Introduction
Many payroll and HR-related items in Workforce require effective dates when being added or changed within an Employee's Profile. Profile card setups such as deductions, rates, direct deposits, and taxes require start and end dates to be identified so that Empeon Workforce can determine when these items should be active and applied to employees. When these require modifications after they have been initially set up, Workforce Users will be presented with a choice between two methods for updating the card: Change the record or Edit the record.
Understanding the difference between the two helps ensure that conflicting records aren't created within an Employee's Profile. This article explains how both methods function so that Workforce Users can apply the best method depending on the circumstance.
Change vs. Edit
Most date driven items in an Employee's Profile will have a button for "Change" and a three-dot menu that offers the options to "Edit" and "Delete" the setup.
When applying a Change, the former setup will end dated and saved as a historical record. When multiple Changes are applied over time, multiple historical records of previous setups will be saved in the order of their end dates.
Edit directly overwrites the existing/current record without recording a change history. Editing the record will simply update the current profile setup card, while still keeping its original effective date. This will give the appearance that the record had always been that way since its initial entry into the system.
Which method should be used?
Usually it's best to Change in order to establish a historical record of Employee Profile changes that align with employees' pay, deduction, and tax history. However, the Edit feature serves a useful purpose as well. Use Edit for instances where a change was recently applied to an Employee Profile, but soon after it's discovered that a correction needs to be made to that change.
An example of using Edit to make an update is if an employee's life insurance deduction amount is Changed from $4 per payroll to $5 per payroll, but shortly after the Change, it is realized that the correct deduction amount should have been $4.50. Assuming that there hasn't been a payroll yet applying the $5 deduction, it is best to just correct the existing $5 deduction setup amount to $4.50 by using the Edit option. This is because the incorrect $5 amount was never actually applied in payroll; making a Change again would save an invalid historical record within the Employee Profile.
For additional guidance on when it may be best to use Change or Edit, contact Empeon Customer Service.