Pay Rules
Pay rules control how time and attendance information is processed for each employee.
You can select one or more of the following pay rule building blocks for a pay rule:
- Sign-Off Restrictions
- Approval Restrictions
- Punch Interpretation Rules
- Processing Order
- Fixed Rules
- Transfer Rules
- Default work rule
- Default holiday credit rule
- Pay from schedule
Select Administration > Application Setup > Pay Policies > Pay Rules and complete the following fields to configure pay rules.
- Name — Enter or edit the name of the pay rule.
- Version Effective Dates — The date span during which the version of the pay rule you are viewing or editing is effective. Select the version (specified by the effective dates) to edit or delete.
- Select Create New Version Effective to set the effective date for this version of the pay rule, or select Update this version to use the effective date that you selected, plus changes that you made.
Use the Pay Rule tab to specify the basic rules that govern the pay rule, such as processing order and sign-off restrictions. Define any of the following:
- Fixed Rule — Identifies constant pay policies that are assigned to employees. Pay periods, day divides, and Hours belong to are all components of fixed rules. Unlike work rule assignments, which can change with employee schedules, fixed rule assignments do not change.
- Processing Order — The processing order that defines the order in which accumulated hour types are processed. The processing order is one step in the Totalizer process. If you select None, the defaults in the processing orders apply to the pay rule.
- Punch Interpretation Rule — Determines when punches link to schedules and when data collection devices accept and reject punches.
- Apply Schedule Margins when linking a shift to a schedule —
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- When this is not selected, any punched shift that overlaps a scheduled shift is considered scheduled.
- When selected, schedule margins (as configured in the Punch Interpretation Rule) are considered when determining if a punched shift that overlaps a scheduled shift is linked to the scheduled shift. This can help to ensure the correct pay codes are applied to hours worked.
- For example, when this option is selected and the in punch for a worked shift is within the schedule margin, then the shift is linked (that is, it is considered scheduled). If the in punch occurs outside of the schedule margin, then it is not linked (that is, it is considered unscheduled).
- Note: When this option is selected, Absence evaluation is not modified. An employee is not considered absent if the punched shift overlaps the schedule (regardless of the linked shift status).
- Default Work Rule — The work rule that interprets and calculates employee time. To override this work rule, assign another work rule in the Timecard, the Schedule, or in the New Pay Rule page. If you select None, the defaults in the work rules apply to the pay rule.
- Default Holiday Credit Rule — Identify the holiday credit rule that determines whether an employee is eligible to receive holiday credits, and the amount of holiday credits the employee can receive. To grant no holiday credits, select None.
- Sign-off Restrictions — Select a rule to restrict a manager’s ability to sign off, when specific conditions are not met.
- Manager Approval Restriction — Select the manager approval restriction to restrict timecard approval when specific exceptions are not resolved.
- Transfer Rule — Select a transfer rule. If a transfer rule is not selected, then transfers are processed using the system transfer behavior.
- Scheduled Pay Code Edits — Select one of the following options for how to handle pay code edits from the employee's schedule:
- Always Apply — Scheduled paycode edits are applied to the timecard, even when punches or other edits are made on the day.
- Note: When Always Apply is selected, paycode edits created in the Schedule Planner become non-editable in the timecard. To modify these edits, make the changes in the Schedule Planner.
- Cancel when timecard edits or punches exist on the day — Scheduled paycode edits are canceled when the employee punches or other edits are made on the day. The system uses the calendar day definition of the punch or edit to determine whether an amount can be overridden in the employee’s timecard.
- Pay From Schedule (Shifts) — Select Yes to pay employees according to their scheduled shifts. The system uses the calendar day definition of a shift or amount to prepopulate the employee’s timecard. Pay from schedule shifts are canceled when actual events exist on the day (for example, real punches or timecard edits).
- Pay code tag that does not cancel pay from schedule — If you have specific pay codes (for example, bonus or credit pay codes) that you do not want to cancel Pay From Schedule (Shifts) when they are added to the timecard as a pay code edit, then select the Pay Code Tag associated with those pay codes here. For more information, see Pay Code Tag.
- Note: The Pay Code Tag identified here only allows exemptions for the associated pay codes for Pay From Schedule (Shifts). This does not apply for Scheduled Pay Code Edits.
- Pay From Schedule applies on Holidays — Select Yes or No.
- When Yes is selected, employees are paid (according to the Pay From Schedule (Shifts) and Scheduled Pay Code Edits configurations) on days that have a defined holiday.
- When No is selected, Pay From Schedule (Shifts) and Scheduled Pay Code Edits are canceled for any scheduled data that applies to a day on which a holiday is defined. The cancellation occurs regardless of whether holiday credits are paid.
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Note: The Fixed Rule setting for Hours belong to can affect the actual shift that is canceled for any shifts scheduled across the day divide.
- Transfer Continuation — Define how long transfers stay in effect:
- Continue Cost Center, Labor Category, and Job Transfers until a new transaction is entered — The last cost center, labor category, and job transfer that was entered continues until a new transaction (employee punch, timecard edit, or group edit) is entered.
- Note: When this option is selected, PFS shifts triggered by a transfer on a punch shift are generated for all scheduled shifts through the current day (or until a new transaction cancels the transfer continuation). Shifts are not generated in the future.
