How to payroll lock employee timecards

A payroll lock is a virtual lock on all transactional and configuration data that seals the pay period record from further edits. This action prevents users from making edits to employees' timecards.

It should only be used when a specific business reason justifies locking employees' data indefinitely. After the payroll is locked, the timecard data cannot be changed. Payroll lock cannot be undone or removed; therefore, it should be done far enough in the past that historical edits are not needed. A payroll lock takes effect through the last signed-off pay period that fully precedes the Effective Date that you select when you Apply the lock.

Payroll Lock can only be applied from a Dataview A configurable tool for analysing data and taking actions on a group of employees or an organisation. (custom or provided with the application), to one or multiple employees. The payroll lock function is available to any user who has the access control point set to Allowed in Administration > Set-up> Access Profiles > Function Access Profiles > Department Manager > Dataviews – Group Edits Changes made to more than one employee record at a time, for example, add or delete a pay code or punch to a group of timecards. > Payroll Lock in Dataviews.

The person adding the payroll lock should run payroll lock from a Timekeeping Dataview using the Lock Payroll action from the Approval menu.

Prerequisites

Before you payroll lock employee timecards, review the following recommendations and requirements:

All exceptions should be resolved in Employee timecards. (Recommended but not required).
Employee timecards should be approved by both the employee and the manager for the last sign-off date. (Recommended but not required).
Employee timecards must be signed off.
Before locking an employee:
- Whoever performs the payroll lock must have appropriate permissions in Function Access Profiles. (FAP)
- Verify that the transactional data for the employee is correct.
- Sign off employees. Employees must be signed off for the entire period that is being payroll locked.
- Apply all historical corrections Edits that occur after timecards are approved and signed-off., as needed.
Employee payroll lock date selection:

Cannot be after the last sign-off date; only on or before.
Payroll lock can be applied to multiple sign-off dates.
If there is no sign-off, then the timecard is locked as of the hire date, using the employee's hire date in the absence of a sign-off prior to the payroll lock request date.

Note: To avoid unexpected results, recently hired employees should always have at least one transaction before a timecard can be signed off. To accomplish this, add a zero Pay Code edit to the timecard after the hire date to avoid sign-off issues.

Steps to payroll lock employee timecards

Warning:

After the payroll lock has been applied to the employee’s data, historical edits cannot be made and historical corrections cannot be applied through the payroll lock Apply Date.
Payroll Lock cannot be removed from the employee’s record.
If it is possible that employee data from the past will need to be altered, do not apply payroll lock.
Best practice: Apply payroll lock for a timeframe that was at least a year ago.
it is recommended that the payroll lock date is far enough in the past that you are confident that no historical edits will be needed.

After the employee timecard is approved and signed off, a manager can lock the payroll in a Dataview via the following steps.

From the Main Menu, select Dataviews & Reports > Dataview Library
Open any Timekeeping Dataview – for example, Employee Summary.
Click Tap the employee records that you want to lock, or Select All to select all records.
To lock the payroll, click tap Approval and select Lock Payroll.
A warning message states: This payroll lock is irreversible.
Select the Effective Date for the payroll lock. The system uses the date to look for the last sign-off date prior to the date for which the payroll lock is requested.
If you are certain that you want to lock payroll, click tap Apply.

Note:

Payroll lock finds the closest sign-off date prior to the date for which payroll lock is requested
Payroll lock may be applied on a date that is different from the date provided by the user who is performing the payroll lock (based on the Effective Date in the Lock Payroll dialogue box). The payroll lock occurs based on employee pay periods.
Each employee may be locked on a different date, because different employees may have different pay periods, even though the same Effective Date was specified for all employees.

For example:
- A manager selects ten employees with a mix of pay period starting and ending dates.
- A reference date for the lock is supplied (it must be supplied; without it, the system has no way to determine what to do.)
- As each employee is processed, the system uses the reference date to discover the pay period ending date of a pay period that is closest to and before that date.
- The actual lock is for all dates up to the discovered date, not the supplied date.
The system will not payroll lock the most recent previous pay period, if requested, even if it is the sign-off date. It always keeps this pay period unlocked. Requests to lock the most recent previous pay period cause the system to apply the lock ending two pay periods ago.

Confirm in Group Edits results that all employees have been payroll locked successfully. If the payroll lock is not successful, errors are displayed.

Examples of how payroll lock is applied

Example 1

Maryann's timecard is signed off to the previous pay period, such as end of year 2020. The organisation wants to payroll lock the previous year, which is 2019 in this case.

Maryann has biweekly pay periods starting on Sundays. Her pay periods in December are:

24/11/2019 – 07/12/2019
08/12/2019 – 21/12/2019
22/12/2019 – 04/01/2020

The organisation uses 31/12/2019 as the payroll lock date

Maryann's last timeframe that will be payroll locked is 01/01/1900 – 21/12/2019 (from the beginning of time until the system-calculated payroll date, based on the last full sign-off date).

Example 2

Richard's timecard is signed off to the previous pay period, such as end of year 2020. The organisation wants to payroll lock the previous year, which is 2019 in this case.

Richard has not had any edits in the timecard since his hire date, 03/02/2019.

He has biweekly pay periods starting on Sundays. His only pay period that is signed off is 20/12/2020 – 26/12/2020.

The organisation uses 31/12/2019 as the payroll lock date.

Richard's last timeframe that will be payroll locked is 01/01/1900 – 03/02/2019. Because there is no sign-off date preceding the requested payroll lock date, the system uses his hire date as the payroll lock date for 2019 (from the beginning of time until the system-calculated payroll date that is the employee’s hire date).

Add payroll lock data metrics to a Dataview

To add the columns (metrics Measures and tracks workforce performance by comparing planned with actual workload or coverage, or by showing variances at any organizational level.) to view payroll lock data in a Dataview

From the Main Menu, select Administration > Application Set-up > Display Preferences > Dataview Management.
Click Tap Add to add a new Dataview, or select a Dataview from the table and click tap Edit.
In the Create or Edit Dataview page, click tap Add to add new columns. A dialogue box opens with a list of all the available columns in a grid format.
Search for the following columns that display the related employee data, and select the ones that are most relevant.

Entity	Category	Column Name
APPROVAL SUMMARY	APPROVALS	Pay Period Lock indicator
APPROVAL SUMMARY	APPROVALS	Payroll Lock through date
APPROVAL SUMMARY	APPROVALS	Manager Approval status
SIGN OFF	TIMEKEEPING	Payroll Lock through Date Time
SIGN OFF	TIMEKEEPING	Sign-off Indicator
SIGN OFF	TIMEKEEPING	Sign-off Date

Click Tap Add Column and Save.

For more details, see the help topic Select columns for the Dataview.

Note: The Dataview must be added to an appropriate Dataview profile for the user to access it.

View payroll lock data in a Dataview

To view the employee timecard payroll lock and sign-off data in a Dataview: