Payroll Processing Tips & Tricks

Payroll Processing Tips & Tricks

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Ascentis Macro-Enabled Workbooks

Ascentis has a variety of customizable macro-enabled workbooks which can be used to mass import values into either the employee profiles or into Payroll Processing.

Master File Import Workbook

Payroll Processing Tips & Tricks

2 Step 1 would be to save the spreadsheet to a specific location, ideally a folder on your pc or shared drive that you can easily find again.

Step 2 is to open the spreadsheet and enable the content (macros).

Note – Depending on what version of Excel you are using, the “enable” option may show up as a Security Warning above the function bar, or it may show up as a pop up warning message.

Payroll Processing Tips & Tricks

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Payroll Processing Tips & Tricks

4 Step 3 would be to go to the Journal Data Entry sheet and populate the applicable columns.

Tip - If you click in any of the column headings, a tip will appear providing you additional details on the purpose or accepted values for that column. (In general the Employee Number is always required as that is the field that drives the entire import process on the Payroll side.)

Payroll Processing Tips & Tricks

5 Step 4 - Once you’ve populated your data you’ll want to validate the data and create the Upload file.

To validate the data you click on the “Instructions” sheet.

Payroll Processing Tips & Tricks

6 Ideally you’re looking to get the following message back.

Note – If you get a different message with warnings or errors listed, you can click File > Open and switch to looking at All file types and look for a text file labeled “Validation Errors” report. Open this report and it will provide details on what the specific problem is.

Payroll Processing Tips & Tricks

7 Once you have successfully validated the data, you’ll want to create the upload file. Return to the “Instructions tab” and click the “Create Upload File” button.

The following message will appear. Click OK.

Payroll Processing Tips & Tricks

8 Step 5 – The final step would be to log into Ascentis Payroll and go to the main Employee screen and click the Import button and upload and import the file to populate the employees’ profiles.

When you click the Import link the following window will appear. Click .

Payroll Processing Tips & Tricks

9 Locate the folder you saved the file in and look for the text file that was created from the Excel workbook.

The text file is your import file.

Select the file and click .

Payroll Processing Tips & Tricks

10 This will pull the file into the window. Click .

You should get the following message. Click OK.

You can now click to complete the upload and import process.

Payroll Processing Tips & Tricks

11 You should receive the following message. Click OK.

If you go to Reports you will see a new report titled “BAU-PRM UPDATE”. If you Quick View this report you can see the results of what you just imported.

Payroll Processing Tips & Tricks

12 Tip – It’s a good idea to open this report after completing your import and validate that the data looks correct. You may also want to click on the in the report and search on the words “Error” and “Invalid” as those are two types of messages the report will return to you if something failed to import properly.

Payroll Processing Tips & Tricks

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Payroll Processing Workbooks

Consider using one of Ascentis’ Macro-enabled Workbooks, which can be customized to your needs in terms of pay or deduction codes, to speed up Payroll Processing.

Tips - Click on the column headings to read a comment with additional details regarding what information and value formats are acceptable in the selected column.

Columns that have a “1.0 in the cell of row 4 are columns that you enter hours into. Columns that have a colored cell in row 4 are columns that you enter $ amounts into.

If you want to pay an employee some hours in a different Location, Division, Department, Shift or rate, you’ll need

to insert additional rows in the spreadsheet for the employee. Rows where you leave the Loc, Div and Dept blank

will default to the employees “home” labor level assignments. Rows where you fill in those values will override

the employees “home” labor level settings.

Payroll Processing Tips & Tricks

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Step 1 - Make sure your Ascentis upload workbook is saved in a folder or someplace that is easy to find.

Step 2 - Open the workbook and enable the macros (content).

Payroll Processing Tips & Tricks

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Step 3 – Populate the various columns. See example below.

Payroll Processing Tips & Tricks

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Step 4 - From the Instruction tab click the “Validate Data” button.

You should get a message that no warnings or errors were found. If you do find errors then look at the

Validation Report to see what the errors are. The Validation report is a Text file that can be found in the same

folder you have this Import workbook saved in. Be sure to change to looking at all file types so you can see the

Validation text file.

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Step 5 - If the validation says no warnings or errors found then click OK and return to the Instruction tab and click the Create Upload File button.

The following window will appear allowing you to enter a description for the journal you are about to create.

Make it something that will really stand out to you. When finished, click OK.

Payroll Processing Tips & Tricks

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The following window will appear. Click “Yes” if it is correct.

Click OK on this message.

Payroll Processing Tips & Tricks

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Step 6 - From the Payroll Processing screen click on the button.

Payroll Processing Tips & Tricks

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The following window will appear. The first drop down menu is where you select the program you want to use to import the file.



Use the “Standard Import” program when you are importing files created off of Ascentis workbooks.

Once you select the program from the drop down menu, click the button to locate the file.

