Input Payroll Details

Input Payroll Details

This part of the payroll allows you to enter all the variable details for the current pay period – holiday pay, sick pay or statutory payments, overtime pay and so on.You do not need to make changes in the details of employees who are paid a standard amount of basic pay without any variables.

Link to Job Costing

When you select this option if you have already run the payroll for this period you are warned accordingly and returned to the menu.

Sequence to Process Employees

On selection of this option you have the capability to browse through all employees in either employee number order or department/employee order, or to process individual employees. Select as required.

If you select to process employees in sequence (either of the top two options) then you are further prompted ‘Only Show Employees that have no input recorded’ – the first time you select an option for this payroll period the response doesn’t matter (you start on the first employee), on subsequent occasions respond ‘Yes’ to continue where you left off last time or ‘No’ to re-start at the first employee.

Input Details

After selecting the sequence the first employee is displayed (or if you select ‘you specify’ after you have entered the employee to process).

Last Period Paid

Displays the last period this employee was paid – there would rarely be a need to change this.

Tax Code

Week-1

Displays the tax code for the employee – you would not usually change this here but in the employee maintenance options – but you can change the code (and week-1 flag basis) if required and this will be saved back to the employee record.

NI Code

NI Category

Displays the NI Code and Category of the employee for information purposes (you cannot amend these here).

SMP Week

SMP Amount

If you have previously entered any Statutory Maternity Pay details for this employee you are prompted for the number of weeks to pay this period. Enter/confirm the number of weeks to be paid this period – for weekly pay you would normally pay 1 week, for 2-weekly pay 2 weeks, 4-weekly pay 4 weeks and for monthly pay either 4/5 weeks (depending on the number of Sunday’s in the month). You can pay SMP in advance so you can enter any number of weeks up to the number of weeks remaining.

After entering the number of weeks to pay the amount is calculated for you to accept. Note: if you are only paying SMP then you should set the pay status (below) to ‘S’ for statutory payments only. If you are continuing to top up the pay to the normal salary then you will have to manually reduce the calculated pay by the SMP amount during entry.

SSP Days

SSP Amount

Enter the number of days SSP to pay. Do notinclude any waiting days. If SSP was paid in the previous period you will be prompted if this period of sickness is linked to the previous period – respond as appropriate.

The SSP amount is calculated for you to amend/accept as required. If no SSP amount is calculated it may be due to two reasons:

No SSP Qualifying Days has been set on the employee record – this is the number of days the employee normally works during the week (i.e. 5)

The average pay for the last eight weeks is below the SSP threshold.

If you have no pay history (this is the first period for the Datafile payroll) then you will be prompted to base the average pay on the basic salary – respond 'Yes' to this as required.

OSPP-B Weeks / Amount

OSPP-A Weeks / Amount

ASPP-B Weeks / Amount

ASPP-A Weeks / Amount

SAP Weeks / Amount

These operate in the same manner as the SMP option discussed earlier. Of particular note for monthly or 4-weekly payrolls is that Ordinary Statutory Paternity Pay is only paid for a maximum of 2 weeks. ASPP can be paid in part weeks – if paying in part weeks enter as "weeks.days” – i.e. 3.5 is 3 weeks 5 days.

Advanced Pay Periods

If you pay holiday pay in advance, you can specify here the number of holiday pay periods you wish to advance the payroll. For example, if an employee on a weekly payroll takes a fortnight’s holiday, advance the pay period by 2 – i.e. 2 weeks. If the payroll were 4-weekly, an entry of 2 would mean the employee would only be paid for two weeks in the next period. You do not usually use this option for monthly pay periods although you can if required; remember though you would be advancing the payroll by 1 or 2 (etc) months.

Notes

Holiday Pay Weeks

Holiday Pay Amount

The system updates the advanced pay periods as the holiday weeks (multiplying by 4 for monthly-pay) which you can accept or amend as required. In most cases the advanced pay periods and the holiday weeks would be the same (with the monthly pay proviso). If you wish to pay two weeks and (say) two days holiday pay in a weekly payroll then you would enter the advanced periods as 2 and the holiday weeks as 2.4 – assuming the employee works a five-day week. On confirmation of the holiday weeks the value is calculated based on their normal salary.

