and the transaction date. If you pay by direct deposit, you should allow two business days. This gives the supervisors and employees enough time to submit requests and complete any outstanding authorizations before payment is finalized. If a holiday falls at the end of a pay period, you should leave a buffer of 5 to 7 days.
To create a Pay Period Schedule, perform these steps:
- Click Payroll, then click Pay Period Schedules in the main menu.
- Click New in the button bar. An inset page will appear with two tabs: Pay Period Schedule and Advanced.
- Complete the fields.
- Click Save in the button bar to save your changes, or click Cancel to discard the changes.
See the Basic Operation section for details on viewing, adding, editing and deleting.
| Pay Period Schedule Tab |
| FIELD |
DESCRIPTION |
| Name |
Enter a name for the pay period schedule. |
| Description |
Enter a description. |
| Type |
Select the type of pay period from the drop-down box.| TYPE | DESCRIPTION |
|---|
| Manual | Determined by customer.| MANUAL | DESCRIPTION |
|---|
| Annual Pay Periods | Enter the number of pay periods per year. |
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| | Weekly (52/year) | 52 pay periods per year. | | Weekly (53/year) | 53 pay periods per year for the years that actually have 53 weeks in the year. | | Bi-weekly (26/year) | 26 pay periods per year. | | Bi-weekly (27/year) | 27 pay periods per year for the years that actually have 27 bi-weekly periods in the year. | | Semi-Monthly (24/year) | 24 pay periods per year. The procedure for a semi-monthly schedule is slightly different from other schedules. For this pay period type, you must define the day of the month the primary and secondary pay periods start on, and which day the transaction date occurs on for both periods. | PRIMARY | DESCRIPTION |
|---|
| Pay Period Start Day of Month | Select the day of the month to indicate the first Pay Period Start Day of Month. | | Transaction Day of Month | Select the day of the month to indicate the day of the month AFTER the first pay period ends. |
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| SECONDARY | DESCRIPTION |
|---|
| Pay Period Start Day of Month | Select the day of the month to indicate the second Pay Period Start Day of Month. | | Transaction Day of Month | Specify the day of the month AFTER the second pay period ends. |
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For example, if employees are paid on the 1st and 15th for the prior month's work, the start days would be 1 and 16. The transaction days would be 1 and 15. | Start | End | Transaction | | 01-Nov-12 | 15-Nov-12 | 01-Dec-12 | | 16-Nov-12 | 30-Nov-12 | 15-Dec-12 |
| | Monthly (12/year) | 12 pay periods per year |
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| Pay Period Starts On |
Select the day the pay period starts. |
| Transaction Date |
Select the number of days after the end of the pay period. |
| Transaction Always on Business Day |
Specify how to handle the cases where the transaction date falls on a weekend or holiday. Make your selection to cause TimeTrex to do nothing (No), or automatically move the transaction date to the Previous Business Day, Next Business Day, or Closest Business Day. |
| Create Initial Pay Periods From |
The date used to create initial pay periods from. This field only appears when creating new pay period schedules and is critical when creating bi-weekly pay periods specifically. If you wish to enter historical information into TimeTrex set this date on or before the first date that you wish to start entering data for. |
| Employees |
Select employees to include in this pay period schedule by clicking on the Employees drop-down listing and moving them into the Selected Items column. |
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For more precision and flexibility, there are a number of options you can configure on the Advanced tab.
