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STRS Advance 

What goes better together?  Fiscal year end and the STRS advance!

Preparing for the STRS Advance

Here are some helpful tips to make processing the STRS advance a smooth one.

• Run all STRS Advance reports now, prior to the last payroll of the fiscal year to avoid issues before it's too late.
  • Advance Fiscal Year To Date Report - Is the service credit for each employee correct?  Balance the figures in the Report Totals section.
    • Criteria for an employee to appear on the report:
      • The employee must have a Position with the Retirement Code set to STRS.
      • The employee must have earnings in the current fiscal year. Earnings are a sum of 3 things:
        1. For an advancing Compensation, the accrued wages will be added to earnings (Accrued Wages = Contract Obligation – Amount Paid – Amount Docked). 
        2. Adjustment journals with the Type of Total Gross that are applying to a STRS Payroll item for the employee with a Transaction Date within the fiscal year.
        3. The Applicable Gross of historical STRS Payroll items paid to the employee on payrolls that were not imported from Classic and have a pay date within the fiscal year.
      • The employee must have a Contract (or Legacy) Compensation with a date range that falls within the current date AND the Compensation Pays Paid is not equal to Pays In Contract or the Compensation has been paid in the fiscal year OR the employee must have a Non Contract Compensation with a date range that falls within the fiscal year.
  • Advanced Positions Report - Is the service credit for each employee correct?  Balance the Total Amount Advanced. 
    • Criteria for an employee to appear on the report: 
      • The employee must have a Position with the Retirement Code set to STRS and the Position must have a Job Status of Active or Inactive.
      • The employee must have a Contract (or Legacy) Compensation with a date range that falls within the current date.
      • The Compensation Contract Work Days must equal the Contract Days Worked or the Compensation Contract Work Days must equal the Contract Days Worked as of June 30 (determined using work days from the calendars). 
      • The Compensation Contract Work Days and Contract Days Worked must be greater than 0. 
      • The Compensation Pays Paid must be less than the Pays In Contract.
      • The Compensation Contract Obligation – Amount Paid – Amount Docked must be greater than 0.
  • Non-Advanced Positions Report - Should the positions listed be on the report? 
    • Criteria for an employee to appear on the report:
      • The employee must have a Position with the Retirement Code set to STRS and the Position must have a Job Status of Active or Inactive.  Must also have a Contract or Legacy Compensation for the Position.
      • The employee must have a Contract (or Legacy) Compensation with a date range that falls within the current date.
      • The Compensation Pays Paid must be less than the Pays In Contract and there must be Contract Work Days on the Compensation greater than 0.
      • The Compensation Contract Work Days does not equal the Contract Days Worked or the Compensation Contract Work Days must equal the Contract Days Worked as of June 30 (determined using work days from the calendars). 

• Consider early contract pay offs.  If aware of these now, go to the Compensation record and update the Pays In Contract.  Keep in mind this may change the pay per period.

• If aware of any docks that will happen over the summer, the dock amount can be posted in Payroll Payments - Future using the Dock Pay Type.  When the STRS advance reports are run, any dock amounts will be included and the employee's information accurately reported. The Payroll Payments - Future record will need to be deleted after the STRS advance submission file is created and processed at the appropriate time.

The STRS Submission File

Once the STRS submission file (STRSADYY06.TXT) is created, the system flags all Compensations included in the submission file in 'advance mode.'  They are identified by the Strs Advance checkbox on the Compensation records.  Regular and irregular pay types may not be used on compensations in the 'advance mode.'   

The total advanced amount is tracked and can be viewed by going to Core>Organization.  As payrolls are processed over the summer months, the Amount Paid Back is tracked.  

 If the STRS advance balances, the Amount Paid Back will equal the Advance Amount.  At that time, the Advance Amount, Advance Mode, Amount Paid Back on the STRS Advance Configuration and Strs Advance checkbox on the Compensation records are cleared.  

Including Third Party Information

If you have third party information that needs to be included with your Redesign STRSYY06.TXT file, the STRS Merge option can utilized.  Before uploading your file to STRS, simply do the following:  

• Click Choose File next to Upload Advance Submission File For Merge.  Browse to locate the STRSADYY06.TXT Redesign file.
• Click Choose File next to Upload File to Merge.  Browse to locate the third party file.
• Generate STRS Merge Report and verify.
• Select Merge Files.  This is the file that should be uploaded to STRS.

Areas of Interest

Once the STRS submission file is uploaded to STRS, a couple fields can be used for reference - System>Configuration>STRS Advance Configuration>Submission Timestamp and Core>Organization>Submitted to STRS.

The Submission Timestamp will show the date and time the Reports>STRS Advance>Submit Uploaded File was run.  Keep in mind, if the district had to be taken out of advance for corrections and a new file was uploaded to STRS, the date and time stamp will NOT be removed or changed from the original date of submission.

STRS Advance Reports in the File Archive

When the STRS Advance Submission file is created, the following STRS reports are created in the FY End report bundle found in Utilities>File Archive - YYYY - Fiscal Year Reports:

• STRS Advance Fiscal Year-to-Date Report
• STRS Advance Positions Report
• STRS Non-Advance Positions Report
• STRS Employee Merge Report (If applicable)
• STRSADMERGED.TXT (If Applicable)
• STRSADYY06.TXT

When the June posting period is closed, the following reports are created in the FY End report bundle found in Utilities>File Archive - YYYY - Fiscal Year Reports:

• Attendance Journal Report
• Benefit Obligation Report by Account Report
• Benefit Obligation Report by Employee Report
• Leave Balance Report
• Payment Transaction Status Report
• Earnings Register Report
• Wage Obligation Report by Account
• Wage Obligation Report by Employee

Note:  The STRS advance submission filing deadline is by the first Friday in August, 2022.