Summary

Important: Payroll rules should be created by your PayGlobal Consultant. Changing payroll rules incorrectly will have a severe impact on your system.

Payroll rules are a powerful component of the PayGlobal application that can be used to automate transactions in the Payroll module.

Payroll rules automate transactions in the Payroll module only. In the Time & Attendance module, you use Award Rules to automatically generate transactions.

Attaching payroll rules

After you define the function of a payroll rule, you need to decide which PayGlobal entity you will attach it to. This will determine the effectiveness of the rule.

When you process a pay, PayGlobal calculates payroll rules only if they are attached to an entity. It does not process unattached payroll rules.

You can attach payroll rules to the following entities:

• Awards
• Periods
• Internal Companies.

Normal payroll processing hierarchies apply.

Advantages of payroll rules

• Transactions are generated on pay processing.
• Saves time on data-entry tasks and reduces the potential for error.
• Removes user subjectivity so employees are paid accurately and consistently.
• If you do not require the transaction in a pay period, then you can remove the payroll rule from the entity and just reprocess the pay (rather than manually delete the transactions). Unlike Permanent transactions, payroll rule transactions are refreshed every time the pay is processed. If the payroll rule no longer applies, then the transaction disappears.
• Can be used for complex calculations.
• Useful for oncost-type transactions to capture changes in leave liability from the previous pay to the close of the current pay.
• Can be used to generate ‘Process Pay’ warnings in the audit log.
• When PayGlobal leave tables cannot accommodate a client’s requirements use payroll rules to calculate leave balances, which will then update the employee files.

Disadvantages of payroll rules

• Can involve complex configurations that have far-reaching effects. We recommend that your payroll rules are set up by a PayGlobal Consultant to ensure that all outcomes are considered.
• Less flexibility in effective-dating transactions.
• If you use the T&A module, then you should use the award interpreter to generate paying transactions that capture daily-based costing.
• You cannot override transaction values unless you zero the transaction value and set Recalculate to No.

Examples

You would use payroll rules to generate the following types of transactions:

• Regular, consistent transactions, such as social club deductions, car parking allowances and salary payments.
• Oncost transactions.
• Superannuation employer contributions and employee deductions.
• Warnings to notify the user of problems, such as:
  • Employee is not on the correct leave table for their employee status type.
  • Employee has received an excessive dollar value this pay period.
  • Casual employee has received a payment that they are not entitled to, such as Double Time.

Payroll rule tab pages

Payroll rules have four main tab pages. The first two tabs filter employees and the third tab contains the actions that are applied to filtered employees. An employee must meet all filter criteria before the payroll rule applies the actions.

You need to set up the filters very carefully to ensure that the payroll rule is applied to the correct employees.

• Employee Clauses

  Employee clauses filter employees based on fields in their records, such as employee status, annual leave tables, date fields and user-defined fields.

• Qualifying Clauses

  Qualifying clauses filter employees based on criteria relating to the current pay period, such as earnings in the pay period, or whether dates in an employee’s record fall within the current period-to-date range.

• Action Clauses

  Action clauses are the calculations that the payroll rule applies to employees who pass the filtering clauses. The payroll rule applies Action clauses only to employees who meet all filter criteria.

Notes tab

The consultant who creates the payroll rule should use the Notes tab to clearly explain the purpose or function of the payroll rule. This explanation should include an example of how the payroll rule is used in the database.