Manage employee information, pay rates, withholding information, deductions, and benefits in the Employee List module. Employee List options allow you to apply
company defined payroll features to individual employees and manage employee profiles.
Objectives
In this lesson, you will learn to: Manage employee information Create a new employee profile Manage employee taxes
Enter and manage employee wages Administer employee deductions Administer deferred compensation
Manage up to 8 direct deposit accounts for each employee Administer employer paid benefits for employees
Monitor and control employee PTO (Paid Time Off) View and print paycheck history
Administer security access to employees
Employee List
The main navigation screen in the Employee List module is a table of all employees.
You can sort the employee list by one of five sorting options, include terminated and deleted employees, and include pending employees. From this screen, you can view and edit existing employee information and create new employee profiles. The settings and sort options from this screen also apply to the Employee drop-down menu.
Customizing the Employee List View
To include/remove terminated employees in the employee list table
1. Select the Employee List module from the Menu Options drop-down.
2. To include: Select the Include Terminated\Deleted Employees checkbox on the upper left side of the screen. Terminated or deleted employees display with the list. The corresponding value displays in the Status column of the employee table. 3. To remove: Click to clear the Include Terminated\Deleted Employees checkbox. Terminated or deleted employees are removed from the list.
To sort the employee list table and employee drop-down menu
1. Select the Employee List module from the Menu Options drop-down.
2. In the Sort By: row above the employee list table, select a sort view by clicking on text of one of the 5 sort options.
The employee list table refreshes with the new sort.
To access an existing employee record (to view or modify)
1. Select the Employee List module from the Menu Options drop-down menu. 2. Click the name of the employee record you want to view in the Select Employee
column. You may need to scroll down through the list (using the scroll bar on the right of the window) to locate the record. The Employee Information screen displays.
3. To view more wage, tax, deduction, paycheck history etc., select the appropriate link from the Employee Options section on the left side of the screen.
4. To select another employee record, use the Employee drop-down menu at the top of the screen.
Employee Options
The following payroll options are available in the Employee List module. To access these options, use the links under the Employee Options section located on the left side of the screen.
Figure 2 - Employee Options section
Information Direct Deposit
Taxes Employer Paid Benefits
Wages Paid Time Off (PTO)
Deductions Paycheck History
Deferred Compensation User Access
If you deactivated Deferred Compensation, Employer Paid Benefits, or Paid Time Off in the Administration module, it does not display in the Employee Options section.
Add a New Employee Profile
When inputting a new employee profile, Instant Payroll automatically guides you through three required sections: Information, Wages, and Taxes. The New Hire Wizard can be customized in the Administration module to contain the other five informational sections, although you can select to deactivate Deferred Compensation, Employer Paid Benefits, and PTO. The rest of this chapter details each of the Employee List options.
To add a new employee profile
Use the steps in this procedure to create a new employee profile. You may need to read subsequent sections of this chapter to successfully complete all data entry screens included in your New Hire Wizard process.
1. Select the Employee List module from the Menu Options drop-down. 2. Click Add Employee.
3. The system assigns the next available employee number.
If you want to change the employee number assigned by the system, highlight the Employee Number, and type the number to use.
If you use an employee number that is being used by another employee, you receive an error message indicating that the number is in use by another employee. If you receive an error message, enter a new number.
Note: Employee numbers can only be up to 5 characters.
4. Complete the required information on the next screens (refer to individual topics in this chapter for detailed information on each screen).
5. Click Next to advance through the data entry screens. Use Previous to go back one screen at a time. Use Cancel at any time to exit the New Hire process. 6. Click Save to save changes or Cancel to exit without saving.
Any errors made during new hire entry can be edited during the New Hire Wizard by using the Prev. option or immediately after saving the record by choosing the applicable link from the Employee Option section.
Employee Information
The Employee Information option allows you to enter demographic information about the employee. You can tab or click through the following fields:
Employee Number: You can assign this number or allow the system to generate it automatically. Employee numbers can only be up to 5 characters and cannot be assigned to another employee.
First Name/Middle Initial* Last Name*
Mailing Address City Zip
State: select a value from the drop-down menu Date of Birth*: use mm/dd/yyyy format
SSN* (social security number) Sex*: select Male or Female Primary Email Address* Secondary Email Address Hire Date*
Employee Type*: Defaults to Regular - employee receives a W-2. You can also select 1099C or 1099M for contract employees. If you select 1099C or 1099M, a message displays that explains the difference. After you select and save an
employee type, it cannot be changed. To create another type for the same
employee, you must create another employee profile. Termination Date
Employee Status: Select from Active, LOA (Leave of Absence), Terminated,
Term w/Pay, Re-Hired, or Deleted.
Rehire Date: Must be entered in mm/dd/yyyy format.
Division: Select from values you entered in the Company Information module. Refer to Company Div/Dept/Job. If you track any Divisions, you must enter a value. Pay Frequency: Select from Weekly, Bi-weekly, Semi-monthly, Monthly,
Quarterly, or Annual.
