With Time & Attendance systems like Workforce, the payroll process occurs daily and not once per period.
Our team has compiled some suggestions on a process checklist to ensure the best for Workforce-Buddy integration. We strongly recommend that your team copies the below and adapts based on your operations.
Regular Actions
Since Buddy uses a daily sync with Buddy, it's essential that the following are done regularly:
- Employees are added on Buddy during onboarding
- Make sure to link employees to Workforce as soon as they are added to Buddy
- Changes in roles, salaries and taxes are updated before payroll is opened
- Termination dates are added to the role details of employees
Live Checks
For those who have custom rounding options or break-split enabled (see: Timesheet and Rounding Settings for Workforce Integration), it is recommended that timesheets and leave are checked more regularly.
- Go to Timesheets, insert dates and click Import from Workforce
- Click Fetch Timesheets to see what has been imported to date
- Go to Leave Management, adjust filter dates and status of leave, and View Leave to see what leave is imported to date
Workforce Costing Method
For those using the Workforce Costing Method, since overtime, awards and allowances will be imported from the Workforce, then it is necessary that Workforce data is checked routinely.
Any changes in timesheet calculations would then require you to Import from Workforce in the Timesheets section again to overwrite any imported data.
For mapped overtime, if they are set as Not Taxable as OT, then Buddy will assume that this is a special rate being given over and above the basic pay. For this reason, the rate will be automatically reduced as it's assumed that part is already paid in the basic pay.
This often makes sense for extra rates like Sunday or Public Holiday allowances, which are paid as part-basic and part-allowance.
Pre-Payroll Checks
Before running payroll, a few additional checks should be made:
- Go to Reports and download Timesheets & Leave Hours Report.
Check the employees' total hours and reference with Workforce to ensure the import is successful. - If updates are done to timesheets/leave on Workforce, click Import from Workforce again on the respective page (Timesheets and/or Leave Applications)
- Go to Run Payroll on Buddy
- Check and verify the dates, and amend any extra optional dates like bonus-date or cut-offs, if required (see: Run Payroll Process)
- Also go to Payroll History and verify the dates and the number of pay-period to ensure sequentiality
Payroll with Workforce Costing Method
When using Workforce as a Costing Method, you will need to Process Timesheets for each department.
This process will use the data from the imported timesheets and check that the data matches between Buddy and Workforce.
Requirements
- Awards are mapped in the integration settings before timesheets are imported (see: Mapping Custom Workforce Fields into Buddy)
- Staff has hourly rates on Workforce that match Buddy's rates
- The effective date of pay conditions has to be correct*, ideally before the start of pay period
- Overtime and allowances are verified on Workforce to be using the correct rates and calculations
- Any overtime and allowances are saved in the employee profile on Buddy
- e.g. hourly allowances are saved with the hourly rate
- e.g. applicable overtime rates are enabled
Processing Timesheets
Below is a video summarising the process timesheet actions, with detailed instructions further below
- For each Department, click Process Timesheets
- A list of employees' target hours and basic hours worked will be shown, showcasing the under hours.
- If this looks incorrect at this stage, close the process and check the timesheets and/or rates on Workforce and re-import after corrections.
- For any under hours, one may assign paid, unpaid or split leave, although these will not be exported to Workforce. You may also ignore not to assign extra leave.
It's strongly recommended that any unworked hours are handled in advance through Workforce for consistency
- Once checks are done, click Submit to Process Timesheets
- Buddy will save the Timesheet data, such as base hours, overtime, and allowances.
- You can proceed to add any additional manual allowances or through upload allowances if required
- Adjust any manual payslips that require attention, including paying leave balances for terminated employees
- Note: You can start performing payroll checks (see below) before saving payslips.
- Click Calculate & Save on individual payslips, or Generate Remaining Payslips for the entire department
Payroll with Buddy Costing Method
If you are not using the Workforce costing method, you may either use Buddy's Process Timesheets (see: AccuPay™ (Process Timesheets)) or rely on manual methods such as upload of allowances.
Payroll Checks
A strong responsibility of payroll officers is to perform payroll checks during payroll. Here are some suggestions:
- Go to Report and download Payroll Report
- You can filter by "status" that is Draft or Ready, if you want to look at a subset
- Check the totals of primary values, like gross, nets and allowances.
- If allowances were uploaded directly, check the total of the allowance in payslips with that of the import
- Sort to see the highest and lowest values for anomalies of primary allowances
- Apply filters for specific roles and or FT/PT to better perform sorting analyses
- Apply filters on 'fixed' allowances to observe anomalies that do not fit the standardised amount
- Apply filters on other/unpaid leave to determine any required attention
The above are only a few suggestions that should ideally be tailored for each company/operation.
Conclude Payroll
Once all payslips are saved and checks have been complete, you can continue to summary and conclude payroll.
Download the .pdf report, perform a cross-check with the FS5, download and verify bank/cheque reports, and send the SEPA file to the bank. It's recommended that key reports like bank reports and SEPA files are also stored offline.
Payslips can also be sent to the employees after everything is finalised, and FS3s can be downloaded for terminated employees.
This should mark the end of this payroll process whilst also having started the process for the next run!