Accept the value or amend as required. If the payroll is configured to accumulate holiday credits – where the employee sets aside a portion of his/her pay each week to be paid when they take a holiday – then this value will be checked against their accumulated credits and you will be warned accordingly.

Status

Initially the pay status is blank meaning ‘Pay – No Input’. Once you have made entries in the current period for the employee and saved these values then this is updated to ‘I – Pay Details Input’.Exceptionally however you could overtype the status with one of these options:

B – Omit Basic Pay. You would use this if the employee was taking unpaid leave but is still to be included in the payroll run for any tax refund due and for any payment or deduction switches to be processed.

S – Statutory/Holiday Pay Only. You would use this status when the only payment to be made is to be one of SSP/SMP/SAP/SPP or Holiday Pay. Tax Credits, Student Loans and Attachment of earnings orders (the last two subject to the amount of pay received) continue to be paid but no switches are processed.

U – Unpaid Absence. Setting this option updates a flag reported to the HMRC on the Full Payment Submission to indicate reduction in pay.

L – Leaving this Period. This is set for you if you have marked the employee as a leaver but are paying them this period.

Basic Hours

Or Basic Pay

If the employee is paid at hours multiplied by rate then the basic number of hours is displayed – enter or amend as required. Parts of an hour are entered as decimal values, for example 35 and a half hours would be entered as ‘35.5’, or as time separated by ‘:’ where it would be entered as ‘35:30’. On confirmation of the number of hours the basic pay is calculated for you.

If the employee is paid a basic salary then the basic hours input displays as 0 – confirming this takes you to the basic pay. 

The basic pay defaults to either the basic salary or the result of entered hours x hourly rate.Accept the value shown or amend as required. You may want to amend this to reduce or zero the usual pay by any calculated SSP/SMP/SAP/SPP value otherwise their normal salary would be paid in addition to the statutory payment.

Notes

Overtime

Next the overtime bands configured in the payroll system profiles are displayed. This operates in the same manner as the input of basic hours above – you enter the hours worked and the system calculates the value which you can overtype as required. The overtime value is calculated according to the formula:

Hours x Overtime Rate x Rate Factor

The overtime rate is picked up from the employee record (if this is 0 then the hourly rate is used) and the rate factor (i.e. standard 1.0, time and a half 1.5, etc) is picked up from the payroll system profiles.

Overtime values are updated into the gross pay.

Notes

Switches – Extra Payments, Deductions and Repayments

Up to 80 (depending on product level) special payments, deductions or repayments can be configured in the payroll system profiles. This option allows you to accept/amend any values entered.

You accept or set whether the switch is in use or not and then enter the value to pay – if the switch is set as a ‘fixed’ then this defaults for you. If you overtype the value of a fixed switch then this would usually be the default from then on, although Diamond and Premier users can configure the system to reset these values at the period end.

If using advanced pay periods the value of the switch would usually be overtyped, if appropriate, to cover the extra periods. The exception to this would be if the switch is set both as a ‘fixed’ value and an ‘advanced’ value – in which case the switch value entered is multiplied by the number of periods paid.

Again, depending on the number of configured switches, some items may be prompted in a pop-up screen.

Values are updates as gross payments/deductions or net payments/deductions depending on configuration of the individual switch.

Department Split

Only available for Diamondand Premier users, and then only if configured, this option allows you to specify a percentage departmental split to apply to the employee’s pay in this period.You can allocate the pay over a maximum of eight departments.

Setting this option gives a pop-up screen allowing you to specify the department number and the percentage of pay to be allocated. The total of the percentages must add up to 100%, if it doesn’t you are warned accordingly.

Completing the Payroll Input

After entering the last of the input details the system calculates the pay, tax and NI values and displays these on screen.

You are asked at this point ‘Are the Above Details OK’. If you respond ‘No’ you are returned to the start of the input for that employee, if you respond ‘Yes’ the system updates the pay status for that employee as ‘I’ (if it was left blank) and moves on to the next employee. <ESC> abandons the input for the employee and you are asked if you wish to continue with further employees – respond as required.

Whilst the ‘Above Details OK’ question is displayed you can use the <F7-Option> key to print a copy of the payslip showing the values entered. After the payslip is printed you are returned to the ‘OK’ question to change the details or proceed to the next employee as required.