Calculate Cost Items

The CALCULATE Cost Items step is comprised of the following functions:

• Generate an employee net pay number, after verification that the pay has not already been finalized.
• Find the cost items previously calculated to determine if the pay was already calculated. If so, reverse the summary of accumulated benefits, reverse the cumulate hours, change status of the cost items per period to Not Processed, reduce the arrears and payments amounts, before the pay is re-calculated.
• Check for retroactive transactions, and create the cost items and deductions per period, for these retroactive transactions.
• Copy the automatic cost items in cost items per period. Most of the time, one (1) automatic cost item will create one (1) cost item per period. However if there is a new salary transition, certain cost items need to be split to reflect the new salary. Also, if a cost item has a new cost item effective date, this would mean that part of the month, the cost item is one amount and the other part it is another amount, so again the system will need to create multiple cost items per period to reflect this.
• Calculation of Statutory Holidays. The system must verify if there were any statutory holidays during the pay period being calculated or any statutory holiday for the retroactive transactions, based on the Shift Schedule Definition of the employee assignment.
• Check if manual or retroactive cost items per period need to be split.  For every record found in Cost Items Per Period with Frequency set to One time or Pay Period, and IsProRated set to True, the application will verify if any Salary Transition occurs between the Cost Item Start Date and End Date. If a Salary Transition occurs, the cost item per period will be split at the Salary Transition effective date.
• Verify and assign Accumulated Benefit entitlements.  The application will verify the global variables associated to the Accumulated Benefits and verify if the employee for which the pay is calculated, is entitled to accumulated benefits as per Accumulated Benefit Entitlement.  If Entitlement credits have already been generated, under Cost Items Per Period (Cost Item Transaction Type is set to Entitlement and State is set to Approved), the Number of Hours/Day/Unit is set based on the number of days under Accumulated Benefit Entitlement Detail.
• Find the Accumulated Benefit transfers balance, from Accumulated Benefits Summary .  If the Accumulated Benefit Type is Daily of Hourly, the Number of Hours/Day/Unit of Cost Item Per Period is set to Balance, otherwise if Accumulated Benefit Type is Paid, Amount for Frequency is set to Balance.
• Calculate the value of the cost items per period. In cost items per period, there will be records coming from automatic cost items or cost items per period that were entered through the time and attendance module or cost items per period that were added manually through the cost items per period screen.  The application will scan these cost items per period in order of sequence Cost Items.  Only Cost Items Per Period that have a status not set to Cancelled nor Finalized, and a State set to Approved are calculated.  Calculated Amount and Amount Limiting Regular Cost Item, from Period are determined at this step, based on a detailed algorithm.
• Apply the maximums.  At this step, the Maximum by Pay, Monthly Maximum and Annual Maximum, from Cost Items Per Period are applied, if any.
• Apply penalties. At this step, the Employee Assignment Penalties are applied, if any.
• Update Accumulated Benefits. Summary of Accumulated Benefits fields, including Accumulated, Credit, Debit, Taken, Paid and Balance are updated, based on the Effect on Accumulated Benefit, from Cost Item Per Period.
• Set other attributes in cost items per period. If no error was generated during the previous steps, the fields Employee net Payment, Sequence Calculated, from Cost Items Per Period are set to the values determined, and the status is set to 'Calculated'.
• Update the cumulated hours, based on the Number of Hours/Day/Unit, from Cost Item Per Period.
• Check for remaining balances in accumulated benefits. If the global parameter Accumulated Benefit = TRUE and the global parameter Gregorian Calendar = TRUE, the application will verify if the pay period is the last pay period before the new year and if so, will verify that every Summary of Accumulated Benefit has a balance of zero.  If the balance is not zero, the following error will be generated: "The year end procedure for the Accumulated Benefits has not been done.  This employee cannot be calculated.  Please execute the year end procedure and recalculate".  The application also verified if any assignments ended and there are remaining balances. If so, the following error will be generated:"The employee's assignment has ended and has remaining balances.  Accumulated Benefit transfers need to be generated before pay can be calculated."

Calculate Deduction Items

To CALCULATE Deductions, the following actions must be performed:

• Copy automatic deductions into Deductions per Period
• Validate Minimum Salary.  If the sum of the Cost Item Corrected Amount or Calculated Amount, from Cost Items per Period, as applicable, for each Cost Item marked as Is Basic Salary, is less than the Minimum Salary specified under Automatic Deductions , the Period Deduction Calculated Amount is set to zero (0), under Deductions Per Period.
• Calculate the amounts of the deductions based on other deductions. 