Department*: Select from values you entered in the Company Information module. Refer to Company Div/Dept/Job.
Job: Select from values you entered in the Company Information module. If you track any Jobs, you must enter a value.
Health coverage checkbox: Some states require this field when reporting new hires. If your state requires this information, select this checkbox to indicate the employee does have health coverage.
Coverage date: Enter coverage date for health coverage, if applicable.
* Required Field = Required only if values for the fields exist. Values are established in
Company Information.
To terminate an employee
1. Select Employee List from the Employee Options drop-down menu. Enter a
Termination Date.
2. Select an Employee Status; Term w/Pay allows you to process one more paycheck for the Employee. The status automatically changes to Terminated after the payroll process. Terminated status removes any paychecks pending to be processed for the employee.
3. Click Save to save changes or Cancel to exit without saving.
Employee Wages
The Employee Wages screen allows you to enter wages for your new employee or to change existing wage information. There are four tables on this screen – Rates, Rate Settings, Recurring Earnings, and Recurring Distribution.
Hourly: Select this option if you pay the employee an hourly rate.
Salary: Select this option if you pay the employee a dollar amount with scheduled hours
each pay period.
AutoPay this Employee: Check this box to include the employee in all regular payroll
runs. Salaried employees automatically have this option selected if normal hours are set up; if an hourly person is paid the same amount of regular hours each pay period, you can Auto Pay this employee by checking the box and adding Normal Hours.
Rates
Base Rate: This field should include an hourly rate for your employee if you have
selected the hourly option above.
Rate 2: If your employee has a second additional, non-overtime rate, enter that amount.
This applies to both hourly and salaried employees.
Rate 3: If your employee has a third additional, non-overtime rate, enter that amount.
This applies to both hourly and salaried employees.
Rate 4: If your employee has a fourth additional, non-overtime rate, enter that amount.
This applies to both hourly and salaried employees.
Note: The system holds up to four different regular rates per employee. These rates display as Regular 1 for base rate, Regular 2, 3, and 4 respectively.
Salary Rate: If you selected the salary checkbox, enter the salary amount for this
employee per pay period in this field.
Normal Hours: If you have chosen to AutoPay this employee above (salary or hourly),
or, if this employee is salaried, you must make an entry in this field. Enter the normal hours for this employee. For hourly employees who are set to AutoPay, enter the amount of hours you would normally pay each pay period.
Note: If you do not want to set up a salaried employee with scheduled hours; you must select the hourly option, and input the salary under Recurring earnings.
To enter an employee wage rate
For the procedures to access an employee record, refer to the Employee List topic or select an employee name from the Employee drop-down menu.
1. From within the employee record, click Wages in the Employee Options section. 2. Click Hourly or Salary.
3. Verify AutoPay this Employee status is correct.
4. Enter a Base Rate for hourly employees or a Salary Rate for Salary employees.
5. Enter Normal Hours for the employee pay period.
To change an employee wages
For the procedures to access an employee record, refer to the Employee List topic or select an employee name from the Employee drop-down menu.
1. From within the employee record, click Wages in the Employee Options section. 2. Change the applicable Rates table fields or Recurring Earnings field.
3. Click Save to save changes or Cancel to exit without saving.
Recurring Earnings
This table allows you to establish on-going types of pay for your employee, other than salary or hourly rate, and also set a frequency to be used for that specific earning type. This eliminates the need to enter this data each pay period and streamlines your payroll process. Each of the earnings types you defined in the Company Information module is available as recurring earnings. If the required earnings type is not available in the drop- down menu, create the earnings in the Company Information module. For earnings types, refer to Company Earnings.
Example:
Mary Smith drives a company-owned vehicle. The value of the persona use of this vehicle is taxable to Mary and must display on her W-2. You decide to post this value to her pay on the first payroll of the month. Select PERS USE CAR from the drop-down menu under the title earnings. The value of the vehicle is determined to be $100 each month. Enter $100.00 in the field under the heading entitled Per Pay and change the Frequency to 1st pay of month.
Note: Per hour recurring earnings requires local office set up. If you have questions regarding Recurring Earnings, contact your local office for additional information.
Group Codes
Group codes allow you to pay different employees with the same pay frequency. Use group codes to indicate which employees are included in a payroll (similar to pay frequency).
Example: Pay by region
Biweekly employees on the West Coast are paid the 1st and 3rd week of the month. Biweekly employees on the East Coast are paid the 2nd and 4th weeks of the month.
If two or more active group codes are used, the Payroll Group field displays with a drop- down menu. This field is required.
Important: Group codes can only be created by Advantage. Please contact your Client Support Representative to use this option.
To enter recurring earnings
1. From within the employee record, click Wages in the Employee Options section. 2. Select an Earnings Type from the drop-down menu.
