CenterPoint Fund Accounting - Processing a Pay Run/Pay Employees

Processing a Payroll - Enter Pay Video - Duration: 21 min 10 sec

Processing a Payroll - Print and Post Checks Video 6- Duration: 8 min 24 sec

See Also

Document #:	3023	Product:	CenterPoint® Payroll

 

Pay Employees is used to process and print payroll checks. CenterPoint Payroll allows an unlimited number of open pay runs at any given time. Use these instructions if you would like to create a pay run by entering total hours per employee or by copying a previous pay run. Please refer to the Processing a Pay Run Using Time Sheets document if you would like to enter time in and out detail for each employee or will be importing time from a time-clock.

Prior to processing your first pay run, go to File > Preferences > Payroll > Printing - Checks or File > Preferences > Printing > Payroll Checks and verify that your payroll printing preferences are set correctly. Note: If you are starting CenterPoint Payroll Mid-Year, follow the Starting Payroll Mid-Year procedure prior to processing your first payroll in CenterPoint Payroll.

Step A - Create a Pay Run/Enter Time

Tabs
Select Employees	Enter Pay	Special Adjustments
Totals	Prepayment Reports	Print Checks

Step B - Verify Pay Run Information (Optional)

Step C - Process a Pay Run/Print Checks

Step D - Pay Liability Invoices Due

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Step A - Create a Pay Run/Enter Time:

1. Select Processes > Pay Employees or Processes > Payroll > Pay Employees.

2. Click New if you'd like to start a new blank pay run or click Copy to create a new pay run by copying the data from a previous pay run. When a pay run is copied, inactive employees are excluded from the copy and you can determine if earnings should be copied from the source pay run. If you do not copy earnings, default earnings are used as in a new pay run.

Select Employees

3. Under Pay Run Information, enter the pay run information:

• Company - Select the company that this pay run is for.
• Bank Account - Select the bank account that checks will be written from and direct deposits will be debited from.
• Number - The default pay run number will be displayed. The default sequence number for this field is a six-digit number that will increment by 1 with each pay run. In the example above, a sequence that begins with the year and then has a three-digit increment number after is used. To create a new sequence or edit the existing sequence, right-click on the sequence field and select New or Edit.
• Deduction/Benefit Frequency - Select the deduction/benefit frequency for this pay run.
• Pay Period From - To - These dates should represent the work dates for the pay run for the selected company. The last entered pay run's dates for the selected company are used as a template to calculate the next pay run dates. For example, if your last entered pay run was for 6/01/20 - 6/14/20 with a pay date of 6/15/20, the next calculated pay period would be 6/15/20 - 06/28/20 with a pay date of 6/29/20.
• Pay Date - Enter the date that will be printed on the checks.
• Extra Frequency - If there are any additional deduction/benefit schedules that need to be included, select the frequency in this box. For example, the employer makes a one time contribution annually to fund a Health Savings account for the employees, this Special Pay Period is only selected the first pay period of the year.
• Memo Line - Enter an optional memo. The memo entered here will appear in the Memo Line 1 field of any check/advice definitions that include the field (including the system-supplied checks.)
• Exclude Default Pay Amounts - Select this check box if you do not want salary to automatically calculate for special pay runs such as bonus or commission pay runs. When the Enter Pay tab is selected, the earning Amount column value will be set to zero for the selected employees in the pay run.

4. Under Employees, select the employees that you want to pay in this pay run. The number of Employees selected will appear under the list on the left side of the screen.

• To select all employees, click to move all employees to the right side of the screen.
• To select a single employee, select the employee you want to pay, and then click to move the employee to the right side of the screen.
• To select multiple employees, hold the CTRL key while you make your selections and then click to move the employees to the right side of the screen.

• Choose the columns that display and the order they display in by right-clicking and selecting Add/Remove Columns, choosing the columns, and clicking Move Up/Move Down to change the order (for example, you may want to display the Department column and have the Department column displayed first).
• You can also set the sort order by right-clicking and selecting Sort Columns, selecting the columns to sort by, and then using the up and down arrows to determine the order sort by (for example, you may choose to sort your employees first by Department and then by Last Name.)

Click Here for more examples on how employees can be filtered for selection.