Payroll Processing Tips & Tricks

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This will open a window and allow you to navigate to the folder you saved the workbook in.

When you created the file off of the Ascentis workbook, the file was created as a Text file. Look for the file with the description that you entered in step 5 of the instructions above. It will begin with the word “Batch”

and end with a “.txt”.

Select the file and click .

Tip – If you are routinely going to be uploading into Ascentis, consider setting up a default path preference so that

the Import program will automatically take you to the folder your file will be saved in.

Payroll Processing Tips & Tricks

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This will bring the file into the Import Journal screen. Click the button.

You should get the following message. Click .

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Enter the following fields:

 Description – Enter the description for this journal. Whatever you enter here will be the name of the Journal when you are finished with the import process.

 Period Ending Date – Enter the period end date this import is associated with.

 Default Check Type – Leave this field as “Regular” if you want these entries to be part of their regular check.

Change this field to “Additional” if you want the entries to be paid on a 2^nd check.

 Use Pay Period Hours – Ignore this field.

 Sort Report By – Choose how you want to sort the report.

 Process – Click the button.

Payroll Processing Tips & Tricks

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You should get the following message. Click .

You should now see your imported journal from the main Payroll Processing screen.

Payroll Processing Tips & Tricks

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Reports

If you go to Reports you will have two new reports at the top of the queue.

JDE-(description of report) – This is a report displaying all the check entries that were just imported. The last page of the report includes totals by code.

PIN-FILE CONVERT – This report will tell you if there are any issues with the file that was just imported. Make

Payroll Processing Tips & Tricks

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Quick Entry

The Quick Entry template option allows you to quickly create a check entry that can be mass applied to all employees or a specific group of employees.

For example, if you needed to give everyone in the Production department a $100 bonus and you wanted to produce it as an Additional check (2^nd check) and block deductions and direct deposit, with just a few clicks of the mouse you can produce that batch journal complete with the checks and bonus amounts and specified results.

In this example we’ll use the Quick Entry tool to mass create a $250.00 Year End bonus to all Active employees within the company.

Payroll Processing Tips & Tricks

27 To start you’ll go to the main Payroll Processing tool and click in the lower left corner of the screen.

The following window will appear. Select the Quick Entry journal type, enter a description for your journal and click .

Payroll Processing Tips & Tricks

28 The following window will open. This is where you select or create a new Quick Entry Template.

For this example we’ll click to build a new template.

Payroll Processing Tips & Tricks

29 The following window will open. Type in a Template Name and description and make your Check Type, Options and Code selections and click .

Payroll Processing Tips & Tricks

30 When you’re done building your template select it and click .

Payroll Processing Tips & Tricks

31 At the next stage of the wizard you can select the employees you want to include in the journal. If you don’t already have your emloyee group defined you can click on the in the upper right corner of this screen and build your group.

Once you’ve selected your group click .

Payroll Processing Tips & Tricks

32 The final step of the wizard is where you can select some specific check settings that you want to apply en mass.

In this example we’ll mark the “Block Direct Deposit” check box to make these live checks.

We’ll also pick our pay code and the amount we want to pay and click to add it to the journal window.

Payroll Processing Tips & Tricks

33 Once you’ve added the code to the journal you then click to complete the addition of the code to all employees in the journal.

The following message should appear. Click OK.

Payroll Processing Tips & Tricks

34 The final step is to click .

Payroll Processing Tips & Tricks

35 The Quick Entry journal will now open.

Initially the journal will select the first employee from the group select the code from the template and present you with an opportunity to key an amount in the employees check entry.

Since we used the “Add code to all Checks” feature in the previous screen, we don’t need to key any additional amounts into the journal.

To get out of the selected employee’s trans code click the .

Payroll Processing Tips & Tricks

36 To get out of this emlpoyees check record all together click the button.

Payroll Processing Tips & Tricks

37 The last step is to click the button to complete all entries into the journal.

Payroll Processing Tips & Tricks

38 The following warning will appear. Click Yes to proceed.

The following warning will appear. Select the “Keep All Checks” option and click .

Payroll Processing Tips & Tricks

39 In just a few minutes you have created a journal with a $250.00 bonus “Additional” check for all active employees that will be live checks (direct deposits blocked).

Payroll Processing Tips & Tricks

40 Using Standards screen for reoccurring pays

If you have pay types that you would like to issue to employees on a regular basis but as separate checks (i.e. Auto Allowance) or in lieu of a regular pay period Salary payment (i.e. Draw), you might consider creating Standard Journal Groups.

The first step is to create the Journal Groups. This is accomplished within the Control File which can be found from Utilities > Control File.

Payroll Processing Tips & Tricks

41 From within the Control File you’ll want to go to the Payroll Cycles and Groups screen. Click in the lower right side of the screen.

The following window will appear. Enter a Journal Group ID value using a specific letter or number.