3. Enter the appropriate Per Hour or Per Pay amount of the earnings.
The frequency field defaults to Each Payroll. Click Save to save changes or Cancel to
exit without saving.
To modify recurring earnings
1. From within the employee record, select Wages in the Employee Options drop- down menu.
2. Change the applicable Earnings type, Per Hour, and Per Pay fields.
Verify frequency. The default is Every Payroll.
3. Click Save to save changes or Cancel to exit without saving.
4. You may need to rebuild the payroll from the Payroll Processing module. This is explained in that section.
Employee Wages
When entering or changing an employee’s wage information, validation occurs to ensure the entries for the Base Rate, Rate 2, Rate 3, Rate 4, and Salary are not outside the limits established during input warnings setup. If entries in any of these fields violate the input warnings on initial screen load or during maintenance, the field color turns to gold and a message displays that states there are limit violations on the screen. At this point you can either correct the fields that are in violation or close the screen by clicking on it anywhere. (You must click the pop-up screen to save your changes if the entries are correct.) If you select to close the screen, you no longer see the message while working with the current employee. The field color still changes to gold to indicate fields that exceed input warnings.
Figure 5 - The Employee Wage screen without the pop-up screen and fields that violate the limits.
Recurring Distributions
Recurring Distributions can be added on the employee wage screen. This allows you to set up recurring fixed labor distribution on any or all employees. Employees’ hours automatically distribute according to the set up in this new field. When using this new feature, the hours / wages can be either distributed by using a percent or hours. If using the percent method, the total percent for the employee must not exceed 100% and can be typed as (50% should be typed as .50). If distributing by hours, type whole numbers.
This feature is only used if the employee always splits their hours between multiple division/departments. This overrides any labor distribution entered in the Payroll Entry screen.
Note: If using this new feature, you must enter information in all required fields. If the client uses divisions and departments, those fields must be populated during the set up. If one of these fields is not filled in, and Save is clicked, all the data typed is not saved.
Employee Taxes
The Employee Taxes screen contains several different tables that may or may not display based on the information in your company file. There are several exception functions on this screen that you do not use for most employees. Read this section carefully if you are not sure how to proceed.
Federal Taxes
Figure 6 - Employee Federal Tax Election
Filing Status: Obtain this information directly from the employee W-4. The drop-down
menu contains two choices – Married and Single.
Number of Exemptions: Obtain this information directly from the W-4 your employee
completed. This field accepts a numeric value zero through 99.
Social Security Exempt and Medicare Exempt: These checkboxes should be selected
if your employee is exempt from Social Security and/or Medicare. Please contact your local office to verify if the employee qualifies as exempt from Social Security and/or Medicare. These boxes can only be selected when adding a new employee. Please contact your local office if the employee should have been set up as exempt when originally added.
Note: Only in rare cases is an employee exempt from these taxes. Please consult your tax professional if you are unsure of this status. Employees who enter Exempt on box 7 of the W-4 are not automatically exempt from these taxes.
Additional Fed Tax
This drop-down menus four choices to withhold an amount of federal tax that is different from the amount calculated by W-4 formulas dictated by federal tax withholding. If you select any of the options below other than None, the appropriate amount should be typed in the field to the right of the drop-down menu. Percentages should be typed as whole dollar amounts. For example, 10% should be typed as 10.00. The choices are:
None: Default
Additional Amount: Select this option if your employee has chosen to withhold an
additional dollar amount in federal taxes.
Additional Percent: Select this option if your employee has chosen to withhold an
Fixed Amount: Select this option if your employee has chosen to override taxes
calculated by W-4 information and withhold a fixed flat dollar amount per pay period. This option is also used for employees who want to have no federal tax withheld, but are not truly exempt from federal taxes - enter a 0.00 amount.
Fixed Percent: Select this option if your employee has chosen to override taxes
calculated by W-4 information and withhold a fixed percentage amount per pay period.
To enter federal taxes for employees meeting Exempt conditions on the W-4.
Use the steps in this procedure to enter a tax rate for employees who enter Exempt in box 7 of the W-4. The employee is not exempt from Federal tax but they do not pay into federal tax based on anticipated wages.1. From within the employee record, click Taxes in the Employee Options section. 2. Select Fixed Amount in the Additional Fed Tax drop-down menu.
3. Type 0.00 in the Amount field.
4. Click Save to save changes or Cancel to exit without saving.
Earned Income Credit
Earned Income Credit is available to employees who have completed form W-5 - the Earned Income Credit Advance Payment Certificate. Select from Single, Married, or Not Applicable (default). This information should come directly from the W-5.
State Taxes
Withholding State: The drop-down menu contains a list of all withholding states
selected in your company profile, and defines the state to which your employee must pay income taxes. If the Withholding State is not listed, go to the Company Information module and check the required withholding state.
Figure 7 - Employee State Taxes Table
Reciprocal Withholding State: This drop-down contains a list of all withholding states
selected in your company profile and defines the secondary state to which employees must pay income tax.