• Find specific employees, for example last names that begin with "S"
1. In the By box, select which column you want to search for a specific record in the list. For example, you want to search for Last Name, so you would select the Employee Last Name, First Name column .
2. In the Search box, enter the name you are searching for, for example S.
3. The first last name that starts with S is highlighted in the Available list, followed by all of the other names that start with S. Move a Name to the Selected List by clicking . To select multiple criteria in the Available List, hold the CTRL key while making the selections and then to move your selections to the Selected List, click .
• Display only employees that have Time Sheets in the Store department.
1. Click , click Click Here to Filter List, and then select Timesheets. Then, in the next box, verify that it displays Yes. 
2. In the box next to and, select Department. Then, in the next box, enter Store and then click Go.
3. Move a Name to the Selected List by clicking . To select multiple criteria in the Available List, hold the CTRL key while making the selections and then to move your selections to the Selected List, click .

• Display only active employees that have John in the their first name.
1. Click , click Click Here to Filter List, and then select Active. Then, in the next box, verify that it displays Yes.
2. In the box next to and, select Employee First Name. Then, in the next box, enter John and then click Go.
3. Move a Name to the Selected List by clicking . To select multiple criteria in the Available List, hold the CTRL key while making the selections and then to move your selections to the Selected List, click .
• Display only the employees that have the Direct Deposit check box selected in Employee maintenance, which will allow you to process payroll for direct deposit employees only.
1. Click , click Click Here to Filter List, and then select Direct Deposit. Then, in the next box, verify that it displays Yes.
2. Click Go.
3. Move a Name to the Selected List by clicking . To select multiple criteria in the Available List, hold the CTRL key while making the selections and then to move your selections to the Selected List, click .
• Define a Custom Filter. A custom filter can be defined If a filter is not available for filtering your employees, for example you can set information up that isn't otherwise tracked in the system (for example, Contractors, Sub-Contractors, Relatives, etc.) in a Custom Field and then filter your employees by that Custom Field. Define a custom filter by clicking , clicking ,assigning a name, clicking OK, defining the filter criteria, and then clicking Save. The filter will automatically display in the list of filters and applied.

Note: When a filter is applied to your list, a yellow highlighted line with a Filter Applied message is displayed under your Lookup list.

Enter Pay tab

5. Select the 2. Enter Pay tab.

6. Select an employee from the upper-left side of the screen. Columns can be added to this employee list by right-clicking and selecting Add/Remove columns.
7. The lower left side of the screen displays the Leave Available for this employee.

8. On the right side of the screen, in the Weeks Worked box, the value that displays is the Pay Period default for the employee from the Setup > Employees > Payroll tab. For example; Daily = 0 Weeks, Weekly = 1 Week, Bi-Weekly & Semi-Monthly = 2 Weeks, Monthly = 4 Weeks and Annual = 52 Weeks. This value can be overridden at any time prior to processing the pay run with a value between 0 and 52 weeks; the value entered here will be passed along to Aatrix for tax reporting.

9. On the right-side of the screen, under Gross Earnings, view, modify or add existing payroll data information. For example, enter the hours worked, enter earnings information (default earning codes will be sorted by Earning Name), work shift, department, etc. If the Copy button was used to create this pay run, then the details from the original pay run will be displayed and can be modified as needed. If the New button was used, then the earnings information will need to be entered.
10. Note: If you are entering a third party sick pay pay run, see the information about third party sick pay in the Third Party Disability Payments procedure.
    Note: If you want to require that a profit centerdepartment be entered on all pay run earning lines before the pay run be processed or be warned if a profit centerdepartment is missing from a pay run earning line but continue to process the pay run, you can set the Profit Center/Department Pay Run Validation preference in File > Preferences > Payroll > General. If the Skip Earnings Using an Account Distribution preference is set to Yes the Profit Center/Department pay run validation preference set to Required will be skipped for an earning using an Account Distribution.
    Note:If you want the Hours Offered and Hours Worked fields to auto-flll with default salary earning type hours, set the Default Hours for Salary Earning to Yes and verify/change the default hours in File > Preferences > Payroll > Salary Hours. The Total Offered box will display the total of the Offered column for all earnings under the Gross Earnings grouping row.
    Note: If you want to enter what you want the Net Pay for the check to be and have CenterPoint calculate the gross, add the optional Gross Up button to the Earnings section of the Enter Pay grid by right clicking and selecting Add/Remove columns. This button is active for fixed rate earnings only.

