Managing employee pay rates and salary setups is essential for accurate payroll processing. The Pay Info section located within the Employee Profile, is where an employees pay can be managed.
Pay Info Card
To view and make changes to an employee's pay rate, navigate to the Payroll section of their Employee Profile and select Pay Info.
The Pay Info Card is separated into two sections that can be individually adjusted as needed. The top section's settings control how the employee's pay is calculated, while the bottom section identifies the employee's hourly and/or salary rate. This section also maintains a historical log of the employee's past rate setups, if applicable.
Pay Info Card: Top Section
Clicking the Edit bottom within the Top Section will present the following fields that can be updated if needed.
- Paid As - This setting determines whether the employee's pay is calculated by rate or by salary.
When this is set to "Salary", the system will automatically apply the employee's "Salary Per Pay Period" amount each time a payroll batch is initiated. For salaried employees, the only requirements to enable Base Auto Pay are entering an amount for their "Salary Per Pay Period" and setting this toggle to "Salary."
For hourly employees, this toggle should be set to "Hourly" where additional fields are required:- Default Hours - This is the amount of hours that the employee typically works during a pay period. This field works in conjunction with auto pay feature, taking the amount entered in the employee's "Default Hours" field and multiplying it by the employee's Default Rate each time a payroll batch is started.
- Auto pay hours - Checking this box will turn on the base auto pay feature for the hourly employee.
- Pay Frequency - This field identifies which federal and state pay frequency tax tables should be applied when calculating tax withholdings on the employee's check. In almost all cases, this should match the organization's pay frequency although it technically does not have to be.
- Pay Group - This field is for informational purposes only and does not affect any payroll calculations.
- Mail Group - This field is for informational purposes only and does not affect any payroll calculations.
Pay Info Card: Bottom Section
The bottom section of the Pay Info Card is where rate and/or salary amounts are set for the employee's pay. This section will also have a Show History section that will display any past rates and/or salaries that were previously applied toward the employee.
Like many other setups on the Employee Profile, there is an option to "Change" or "Edit" an employee's rate. Changing the rate creates a historical record of previous rates for the employee, while editing overwrites the existing setup without saving a history. In most instances it is recommended to Change the record so that a historical record is saved.
- Effective Date - This is the date the new rate will take effect. It will also identify the date when the current rate will end. The date will initially populate to the current date the change is being made, however the start date can be adjusted to a future date if needed.
- Default Rate - For employees whose pay is calculated by hour, identify their default hourly pay rate in this field.
- Rate Per - For informational purposes, there are several options to indicate a Rate Per (hour, day, mile, etc.). This field doesn't affect how pay is calculated on a check and is simply for informational purposes only.
- Salary Per Pay Period - Use this field to identify an applicable employee's per pay period salary. Be sure to apply the per pay period salary amount, not the yearly salary amount.
- Estimated Annual Salary - This field will automatically populate with an estimated annual salary if a Salary Per Pay Period amount is applied. It will also automatically calculate an estimated annual salary if both the Default Hours and Default Rate fields are applied a value as well.
Rate Change Requests
Not all Workforce Users will be able to adjust the pay rate for an employee on their Employee Profile. This access is determined their Role permissions AND whether the Rate Change request is made available within Empeon's Request & Approvals settings. For additional information on how to establish a pay rate change request and approval process amongst the Workforce Users within the organization, please refer to Empeon's article User Requests - Rate Change Request.