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Payroll Processing Tips

How does the saying go... "you don't know what you don't know?"  Well, we are here to try and help provide some "did you know's" during your payroll processing steps.  We hope some of the tips and tricks listed below will turn those "I don't know's" into "now I know's".  

Stop Dates on Contracted Compensations-

In USPSR, it is important to know that Contracted Compensation records need to have a Compensation Stop Date populated in order for the contract to be calculated out correctly and paid correctly throughout the contract cycle.

What needs to be done if I need to modify the payroll

If a change needs to be made to a Compensation record during the payroll process, after that change is made, you will need to click on the Modify Payroll button and then you can choose the specific pay group that the Compensation record you made changes to is in.  Then click on the Update Payroll button. The change that was made on the Compensation record should then be reflected on the Pay Report when processed.

If making changes to any other properties during the payroll (Payroll Item, Pay Account, Pay Distribution, Position, Employee), those changes are made on the fly and will be reflected when the Pay Report is re-ran so modifying the payroll is not necessary.

Modifying the Payroll will not affect any manual changes that may have been made to an employee in Current.

How do I:

• Set up retirement records for an employee with regular retirement?
  • Go to Payroll Items and create a 400 (SERS) or 450 (STRS) Employer share of retirement record with the appropriate 14% Employer Rate withholding amount setup. If your district does not withhold the employee portion of retirement as an annuity, you will enter in the 10% (SERS) or 14% (STRS) in the Rate field on the 400/450 record.
  • If your district withholds the Employee portion of retirement as an annuity, in Payroll Items, create a 590 (SERS) or 591 (STRS) Employee (annuity) record with the appropriate 10% for SERS or 14% for STRS set up as the Rate.
• Set up retirement records for an employee with partial retirement pickup?
  • Go to Payroll Items and create a 400 (SERS) or 450 (STRS) Employer share of retirement record with the appropriate 14% Employer Rate withholding amount setup. If your district does not withhold the employee portion of retirement as an annuity, you will enter in the appropriate Employee partial percentage amount in the Rate field on the 400 (SERS) or 450 (STRS) record. (Example 5.00%)
  • If your district withholds the Employee portion of retirement as an annuity, in Payroll Items, create a 590 (SERS) or 591 (STRS) Employee annuity record with the appropriate partial percentage on the 590 (SERS) or 591 (STRS) added in the Rate field. (Example- partial Rate 5.00%)
  • In Payroll Items, create a 690 (SERS) or 691 (STRS) Employer Pickup record and add the remaining partial amount in the Employer Rate field. (Example- SERS 5.00% or STRS 9.00%.)
• Set up retirement records for an employee with full pickup on pickup?
  • Go to Payroll Items and create a 400 (SERS) or 450 (STRS) Employer share of retirement with the appropriate 14% Employer Rate withholding amount setup.
  • In Payroll Items, create a 690 (SERS) or 691 (STRS) Employer Pickup record and enter in the appropriate Employer Rate SERS (10.00%) or STRS (14.00%)
• Set up a retirement record for an employee who has partial retirement pickup on pickup with Increased Compensation and the board pays the additional retirement?
  • Go to Payroll Items and create a 400 (SERS) or 450 (STRS) record and check the Increased Compensation box and enter in the Employer share of retirement with the appropriate inflated withholding amount in the Employer Rate field. (SERS Example 14.42%, STRS Example 14.42%.) If your district does not withhold the employee portion of retirement as an annuity, you will enter in the appropriate Employee partial percentage amount in the Rate field on the 400 (SERS) or 450 (STRS) record. (Example SERS partial Rate 7.00% STRS partial Rate 11.00%)
  • If your district withholds the employee portion of retirement as an annuity, in Payroll Items, create a 590 (SERS) or 591 (STRS) Employee annuity record with the appropriate Employee partial percentage on the 590 (SERS) or 591 (STRS) added in the Rate field. (Example- SERS partial Rate 7.00%, STRS partial Rate 11%)
  • In Payroll Items, create a 690 (SERS) or 691 (STRS) Employer Pickup record and enter in the appropriate partial inflated Employer Rate SERS (3.3%) or STRS (3.42%)
• Set up a retirement record for an employee who has full retirement pickup on pickup with Increased Compensation and the board pays the additional retirement?
  • Go to Payroll Items and create a 400 (SERS) or 450 (STRS) and check the Increased Compensation box and enter in the Employer share of retirement with the appropriate inflated withholding amount in the Employer Rate field (SERS Example 15.4%%, STRS Example 15.96%.)
  • In Payroll Items, create a 690 (SERS) or 691 (STRS) record and enter in the appropriate inflated Employer Rate SERS (11.00%) or STRS (15.96%)