Note: Click the Lookup icon in any of the boxes under Gross Earnings to select the earning, work shift, department, etc. from a list. You can also customize the data entry grid, right-click on the grid, select Add\Remove Columns, select the columns of detail you will need for time entry by selecting the check box next to each column name, click OK.

Note: If you want to use prior pay run information for this employee (instead of entering time manually), click Recall to view a list of prior pay runs and select the pay run you want to use the pay run information from.

10. If you are calculating overtime automatically, an OT Period column displays in the Regular Earnings section that displays the periods based on the Overtime Start Date/Period Days for the Overtime Earning and the Start/End Dates for the pay run.
11. If you are calculating overtime automatically, an Overtime Earnings section displays the total of the calculated overtime pay. Calculated overtime earnings are included in the Gross Earnings, but overtime hours are not included in "Total Hours" for gross earnings.

12. To verify or override deductions, employer benefits, employee or employer taxes, etc. expand each section by clicking the plus sign . If you change the amount of a deduction, employer benefit, employee or employer taxes, the Override check box will automatically be selected.
13. Click the Detail button in the grid to enter additional accounting or tax information that is not displayed on the grid. The items on the Detail tab screen represent the Date, Earning, and units involved in calculating the pay. The units can be hours for hourly earnings, pieces for piecework, or gross receipts for tips. You also have the options to allocate pay to a department and project. The Accounting & Taxes tab displays all of the defaults that were set up on the Employee Detail screen for the earning. You can override the selections made by selecting to use an account distribution, divide the labor cost among multiple accounts, select different profit centers/departments, production centers/locations, production year/tracking number 1, production series/tracking number 2, projects, etc. This tab also brings in the defaults for taxes and includes the tax state for the employee, the SUTA state for this employee, and the workers' compensation class, all of which can be changed or entered as necessary.

14. To verify the number of hours entered for the selected employee, view the Total Hours box on the right-side of the screen next to Gross Earnings.

15. Repeat steps 6-12 for each employee in this pay run. To select the next, previous, last, or first employee from the upper-left side of the screen, you can select the employee by clicking the employee name or you can select the next employee in the list by clicking one of the selection icons under the employee list.
16. Click on the 3. SpecialAdjustments tab if you need to do a minimum wage, hourly rate rounding, pay employee FICA, or break pay adjustment.

Special Adjustments

• Minimum Wage Adjustments
  
  In situations where you have workers that get paid using piecework, it is necessary to make sure that they are also achieving minimum rate wages. Red Wing Software does not automatically update minimum wage rate changes for each state. You will need to do this manually.
  CenterPoint Payroll maintains the Federal minimum wage rate in Setup > Payroll Details > Minimum Wage Information. The minimum wage information is used to calculate optional minimum wage adjustments for employees not meeting state or federal minimum wage requirements. When the minimum wage adjustment is calculated, an additional earning is used to add the amount to meet the minimum wage adjustment. The total wages are compared to the hours worked multiplied by the minimum wage. If the employee has not earned at least minimum wage an adjustment is done and the amount is added to their earnings.

• On the left-side of the Special Adjustments tab, all employees will display. Select all of the employees by clicking on the first employee and then holding the Shift key while you click the last employee. Release the Shift key.
• Click Calculate. The first time you click Calculate, you will be prompted to enter/select the Minimum Wage Adjustment earning, select the earning, and then click OK. If the Employer Pays Employee FICA check box was selected in Setup > Employees > Payroll tab for an employee, a Pay Employee FICA Adjustment will display for the amount of their Social Security and Medicare taxes. If an earning was not assigned at the Employer level, you will be prompted to enter a Gross Up Earning, select the earning, and then click OK.
• By highlighting each employee on the list, the grid on the right-side of the screen will show you if any adjustment was made.
• The Special Adjustments report can be previewed for the current pay run from this screen by clicking Preview. When clicked, any changes made to the pay run up to that point will be saved and the Special Adjustments report will display. Changes made to this version of the report will not be saved and cannot be stored as a favorite. If you want to customize this report, you should print the report via the Reports > Payroll Data Reports > Payroll Totals > Special Adjustments or Prepayment Reports tab instead.
• When an adjustment is made, the earning and amount will display in the Pay Grid on the 2. Enter Pay tab.
• See the Minimum Wage Adjustments procedure for more information.