| Advanced Tab |
| FIELD |
DESCRIPTION |
| Overtime Week |
Select the start and end of a week with respect to overtime or premium policies. For example, if an employee is eligible for overtime after working 40 hours, this setting specifies the day on which the overtime hours will begin. It does not need to coincide with your pay period dates. NOTE: These settings are entirely different from the Calendar Starts On setting found in Employee Profile-> Preferences. That setting is a display option for each employee, and it doesn’t affect the calculation of overtime. |
| Time Zone |
Select the time zone used for this pay period schedule. TimeTrex is a 24-hour system, capable of operating in any country around the world. This feature is very important for a company having locations in different time zones, where they need to define the exact time that overtime and each pay period starts and ends. |
| Minimum Time-off Between Shifts |
Enter the minimum amount of time that must occur between out and in punches before TimeTrex will start a new shift for an employee. It is only used for shifts that span midnight. For example, if an employee punches out on 15-Jan-12 at 11:30 PM for lunch and punches back in on 16-Jan-12 (the next day) at 12:30 AM, in order to combine these two sets of times into a single shift, the Minimum Time-Off Between Shifts must be set to at least 1 hour. If your employees work split shifts around midnight, or leave for extended breaks, this setting should be high enough to include the longest break that any employee may take and still continue their shift. |
| Maximum Shift Time |
Enter the maximum time that a single shift can extend. It also defines how many prior hours that TimeTrex will search when trying to pair punches. It is important that this setting is not too high or too low. If this option is set too high (such as 24:00), there could be some confusion. For example, when an employee punches in at 8:00 AM and forgets to punch out at 5:00 PM, and then comes in the next morning at 8:00 AM, TimeTrex will search backwards to 24 hours to determine if there is an in-punch without a matching out-punch. If it finds one, it would incorrectly calculate that the employee is punching out for a long shift and the employee's timesheet would be incorrect. Therefore, it is very important that Maximum Shift Time be set to a value that is no more than one hour longer than the longest possible shift an employee may work, usually no more than 16 hours. When training employees, you should emphasize that while making a punch, the employee is given the opportunity to set the punch type/status. The employee can avoid the situation described in the previous example by forcing the punch status to IN rather than leaving the TimeTrex default that is specified as OUT. |
| Assign Shifts To |
Specify the day a shift is assigned to when it spans midnight.| ASSIGN SHIFTS TO | DESCRIPTION |
|---|
| Day They Start On | The shift is assigned to the day when the first in punch occurs. | | Day They End On | The shift is assigned to the day when the last in punch occurs. | | Day With Most Time Worked | The shift is assigned to the day when most of the hours worked occurs. | | Each Day (Split At Midnight) | The shift is split and any time worked is assigned to the day when it actually occurred. |
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NOTE: These settings can significantly affect overtime calculations, so use them carefully. |
| Create Pay Periods |
Specify the number of days in advance to create pay periods. Typically this is just one or two pay periods in advance. This is not required even if you want to enter schedules and punches into the future when no pay period exists. Future pay periods can be viewed under Payroll -> Pay Periods, turn on the "Show Future Pay Periods" in the "Advanced Search" filter. |
| Auto Close |
Specify the number of days after the transaction date, to automatically close the pay period. |
| TimeSheet Verification |
Select who will do the verification from the drop-down box.| TIMESHEET VERIFICATION | DESCRIPTION |
|---|
| Disabled | Timesheet Verification is not in use. | | Employee Only | Employees (Subordinates) are only required to verify their timesheets. | | Superior Only | Superiors, as defined in the hierarchy, are only required to verify subordinates timesheets. | | Both Employee & Superior | Both employee and Superior are required to verify timesheets. |
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By default, employees can only verify timesheets after the pay period ends and before the transaction date. However, you can specify the number of days when the Verification Window Starts and Verification Window Ends, and use negative values here to extend the window in either direction. TimeSheets cannot be verified if any critical severity exceptions or pending requests exist for the employee within the pay period . | FIELD | DESCRIPTION |
|---|
| Verification Window Starts | Enter the number of days before the pay period end date. | | Verification Window Ends | Enter the number of days before the transaction date. | | Agreement | Enter a custom statement that will be displayed in the TimeSheet Verification pop-up box, which the employee can choose to Agree or Disagree with this statement. Variables supported: #first_name# #middle_name# #last_name# #full_name# #current_date# #pay_period_start_date# #pay_period_end_date# #pay_period_transaction_date# |
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