POST PAYROLL JOURNAL

Use this screen to post paycheck information to the General Ledger, Employee Earnings, and print a record of the posting, called the Reconciliation Gross to Net by Employee. The Reconciliation Gross to Net by Employee report is the record of amounts paid to employees and withheld from their pay. Also included in the reconciliation postings are accruals for employment taxes and employer contributions. A Payroll Variance Report is printed, detailing any amounts paid to employees that do not match the amount on the timesheet. The Check Register Report will provide you an easy at-a-glance view by check and direct deposit advice number, employee name and an employee's associated gross pay, taxes withheld, advance earned income credit, other deductions, check amount, and check date. Check numbers will be printed first and then direct deposit advice numbers starting on a new page.

The Reconciliation Gross to Net by Employee report is a key element in the system audit trail and you should always retain it each time it is printed and posted to the General Ledger. For this reason, you cannot post the Reconciliation Gross to Net by Employee to the General Ledger without first printing the Payroll Journal. You can, however, print the reconciliation without posting it so you can review and correct it before posting it to the General Ledger.

Posting the Reconciliation Gross to Net by Employee to the General Ledger will debit (decrease) the accrued salary account and credit (decrease) the payroll cash account and each of the withholding and other deduction accounts. Employment tax and employer contribution accruals will credit the appropriate liability accounts that you have entered in the Payroll Settings screen and debit the appropriate expense accounts.

Post the reconciliation after you have computed payroll, reviewed the Payroll Edit Report, created your direct deposit file(s), and printed paychecks and/or direct deposit advices.

After posting the Reconciliation Gross to Net by Employee to the General Ledger, you will be able to close the pay period.

You do not have to close the pay period after posting the reconciliation. You can hold the pay period open until you are ready to create the next payroll. By doing this, you have a longer window of time for processing adjustments to the current payroll. Adjustments affecting gross pay should normally be rolled into the next pay period if checks have already been distributed. However, you can issue a check outside of the normal cycle, if necessary.

You can close the pay period later by entering the Pay Periods screen and changing the Open Flag to "N" for this time period.

The Reconciliation Gross to Net by Employee must be posted to the General Ledger and the pay period closed before you create payroll for the next pay period. In your month-end closing process, you should make sure you have posted the Reconciliation Gross to Net by Employee for each payroll that was paid during the accounting period.

When posting Cash Out for Benefits or Flexible Spending amounts, the system uses the account assigned to that pay type in the Benefit Pay Type Accounts table window of the Benefit Settings screen.

Note:  There are three primary conditions that affect an out-of-balance payroll posting journal:

  1. If there are records in "Local Tax Override by Taxable Entity," even if from another Company, and the local taxes are not set up for the taxable entity of the login company. In this circumstance, an out-of-balance condition is created.

  2. If the login company has not completed processing in the Payroll Settings screen by entering the accounts located in the Posting Account group box, an out-of-balance condition is created. The login company has a partial "Payroll Settings" screen created when the login company was set up using the "Set Up Company" application, but the accounts are left blank. Since there are no validations or warnings in other applications, the post payroll journal creates an out-of-balance condition.

  3. If the login company has not completed processing in the Deductions screen by entering the accounts located in the Posting Account group box, an out-of-balance condition is created. The login company has partial Deductions screens created when the login company was set up in the Set Up Company" application, but the accounts are left blank. Since there are no validations or warnings in other applications, the post payroll journal creates an out-of-balance condition.

To alert you of these and similar scenarios, an error message will be triggered during the printing of the payroll journal related to out-of-balance conditions for Local Tax Overrides for Taxable Entities as well as missing accounts from the Payroll Settings and Deductions screens.

Multi-state functionality has been added to a number of applications. This functionality allows the proper calculation of withholdings for employee who work in multiple states during a single pay period. Because new tables are needed for multi-state calculation, this application now looks at new tables to hold the tax data.

Retention

Always retain the Reconciliation Gross to Net by Employee and Worksheet Reports that are printed when you post the Journal to the General Ledger. You can use this report for bank reconciliations and in support of IRS and State Payroll Reports. This is an essential part of your system audit trail.

Select Pay Cycle

Use this group box to enter the pay cycle code to post to the General Ledger.

Pay Cycle

Enter, or use Lookup to select, the code for which you want to post.

End Date

The end date for the pay cycle you have chosen will display.

Select Accounting Period

Fiscal Year

From this drop-down box, select the open fiscal year related to the accounting period in which you want the payroll journal to be posted.

Period

From this drop-down box, select the open accounting period within the Fiscal Year in which you want the reconciliation to be posted. Normally, you post the Reconciliation Gross to Net by Employee into the period in which the payroll was actually paid.

The Reconciliation Gross to Net by Employee posts the following to the General Ledger:

Usually there is a time lag between the pay period ending date and the pay date. Therefore, for the payroll at the end of the accounting period, your accounting policy can dictate that your accruals be posted into the current accounting period, whereas the cash basis portion of the entry should be made in the future accounting period.

Because the accruals usually involve more accounts, it is more expedient in this case to post the Reconciliation Gross to Net by Employee into the current accounting period and make an automatically reversing entry for the cash basis portion of the entry, also in the current accounting period. This entry will cancel the effect of the cash basis portion of the reconciliation. By designating the one entry as "Reversing," it will automatically record the effect of the cash basis portion of the Reconciliation Gross to Net by Employee in the next accounting period.

Subperiod

From this drop-down box, select the open subperiod related to the accounting Period for which you want to post the Reconciliation Gross to Net by Employee.

Journal Status

This non-editable field displays the printing status for this reconciliation.

Note: If you select the Print button on the toolbar to print the posting reports, the actual posting process will not take place. After printing the reports, you will still be in the application, and the screen will have the "Journal Printed" status displayed. You then have the option to select the Process button on the toolbar, and the process will proceed.

When you change any of the print options or selection criteria after having printed the Reconciliation Report, the Journal Status field is updated, and the Process button on the toolbar is grayed-out. You will have to print the reconciliation reports again before the posting process will occur. If you select the Process/Print button on the toolbar after having changed a parameter, the reports print automatically as part of the posting process.

Process

When you first enter this screen, this button on the toolbar is grayed-out. If you select this button after having printed the reconciliation report as part of this session (the button becomes available after printing), you will receive a message box asking if you really intend to post. If you answer "OK," the posting process will proceed.

Process/Print

You can select this button on the toolbar upon initial entry into this screen. If you do, you will receive a message asking if you really intend to post. If you answer "OK" the reconciliation report prints with the posting following immediately.

After posting has begun, a "DO NOT INTERRUPT" message and a message showing records processed will display.

Table Information

Changes to this screen update the following tables:

Financial Summary - FS_SUM

Reference Summary - REF_SUM

General Ledger Summary - GL_POST_SUM

General Ledger Detail - GL_DETL

Timesheet Header - LD_TS_HDR           

Employee Earnings History - PR_EMPL_EARNINGS

Employee Pay Types History - PR_EMPL_EARN_PAY_TYPE

Employee Worker's Comp History - PR_EMPL_EARN_WC

Employee Deductions History - PR_EMPL_EARN_DED

Employee Contributions History - PR_EMPL_EARN_CNTRB

Employee Local Tax History - PR_EMPL_EARN_LOCAL

Employee Payroll Table - PR_EMPL_PAYROLL

Employee Earnings Direct Deposit - EMPL_EARN_DD