• Hourly Rate Rounding Adjustments
  
  In situations where you have earning rates that extend beyond two decimal places or use fractional hours/pieces that may result in rounding discrepancies, the Hourly Rate Rounding adjustment can be used to correct the rounding discrepancy.
  • This adjustment is only made for hourly earnings of the same type and rate.
    
    For example, if a new time sheet is entered for each day worked, you may end up with multiple earnings (of the same type and rate) in the pay run for an employee; and if a two decimal rate or fractional hours are entered , it’s possible to calculate a different total earning amount for those earnings if all the hours are added up and multiplied by the Rate as opposed to adding up all the Hours x Rates rounded to 2 decimal places.

    • 8 hours are worked @ $9.1253 for 5 days.

    • When the five time sheets are imported (because they are entered daily) there will be five earning entries, each with an Amount of $73.00.

    • Total earnings = $364.00; however, if those hours were summarized to 40 hours @$9.1253 the total would be $365.01.
    • To track those rounded pennies, you can calculate an Hourly Rate Rounding Adjustment which will calculate any difference and add it to the earnings as an adjustment.
    Note: This adjustment is only made for hourly earnings of the same type and rate.

• Pay Employee FICA Adjustment

CenterPoint Payroll can calculate an adjustment to allow the employer to pay an employee's FICA. This is commonly referred to as a Gross Up adjustment. For additional information, see the Employee FICA Paid by Employer (Gross Up Adjustment) topic.

• Click on the Special Adjustments tab.

• Check the box for Pay Employee FICA Adjustment.
• Highlight the employee(s) you need to calculate the adjustment for. Hold down the Ctrl key while clicking to select more than one employee.
• Click Calculate.
• In the Gross Up Earning box, select the earning setup for Employer Paid Fica and click OK.
• A line will be added to the grid for the Pay Employee FICA Adjustment. This amount will be added to the employee(s) pay. It will be equal to the employee tax calculated for Medicare and Social Security.
• If desired, click Preview to see a report of all the adjustments that were calculated.

• Break Pay Adjustment
  • The break pay adjustment is used to compensate piece rate employees for rest periods separate from piece rate pay, for example, the Washington State Piece Rate Workers' law requires this adjustment. You can ​include only earnings associated with a specified state by selecting the state in the Tax State box. If no selection is made, the calculation will include all state's earnings.
  • Example: An employee's total piece rate earnings for the week is $800.00 and worked for 40 hours, including the required two 10 minute rest-breaks each day (total of 10 required rest breaks in 5 days). The employee's regular rate would be $800.00/(40 hours – 100 minutes of required rest-breaks), which equals approximately $20.87/hour, which is greater than the minimum wage rate. Therefore, in addition to the piece work pay of $800.00, the worker would be entitled to be separately paid for the 100 minutes of required rest-breaks at the employee's regular rate of $20.87/hour or approximately an additional $34.78 for the week. Had the regular rate been less than the current minimum wage of $9.47/hour, the regular rate would be adjusted up to the minimum wage.

Totals tab

17. The 4. Totals tab is used to verify the total number of employees, net pay, taxes, benefits, and total liability. The screen also lists the total number of employees receiving checks and direct deposit advices with the net pay for each for the pay run.

Step B - Verify Pay Run Information (Optional)

Prepayment Reports tab

1. If desired, run a Payroll Prepayment report from the 5. Prepayment Reports tab to verify data entry prior to posting and/or printing. Each report will automatically filter to the current pay run when selected. Select the report and click Print or Preview to display the report. Reports function as they do anywhere else in the system, supporting favorites and customization.

Step C - Process Pay Run/Print Checks

Print Checks tab

1. Click the 6. Print Checks tab.

2. If you have both paper checks to be printed and employees that have direct deposit, under Printing Information, you will want to select the first option - Print Checks and Direct Deposit Advices (direct deposit advices will print only for those employees who have both the Active and Print Pay Advice check boxes selected in Setup > Employees > Direct Deposit tab). If none of your employees will be receiving direct deposit advices, select Print Paper Checks for All Employees, or if you are inputting an after-the-fact payroll, select Assign Check Numbers Manually. If you assign check numbers manually, you will be prompted to enter the check number for each employee, checks will not print.
   
