Pay Current is a type of pay schedule in which an employee’s paycheck is processed before the pay period is completed, in order to pay employees on the last day of the period. Due to the nature of payroll processing, in order to pay an employee on the final Friday of the pay period, the paycheck must be processed prior to that Friday. Management may estimate and pay the employee based on the number of hours they are scheduled to work between the processing date and the end of the pay period/pay date. If the employee works different hours than their projected hours, or projections are not used, the employer makes the necessary adjustment, to add or subtract pay, in the next paycheck.
There are two setups for pay current clients, projected hours and non-projected hours. Non-projected hours is used when employers pay employees only up to the time they have worked within the current period (even though the period has not ended yet), whereas, projected hours will auto-populate scheduled regular hours on an employee’s timesheet based on their assigned schedule. This means that employers will pay up to the time they have worked within the current period plus their remaining scheduled hours.
How do I process pay current payrolls?
- Correct any missing punches and address any open requests.
- Approve time.
- Export payroll file from Time and Attendance.
- Export accruals from Time and Attendance.
- Generate the Retro Hours Report.
- Note: Please contact Technical Support if you do not have a saved Retro Hours Report.
- Submit payroll in Premier.
- Unapprove time in Time and Attendance.
- Note: This allows employees to continue punching in for the remaining days in the pay period as well as submit requests. Once the pay period ends, the employee hours would need to be reapproved in Time and Attendance.
- Close out of the pay period.
- Note: At this time, the retro hours will populate in the new pay period for the next payroll.
- When processing the next payroll, you can then generate the Retro Hours Report to capture the retro hours.
- Email the report to the payroll specialist when processing payroll.
When do retro hours populate?
Retro hours populate once the pay period in which you have already processed payroll has been closed. Time and Attendance looks at the export history to determine what has already been paid. The pay current processing compares the hours that were worked at the time of the payroll export versus the hours that are currently in the system during End of Period processing. If there is a difference, it then subtracts the hours that have already been paid from what is currently in the system. The remaining hours then create a “pay current adjustment.” These adjustments are then added into the new current pay period using “retro” pay types. These pay types correspond with the normal pay types that were used with the original hours (e.g., RREG instead of REG, RVAC instead of VAC, etc.).
Why do I need to generate the Retro Hours Report?
We do not export retro hours from Time and Attendance because retro hours can be positive or negative. Since the payroll system does not accept negative hours, a retro hours report will need to be manually generated and emailed to your Payroll Specialist. This will ensure that the payroll specialist has the accurate information to adjust the employee’s pay. If your Payroll Specialist does not receive the Retro Hours report, they may not be aware of any retro hours that should be added or deducted from the employee’s pay. It will be important to provide them with that report each pay period.
Why do I not see any retro hours?
If the employee’s final hours at the close of the pay period match what was exported to payroll previously, no retro adjustments will generate in the next pay period.
Why do I see Scheduled Regular?
Projecting/estimating future work hours is done using scheduled regular hours, in which the system will auto populate hours on an employee’s timesheet based on their assigned schedule. When it’s time to process payroll, the employer will pay the employee their actual worked hours up to the current date, plus their projected scheduled hours through the end of the pay period. The projected hours will be displayed as “SchedReg” hours in the system. The schedule regular hours will then be replaced with the actual worked hours, as the employee continues to track their time throughout the remainder of the pay period.
If the actual worked hours are different than the projected hours, a retro adjustment will be applied in the next pay period (once the pay period in which payroll has already been processed has been closed). If the actual hours worked match the projected hours, no retro adjustments will be generated.
How do I allow my employees to continue adding time after their hours have been approved?
In order for your employees to request time off, add time manually, or punch throughout the rest of the pay period; their time will need to be unappoved by a system administrator. Once their time has been unapproved, they should be able to proceed with their normal time entry.