In the example below we’ll create a Journal Group to pull Draw Payments for our Commissioned employees and we’ll use the letter “D” for the Journal Group ID.

Payroll Processing Tips & Tricks

42 Once you’ve created the new Journal Group and you see it in the list of Journal Groups on the right side of the screen click the to close the Control File.

Payroll Processing Tips & Tricks

43 The next step would be to go into the applicable employee master files, to the “Standards” screen and select your

“Draw” earnings code using the in the Edit Pane of the window.

Enter the amount and select the “Draw Payments” journal group.

Note – If you leave the labor levels blank then payment will default post to the employees “home” labor level assignments on the Position screen of their master file.

When finished click to apply the record into the employees profile.

Payroll Processing Tips & Tricks

44 Once you’ve added the payment to the Standards screen for each eligible employee, you can begin using this journal option during Payroll Processing.

Click in the lower left corner of the window.

Payroll Processing Tips & Tricks

45 Select the “Standards Journal Entries” option and select the “Draw Payments” journal group.

Click the button if you want to post these entries to an “Additional” check (2^nd Check).

Payroll Processing Tips & Tricks

46 The window will expand to allow you access to the additional options such as the option to set the Check Type to

“Additional”.

When finished click .

Payroll Processing Tips & Tricks

47 You’ll now see a new journal under Payroll Processing that includes a check and payment to each employee that was setup with this Journal Group in their Profile.

Payroll Processing Tips & Tricks

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Manual Adjustments

The Manual Checks tool is a way to post an adjustment to the employee’s Year-to-date or W-2 totals. This feature does not produce a cashable check or printable statement to the employee. It’s more of a “behind the scenes” adjustment feature.

Examples of times you might use this feature is if you need to post 3^rd party sick pay, taxable fringe benefit amounts that you record quarterly or annually (i.e. GTL, Imputed ER Domestic Partner coverage, taxable Gift amounts etc…)

To access this feature click on the tool located in the lower right corner of the Payroll Processing screen.

The following message will appear. Click .

Payroll Processing Tips & Tricks

49 This will open the journal in “Manual Check” mode.

The first step is to select the employee using the in the upper right corner of the screen.

Payroll Processing Tips & Tricks

50 The second step is to select the “New Manual” check type over on the right side of the screen.

Payroll Processing Tips & Tricks

51 The following window will appear. Enter the Check Number, Check Date and Period End Date and click OK.

Tip – if you start the check number with a 9 and make it at least seven digits long, it will automatically be excluded from the standard Bank Reconciliation reports that Ascentis offers.

In certain instances you may want to use an actual check number. For example, if you accidentally posted an

employee’s check to the wrong Home/Work state tax setup and you want to do a re-class, you may decide to void the original check and then re-post to the correct state tax setup, in which case you may want to enter the original check number into this field.

Payroll Processing Tips & Tricks

52 The next step would be to populate the Transaction Code (Txn Code) field down in the Edit Pane at the bottom of the window.

In this example we’ll demonstrate posting 3^rd party sick pay.

Select the code, enter the amount and click .

Payroll Processing Tips & Tricks

53 Notice that each transaction code you add to the check changes the amount that appears in the “Net Check Total” field.

Payroll Processing Tips & Tricks

54 In the case of 3^rd party sick pay that was paid by a Third Party Administrator (i.e. Mutual of Omaha, Unum etc…) where you the employer are still responsible for issuing the W-2 at the end of the year, you’ll want to post the taxes the 3^rd Party Administrator collected using special tax codes so that the taxes are acknowledged but the system does not see them as “owed” taxes that need to be collected and filed.

Use the following tax transaction codes in this instance:

702 = FWH 3PS (Federal Withholding) 714 = OASDI-3PS (Social Security) 717 = MHI-3PS (Medicare)

Payroll Processing Tips & Tricks

55 Handling the “Net” on a Manual Check

In most cases, when you’re posting a Manual adjustment into the system, you would not want a remaining “Net”

amount on the check as this check entry is simply an adjustment within the system and will never actually clear your bank account.

A good way to deal with the “net” remainder on a manual adjustment check is to use an after-tax deduction code to post the net amount to.

In the example below we have an after-tax deduction code labeled “NET CHECK” where we’re posting the same amount we currently see in the Net Check Total field of the manual check window.

Payroll Processing Tips & Tricks

56 Now that the “Net Check Total” field shows 0.00 we can proceed with closing out this entry.

Click the button.

If there is any tax types unaccounted for within the manual check the system will always pop up the following message.

If you are confident you have all applicable tax types accounted for then click OK.

Payroll Processing Tips & Tricks

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Payroll Processing Tips & Tricks

58 You’ll need to click the button one more time to fully save this check entry.

Payroll Processing Tips & Tricks

59 You can now click the button to close the journal.