   If the Printing Information setting is changed during a pay run, you will be prompted to determine whether you want to save the setting for future pay runs.

3. Under Printing Order, select the order you want to print checks and direct deposit advices by. Select the order in which the checks should process by moving the sort items from the list on the left to the list on the right, and then organizing the list from top to bottom.

4. Under Posting Options,
   • Select the Accrue Leave check box to calculate leave for active employees. The Fixed Rate and Hours methods of leave can be calculated with pay runs. All other leave must be accrued through Transactions > Leave > Calculate Paid Leave.
   • If you subscribe to Publish Pay Advices and you want to publish advices at the time you post payroll, select the Publish Pay Advices check box. See the Publish Pay - New Installation document for more information. If there are no advices in a pay run at the time a payroll is posted, you will not be prompted to publish pay advices, even if this box is selected.

5. If you wish to always process and post your pay run together, select the Process & Post/Print Together check box, and then click the Post & Print button.
   
   OR
   
   If you do not want to process and post your pay run together, unselect the Process & Post/Print Together check box, and then click Process. You will receive a successfully processed message, click OK. If you receive a Pay Run Validation Error screen, select each employee listed and read the message listed at the bottom of the screen and then click OK. Perform the suggested resolution. An example of a validation error message would be "This employee was assigned a taxable benefit but does not have any earnings from which to calculate taxes. Either remove the taxable benefit or add earnings before processing this pay run. " After performing the suggested resolution for each employee, process the pay run again

6. Click Post & Print.

Note: A "One or more employees included in this pay run have not had any earnings entered" message will display when any of the employees included in the pay run have not had any entered earnings (earnings with zero hours, pieces and amounts will generate the message). If you click Yes, the post will continue to process the pay run and if you click No the post will be canceled and the pay run can then be edited.

7. If you selected the Accrue Leave check box, and your employees have a leave category set to Calculate on a Pay Run, the Calculate screen will display.

• Click Calculate. The employees that are in the pay run and that have the associated leave/leave category will display selected in the screen.

• Click Save.
• Click OK.

8. On the Printing screen, the number of checks to be printed will display. Select the Printer, Check Type, Stub Type(the Check and Stub Types default from the settings in File > Preferences > Printing) and Number of Copies, and then click OK. Verify/change the Next Check Number, and then click Print. If applicable, after all checks have printed, an additional print screen will display the number of advices to be printed. Select the Printer, Check Type, Stub Type(the Check and Stub Types default from the settings in File > Preferences > Printing) and Number of Copies, click OK, and then click Print.

 

9. At the payroll successfully posted message, click OK. If the pay run does not complete successfully, a "Payroll posting did not complete, the following steps remain" message will display and lists the specific parts of the posting process that have not completed and allows you to attempt the posting process again. You can also attempt the posting again from the List tab. The Status column will list pay runs as “Posting” if posting was attempted but not successful. These pay runs can be edited and posted again. If you do not see the “Posting” status pay runs on the List tab, change the filter to “No Filter”.

Step D - Pay Liability Invoices Due

When a payroll is processed that deducts monies (taxes, child support deductions, etc.) which will in turn be paid to another party, the system will automatically create liability invoices for those amounts. The following steps explain how to select these invoices for payment and print the checks. Invoices can be selected for payment based on their Due Date, Discount Date or Invoice Date.

1. On the Processes menu, point to Payroll,and then select Pay Invoices Due.

2. The criteria fields at the top of the Pay Invoices Due screen controls which invoices will be displayed below and available to be selected for payment.
   • In the FundCompany box, enter the companyfund name that you want to view open invoices for.
   • In the Bank Account box, enter the bank account that will be decreased by this payment transaction. The Current Balance of the bank account as of the most recent open period selected for this payment transaction displays
   • In the Filter box, select Payroll Liabilities.
   • There are three options available for the Find By field (Findby Due Date, Find by Invoice Date, Find by Discount Due Date). Choose the appropriate option by clicking on the Options button at the bottom of the screen (the option that was
     selected the last time you paid invoices due will display). Once an option is selected, enter the appropriate date in the Find By field.
   • In the Payment Date field, enter the date to use on the checks.
   • Verify the first Check NumberCheck Number.

