A major benefit of the Datafile Software Job Costing system is that you may enter time sheets in full into the job costing system — as described earlier — and subsequently update these details into your payroll(s) automatically. The payroll details which can be so updated are the standard and overtime hours, plus other payroll details maintained under payroll "switches” (see the payroll manual itself for more information about payroll switches).
Backup Files
This operation updates both the job costing files and the payroll files. You are advised to ensure you have a backup copy of all these files, including the relevant company files, before you start the operation. In that way you can restore the files should some disaster strike, or if you discover that not all was ready after all.
Firstly you must specify the payroll company to update (your job costing system may link to several payroll companies – a weekly company, a monthly company, etc.)
The payroll files are then opened and the status of the payroll checked. The payroll status must be open for the current period, and must not yet have been run. Any other status is rejected with a suitable error message.
Time for Updating of Payroll
A payroll passes through two states in each cycle. First it must be opened for a new period. In this state all payroll details can be changed until you are satisfied that it is ready to run. In is only during this state that you can update details from job costing. In the second state the payroll is run, and you can no longer change the details for that period. See the payroll manual for more information.
This message indicates that the payroll is in the correct ‘status’ to update to and you can proceed with the update.
A final message warns that backups should be taken before you proceed. Reply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ to continue as desired.
First the program reads the whole of the job transactions file and notes the total number of pay records it finds (brought forward transactions are shown as "ignored” at this stage). Totals are accumulated by the program and a commentary of the steps taken is displayed, together with the number of records accepted — those not accepted are merely the job cost transactions which are not payroll-related. You are then prompted to display the totals for update.
If you are satisfied with the totals displayed then you can continue by selecting RUN to update the payroll. Reply ‘Cancel’ to abandon the procedure. If choose to proceed you are asked for the printer to send the update details to in the usual manner. The update report is then printed including details of any items which have been rejected.The following messages may be included in the report.
OK-ACCEPTED - entry accepted and posted to payroll file
ALREADY PAID - entry rejected, because the employee has already been paid (for example, the pay week or month may have been advanced due to holiday pay)
PAID THIS PERIOD - entry rejected, because a selective payroll run had been carried out in advance of the main payroll, and the employee had already been paid for this period
EXCLUDED - entry rejected because the employee had been marked as excluded from this payroll run
NOT ON FILE - entry rejected, because there is no employee record for the employee number specified in the job cost entry.
After the report has finished printing, the job cost transaction records for this payroll are marked as being updated in order to avoid duplicate postings.Rejected Update
Transactions are marked as updated even if they gave rise to any update errors. You must investigate why the errors occurred, and make decisions about how to handle the exceptions. Any corrections may have to be added manually to this payroll period.
Article ID: 770
Created On: Mon, Jun 25, 2012 at 11:18 AM
Last Updated On: Mon, Jun 19, 2023 at 10:37 PM
Online URL: https://kb.datafile.co.uk/article/update-time-sheets-to-payroll-770.html