PAY PERIODS

Costpoint supports multiple pay cycles. Within each pay cycle, you can define the pay cycle schedule, or pay periods which will exist for the given pay cycle in a given payroll year. Each pay cycle must belong to one of four possible system-defined frequencies: Weekly, Bi-weekly, Semi-monthly, or Monthly. You can set up one or more pay cycles for each frequency.

This screen contains an auto-add feature to expedite setup. Once you have added the periods to the table window, you can edit the dates if necessary, but the dates cannot overlap.

There is no need to tie pay cycles to timesheet cycles or pay periods to timesheet periods. When a payroll is computed, the program includes all timesheets with dates within the pay period start and end dates for employees belonging to the pay cycle. Timesheets with dates earlier than the start date, or later than the end date, are skipped. (Each employee is assigned to one pay cycle in the Employee Taxes screen in Costpoint Employee.) For example, an employee could belong to a weekly timesheet cycle and a bi-weekly pay cycle. In this case, it does make sense to make the end dates of the second weekly timesheet cycle the same as the end date of the bi-weekly pay cycle.

Complete this screen during initial setup. Because the pay cycle is required for each employee, you must set it up here before entering employees in the Employee Taxes screen in Costpoint Employee.

This application contains functionality that allows you to compute and report multi-state withholding taxes, based on the tax regulations specific to each state.

Pay Cycle

Enter up to four characters that uniquely identify the Pay Cycle (Code). Costpoint supports weekly, bi-weekly, semi-monthly, and monthly pay frequencies. Each of these four types can also be subdivided into multiple pay cycles. For example, you can have several payrolls that are processed separately for employees who are paid weekly. This scenario could be set up as WK1, WK2, WK3, etc., all being assigned to a weekly pay frequency. In the same system you could have BWK1, BWK2, etc., assigned to bi-weekly pay frequencies.  You can establish an unlimited number of Pay Cycles. This is a required field.

You must assign each active employee to one of these pay cycles in the Employee Taxes screen in Costpoint Employee.

Description

Enter, up to 30 characters, a descriptive name for the pay cycle. This is a required field.

Frequency

Use this drop-down box to specify the frequency type of the pay cycle. This is used to determine the type of withholding calculations that would be appropriate. Valid types are  "Bi-weekly" (two weeks in the pay cycle period - 14 days), "Monthly" (pay cycle ending at the end of the month), "Semi-monthly" (pay cycle period ending on the 15th and the end of the month), and "Weekly" (one week in pay cycle period - 7 days). This field is required.

Local

Enter, or use Lookup to select, the Local ID that has been set up in the Union Profile screen in Costpoint Labor to be used for this pay period. This field is used to establish the pay period for union/prevailing wage employees if you are using the Union functionality.

Multi State Withholding Taxes

Select this checkbox to enable the Multi-State Taxes subtask in the Employee Taxes screen. The multi-state functionality allows you to properly calculate withholding taxes for employees who work in multiple states during a single pay period.

Add Pay Period End Dates

Use items in this group box to quickly add as many pay periods as you want, a year, or just a few periods.  Usually you would only add one Payroll year at a time to avoid editing the table window PR Year.   The number of pay periods entered determines how many will be added.  Alternatively, you can enter each pay period individually in the table window.

Payroll Year to be Added

Enter the four-digit year for which you will be building this table. This field is used in conjunction with the field(s) immediately following. It will fill in this year as the Payroll Year (PR Year) for all lines during the automatic filling of the Pay Cycle Schedule table. Only one payroll year can be used for this function. Therefore, if you build a Pay Cycle Schedule for multiple years, this year would appear on all lines and you would have to manually edit the PR Year column in the Pay Cycles Schedule.

Number of Pay Periods

Enter the number of pay periods you want the system to add to the table window. This numeric field is used in conjunction with the First End Date field when you use the Add pushbutton to automatically fill the Pay Cycle Schedule with the specified number of pay periods according to the frequency selected for this cycle.

For example, if you want to add one full year's pay periods, and if the pay cycle is semi-monthly, you would want to set up 24 periods for the year; if weekly, 52; if monthly, 12; and if bi-weekly, 26.  After you select the first end date, the pay period start dates and end dates will be calculated and automatically filled in the Pay Cycle Schedule table. Select the Add pushbutton to activate the automatic fill calculation that populates the table.

 When the periods are added to the table, the Open Flag is set to "N," and the PR Year and Reg Hours will be the year and hours you entered in Payroll Year to be Added and Regular Hours fields.

First End Date

Enter the pay period end date for the first pay period you want to add. This should be the last timesheet day for the period to be paid. For example, if you normally have a five-day lag between the last day of the timesheet and the paycheck date, you would enter the timesheet date, rather than the pay date.

This formatted date field is optional and is used as the starting point for adding entries to the Pay Cycle Schedule table. Costpoint uses a date format of MM/DD/YYYY. Based upon the Frequency and the Number of Pay Periods, the system will calculate the dates in each period and add them to the table.

If entries already exist in the table, additional entries will appear on the last row of the table.   Rows can be inserted, but be careful that dates do not overlap.  You will not be able to save a record with dates overlapped.

Last End Date

This non-editable field is derived from the above Number of Pay Periods, the First End Date, and the Frequency. Using this information, Costpoint calculates and displays the Last End Date. If you select the Add pushbutton, this will be the last pay cycle period end date that will be added to the table. It is important to note that if this end date expands into a future payroll year, you will need to change the payroll year (PR Year) for all lines that are relevant to that future year.

Regular Hours

Enter up to three numeric characters for the number of regular (non-overtime) hours in the Pay Period. This field is optional and is used in conjunction with the field(s) immediately following. It will fill in this number of hours in the Reg Hours for all lines related to the automatic filling of the Pay Cycle Schedule table. You can edit the Reg Hours column in the Pay Cycle Schedule table. Reg Hours are required to save the record.

Add

Select this pushbutton to add pay periods to the table window. This pushbutton is available after you enter all data in the Add Pay Period End Dates group box. Once your cursor is in the table window, you can perform various edits if necessary.

Pay Cycle Schedule

This table window displays the Start Date, End Date, an Open flag, the PR Year, and Reg Hours for each pay period in a given pay cycle. Select the Add pushbutton, or choose the New Line button on the toolbar, to update the table window with new pay periods.

Start Date

This editable field displays the start date that is calculated automatically from the previous row's End Date and the selected pay frequency. You can insert rows, but be careful that dates do not overlap (i.e., the current row's Start Date cannot be earlier than the previous row's End Date). You cannot save a record with dates overlapping. The Costpoint format for a date field is MM/DD/YYYY.

End Date

This editable field displays the end date that is calculated automatically from the selected row's Start Date and the selected pay frequency. You can enter a date representing the last timesheet date of the pay period (which may or may not be the paycheck date) in this field, but the date(s) in this table must not overlap (i.e., the current row's End Date cannot be later than the next row's Start Date). The Costpoint format for a date field is MM/DD/YYYY.

Open Flag

Enter "Y" (Yes) or "N" (No) to indicate whether the pay period is open. Only one pay period can be open for a given pay cycle at a time. When you add pay periods to the table using the Add pushbutton, the Open Flag is set to "N."

PR Year

Enter the payroll year for which this period is effective.

Reg Hours

This column reflects the number of regular (non-overtime) hours in each specific pay period. You can edit this column to the specific number of regular (non-overtime) hours in each pay period. This is a required field.

Table Information

Changes to this screen update the following tables:

Pay Periods - PR_PAY_PD         

Pay Period Schedules - PR_PAY_PD_SCH