- Continue Work Rule Transfers until a new transaction is entered — The work rule transfer that was entered continues until a new transaction (employee punch, timecard edit, or group edit) is entered.
- Transfer Continuation does not affect labor category and work rule transfers within a single shift.
Transfer Continuation cannot be split among multiple paycodes. If you select the Transfer Continuation option, and there is more than one paycode edit on the starting day, the system randomly selects which edit to continue.
- Prepopulate project timecards with transfer accounts used in the previous pay period — Specifies that the system prepopulate a project view timecard by displaying the transfer accounts that were used in the previous pay period. This option works only with project timecards. It can be used with any type of pay period (weekly, bi-weekly, semi-monthly, or monthly).
- Corrections Apply Date — If the selected pay period is signed off, the correction is applied to the next pay period. Select Today, Current Pay Period, Previous Pay Period and then select First Day or Last Day.
- Edits After Sign-off — Specify when users can edit signed-off time following payroll processing.
- Enable edits manually or by payroll interface — Enables you to perform a group edit as soon as payroll processing is complete, or use an API that runs automatically when payroll processing is complete.
- At the end of the pay period, enable edits after (Hours) — Enter the number of hours after pay after the pay period ends to enable edits. Use this if you are sure that payroll processing completes within a certain number of hours.
- Wage Pay Code — Select one of the money paycodes listed to be used for historical corrections.
Use the Holidays tab to specify the holidays that give holiday credits to the employees who are assigned to this pay rule.
Use the Assignment Rules tab to assign a work rule to a specific time period. When employees qualify for an assigned shift, the assigned work rule applies, not their default work rule.
Note: Assignment rules take effect only if employees work the shift with the triggering condition.
- Version Effective Dates — The date span during which the version of the pay rule you are viewing or editing is effective. Select the version (specified by the effective dates) to edit or delete.
- Select the effective date for this version of the assignment rule, or update this version of the pay rule to use the effective date that you selected, plus changes that you made.
- Select Create New Version Effective to set the effective date for this version of the pay rule, or select Update this version to use the effective date that you selected, plus changes that you made.
- Work Rule — Select the work rule that applies to this shift.
- Start Time — The start time that opens the range of time for scheduled employees to qualify for the assigned shift. Their scheduled start times must be before the end time. For unscheduled employees to qualify for the assigned shift, their in-punches must be before the end time.
- End Time — The end time that closes the range of time when in-punches can link to an assigned schedule. For scheduled employees to qualify for the assigned shift, their scheduled start times must be before the end time. For unscheduled employees to qualify for the assigned shift, their in-punches must be before the end time.
- Shift Min — The minimum shift length required for an employee to qualify for the assignment rule. The default is 0:00 (no minimum is required to qualify).
- Shift Max — The maximum shift length allowed for an employee to qualify for the assignment rule.
- Days of Week — The days of the week to which the assigned shift applies. The default is all days.
- Sched — Select to allow scheduled employees to qualify for this assignment shift.
- Unsched — Select to allow unscheduled employees to qualify for this assignment shift.
Pay policies and work rules can have one or more versions. Each version has a start date and an end date, which determine when the version is in effect. These dates are the effective dates.
The system maintains a span of dates, so that at any time, the current version of the pay rule and work rule has an effective date.
The default span of effective dates uses a start date of “Beginning of time” and an end date of “forever.” If you revise a pay rule or work rule and add an effective date, the span changes to include that effective date.
The Pay Rule and Work Rule pages open on the version that is in effect on the current day. If you add a version with effective dates in the future, and then open the pay rule or work rule, the version that is displayed will be for the date span that is displayed in the Effective Dates drop-down list that includes the current day. To see the future version, select the effective dates you specified for that version from the Effective Dates drop-down list.
When you work with pay rules and work rules, use the pay rule or work rule name.
ABC management has noticed recently that employees have been taking longer lunch periods. They want to change the Long Break Exception from 30 minutes to five minutes. ABC is a union shop, and all changes to working rules must be implemented on an agreed timetable. Tracking the change history is important for their third-party exception summary tool. The exception change becomes effective system-wide on October 1, 2003. In exchange for the greater restriction, management has agreed to grant bonuses to employees who work more than two callback shifts per pay period. This change is also effective on October 1, 2003.
To implement this change, ABC creates a new version of the work rule. The new version would contain the new Long Break Exception, effective October 1, 2003, as well as the bonus for employees who work more than two callback shifts.
On January 1, Methodical Manufacturing is implementing a new holiday policy. The new policy changes the Holiday Credit rule assigned to the pay rule for the Machinist’s union. The new credit rule has additional contributing paycodes and work history qualifiers.
The changes occur during a biweekly pay period that contains the previous Christmas holiday and January. Use effective dates to revise the pay rule. Apply the old Holiday Credit rule during the week of the Christmas holiday, and the new Holiday Credit rule for the week containing January 1.
Use the following wild card characters as substitutes for one or more characters:
- Use an asterisk (*) by itself to indicate all entries.
- Use an asterisk to substitute for several characters. For example, *00 selects any number that ends in 00, such as 100, 200, 1000, or 1500.
- Use a question mark (?) to substitute for one character. For example, ?00 selects any 3-digit number that ends in 00, such as 100, 200, or 500.