**NOTE** For other retirement setup scenarios and information regarding setting up inflated percentages, please refer to the "Calculating Regular and Retirement Pickup" section of the Useful Procedures chapter in the USPS-R Appendix.  

Accounts Receivable (AR) Live!

The AR Beta version concluded August 3rd with the release of USAS-R version 8.0.  This version allows those districts who did not participate in the Beta version to easily access the Accounts Receivable menu by installing the Accounts Receivable Module. The module is available under System>Modules.  If you are interested in installing the module, please contact your ITC for assistance.

Do you plan in importing Classic ARF data into the Redesign?

If the answer is "Yes", please contact your ITC to assist you with the import.  They will need to run a test import of your Classic ARF data to ensure everything imported as well as run balancing reports to compare against your Classic data.  After the test import is successful, they will run the import in your live data and once fully imported and balanced, you may begin using AR.

If the answer is "No", please contact your ITC to install the module.  Once installed, you may begin using AR.

Please refer to the Accounts Receivable documentation in the USAS-R user manual for more information on the options and reports available under the AR menu.   In the July newsletter, we provided a 10 minute video of the AR Beta version.  The SSDT recently presented an hour long training session to the ITC fiscal support staff on the AR Production version, which we recorded for reference purposes.  If you are interested in viewing the recording, please access the video on the SSDT YouTube channel.

State Software Steering Committee... a beacon for the Redesign  

In October of 2018, the State Software Steering Committee (SSSC) met for the first time establishing its purpose as advocacy for State Software users.  Since then, this group has been dedicated to the successful adoption and use of the redesigned State Software.  Committee members are comprised of one representative from each ITC (either an ITC or district fiscal professional), an ODE representative, two ITC Directors, Redesign Project Manager, SSDT senior staff, OASBO representative, BASA representative, MCOECN's CFO and MCOECN's Director of Enterprise Technologies.  Members meet four times per year with ITC or district members role representing all districts in their respective ITC region.  The representatives consult with other districts in their region on a regular basis, receiving feedback from the field which they, in turn, bring to the steering committee.  This helps to ensure end users have direct input into software development decisions.

The SSSC quickly formed three working groups to assist districts migrating to the Redesign by helping prioritize development work, assist with reporting needs and collaborate on training, support and documentation.  The working groups are populated by interested SSSC members and others invited by the group who may have specialized expertise/resources that can assist with their activities. 

The prioritization working group meets monthly focused on establishing a priority ranking of issues, led by the USPS-R and USAS-R Project Managers.   The reports working group focused efforts early on to help satisfy Redesign reporting needs and was led by the User Acceptance Testers.  This group developed a report library for both USAS & USPS that the end user can easily access to import report definitions.  Within the last couple of months, the Reports Working Group has merged with the support, documentation and training (SDT) working group, whose focus is assisting the SSDT with communication efforts.  Their biggest contributions are suggested article topics to be considered for upcoming newsletters as well as documentation improvements.  

The SSDT appreciates all of the effort put forth by each working group and the valuable input from committee members to help steer the migration efforts on the right course.  If you would like to contact the committee member in your region, please click here for a listing of the current State Software Steering Committee members.