3. All open invoices that meet the criteria selected in step 1-2 will display for all vendors in the Pay Invoices Due grid (outstanding invoices that are on hold will not display.

• To see all open invoices for the vendors displayed, click Expand Vendors. To see all open invoice detail for the vendors displayed, click Expand Invoices. If you need to change the vendor for an unpaid invoice, either click the + sign until the individual vendor invoices display (the lowest level for a vendor) or click Expand Invoices to automatically display the individual invoices for a vendor, right-click on the individual invoice you want to change the vendor for and then select Change Vendor, enter the new vendor in the Vendor box, and then click OK.

  Note: When you expand invoices to the lowest level for a vendor, you can determine if the payroll liability is a 941, 943, or Other liability in the Liability Type column. If the Liability Type column is not displayed, right-click, select Add/Remove Columns, select Liability Type, and then click OK.

• If you want to see any changes that may have been made to invoice amounts, for example if the Pay Invoices Due screen was left open and a transactions was changed, right-click on the grid and select Refresh. The grid will be cleared and redisplayed using the information from the top of the screen.

4. Begin selecting which invoices to pay. There are various ways invoices can be selected to pay:

• Click on the Pay All button to select all invoices for all vendors displayed.
• To select all invoices for a single vendor, select the Pay box for that vendor

• To select individual invoices for a single vendor;

1. Click on the + button for the appropriate vendor to display all of the open invoices for that vendor.
2. Put a check mark in the Pay box for each invoice that should be paid.

• To partially pay an invoice, enter the amount to be paid in the Payment Amount field for that particular invoice.

Note: If you edit a payment that has partially paid invoices that have been placed on hold, a yellow message bar will be displayed at the top of the edit screen indicating that the payment cannot be edited.

• If the amount owed is different than the invoices total (For example, it is not uncommon for the invoices created during a pay run (for payroll liabilities) to differ slightly from the actual amount owed due to rounding.) the payment amount can be adjusted. If the amount owed is different, click on the Adjustment button for the invoice(s) and enter the amount you want to pay in the Actual Amount To Pay box. The adjustment amount will display in the Adjustment box. Enter the ExpenseAccount that the adjustment amount will post to, and then click OK.

5. If any invoices have discounts available, they will automatically be taken. The totals will be listed in the Discounts Taken field.

6. The Total Due box displays the total of all of the unselected open Accounts Payable invoices in the Pay Invoices Due grid.
7. The Total To Be Paid box displays the total of all open Accounts Payable invoices selected to be paid in the Pay Invoices Due grid.
8. The Vendors Paid box displays the total number of vendors paid in the Pay Invoices Due grid.

9. Click the Print button. (An image of a printer displays on the button. A green check mark means the check will be printed and a red X means the check will not be printed.) The selection set in File > Preferences > Printing > Checks will display and can be changed.. Select whether you want to immediately print a check for the payments when you click Post. To set your default for the Print button, right-click on the button and select Set As Default. To override the Print button default, click the Print button and change the settings on the Print Settings screen.
10. Click Post to save the payment transactions and print checks (if you selected to do so).

• If you have 13 or more detail lines in a payment transaction, the About to begin printing overflow sheets, click OK to continue screen message displays. The first time the screen displays, the printer selected is the same as you selected in Preferences > Printing > Check Printing Settings. Select the printer to print overflow stubs to if it is a printer other than the printer you print checks to. Select the Number of Copies to print. If the printer or number of copies is changed, the selections are saved and will display for future overflow stubs. Click OK.  All of the detail lines will print on an overflow sheet and the check stub will print "The information to be printed exceeded the available space. Please see attached detail sheet." Click here to see an example of an overflow stub. Check Stub detail lines will be in the same order as they were entered in the transaction grid. For more information, see the Check Printing Settings topic.

• If one or more negative checks are posted, a message will display that warns you so you can go back and change their sequence number to a non-check sequence number. Negative checks do not print, but they will use a check sequence number. Changing to a non-check sequence number ensures that check numbers will not be used.

See Also