The deductions have to be calculated in the order of sequence, specified under Deductions . This step includes the calculation of Period DeductionsCalculated Amount based on other deductions previously calculated, with a smaller sequence order, less any exemption specified under Deductions per Period.

• Fixed amount Deductions.  This step includes the calculation of Period DeductionsCalculated Amount based on fixed amount.
• Deductions based on cost items (deduction type N/A).  Calculates the Period Deduction Calculated Amount for Deductions based on cost items, as specified under Deductions , if Deduction Type is set to N/A.
• Deductions based on cost items (deduction type TAX).  Calculates the Period Deduction Calculated Amount for Deductions based on cost items, as specified under Deductions , if Deduction Type is set to TAX.
• Send transactions in arrears. 

There are 4 reasons why transactions go in arrears:

1) For an extended period of time, the employee is on leave and does not have any cost item to cover the mandatory deduction.

2) For a specific pay period, the employee does not have sufficient cost items to cover the mandatory deduction.

3) The calculated deductions that affect the pay have a greater value than the maximum allowed.

4) The employee is paying back the arrears through automatic deductions.

All transactions in Arrears will be included in the Arrears form.

• Check for penalties.  The application will apply the penalties specified under Employee Assignment Penalties , if applicable.
• Validate and apply the rules.  The application will apply the Maximum Per Pay, Monthly Maximum Amount and Annual Maximum, from Employee Deduction Rules, as well as the Maximum Cumulative Deductions.
• Set other attributes in deductions per period.  The application will set the Employee Net Payment, Sequence Calculated and the Status to Calculated, under Deductions Per Period.

Calculate GL Distribution

The calculation of the GL Distribution is comprised of the following steps:

• Validate that the distribution can be done.  The application will validate, for each Employee, that Is Finalized is false (un-checked), Is Valid is true (checked), and there is no Cancel Date, under View Pay Cheque.

• Erase the previous GL distribution. If the GL distribution has already been calculated, the application deletes the employees GL distribution for the pay period for which the pay is calculated, so it can be re-generated properly. The distribution is saved under Cost Items and Deductions.

• Generate the cost item distribution,for the Debit and Credit transactions.  If a partial or full line of coding is specified under Cost Item Per Period, it has precedence.  For the segments not specified under Cost Items Per Period, the application then looks at the Automatic Cost Items partial or full line of coding.  For the segments not specified under Automatic Cost Items, the application then looks at the Cost Items partial or full line of coding.  For the segments not specified under Cost Items, the application looks at the Assignment Financial Coding Block.  Code splitting is performed, at the Assignment Financial Coding Block level, if a Percentage different than 100% is specified.  Finally, for the segments not specified under Assignment Financial Coding Block, the application retrieves the coding from Position Financial Coding Block.  Code splitting is performed, at the Position Financial Coding Block level, based on the Percentage specified under Position Financial Coding Block.

• Generate the deduction distribution, for the Debit and Credit transactions.  If a partial or full line of coding is specified under Deductions Per Period, it has precedence.  For the segments not specified under Deductions Per Period, the application then looks at the Automatic Deductions partial or full line of coding.  For the segments not specified under Automatic Deductions, the application then looks at the Deductions partial or full line of coding.  For the segments not specified under Deductions, the application looks at the Assignment Financial Coding Block.  Code splitting is performed, at the Assignment Financial Coding Block level, if a Percentage different than 100% is specified.  Finally, for the segments not specified under Assignment Financial Coding Block, the application retrieves the coding from Position Financial Coding Block.  Code splitting is performed, at the Position Financial Coding Block level, based on the Percentage specified under Position Financial Coding Block.

Retroactive Pay Calculation

There are two (2) kinds of retroactive pays:

1) A delay occurs for approval of a new employee or a new promotion.  This is directly linked to a new assignment.

The application will create cost items per period and deductions per period marked as retroactive, for each pay period for which retroactive payments are made.

2) A delay occurs for signature of an increase.  This is not linked to a new assignment.

The Retroactive Summary screen is used to enter employee assignment filters, Cost Items to consider and percentage of increase.  A list of employee assignments meeting the filter criteria will be presented to the user.  Retroactive amounts will be calculated by multiplying the sum of cost items per period, associated to each selected cost item and for each assignment, by the percentage of increase.  Once the retroactive details are approved, pre-approved records are created in the employee assignments change requests and cost items per period.