The Timesheet Entry window

This window lets you enter the start and finish times for each day the employee works. Elite Payroll will calculate any breaks as well as the different rates (such as overtime rates) that apply between the times that you specify.

Use this method if you have employees that are paid according the time they start and finish a work shift.

Allowances, deductions, and most other pay details will come direct from the employee record. When you prepare the employee’s pay, you'll also need to enter any leave taken, sundry items, commissions or bonuses for the current pay period.

To use the timesheet feature, you must first

1 Select the Timesheet as the method of paying the employee in the Employee record – Personal Details window, and

2 Create an award that includes a classification with an hourly rate, and specify in the award the hours that employees under that award work.

The rate that is used with be either the rate set up in the employee record, or the award rate, depending on whether or not you selected the Use Awards Pay Rates check box in the Employee record – Pay Rates window.

To prepare a Timesheet pay

1 Choose Prepare Pays from the Activities menu, or click Pays on the toolbar. The Pays Summary window is displayed.

2 Click to select the employee you wish to enter timesheet hours for. The Employee Pay Method box, at the top left side of the window shows the pay method for the employee.

Employees are paid using the Normal method, Spreadsheet method, or the Timesheet method. The following instructions are for employees paid using the timesheet method.

3 Click Activities>Edit Pays. The Pay Details window displays pay details for the employee. The Timesheet Pay Details window is the same as the Normal Pay Details window, except that instead of an Hours tab, it has a Timesheet and a Leave Taken tab.

Note You cannot edit a past pay unless the þ Edit Past Pays checkbox has been selected. You also cannot edit a past pay if you have been set up as a user without the rights to edit a past pay.

4 If the pay covers more than one pay period, enter the number of pay periods in the Pay Periods box.
For example, if an employee is going on annual leave for three weeks, and is being paid the entire three weeks in advance in addition to the current pay, so "4" weeks is entered. The employee will then be automatically excluded from the next three pay runs, and tax will be calculated accordingly.

Note When you make any payment that covers more than one pay period, don’t forget to also adjust any allowances or deductions accordingly.

5 On the Timesheet tab, select the award the employee is to be paid under. An employee can be paid under different awards, the only restriction is that each award used must have the same classifications.

You only need to enter the start time and the finish time. Elite Payroll applies pay rates to the shift based on the award selected for each line. You can only record hours worked during shifts that have been defined in the award.

Shift Starting Date and Time – You can either enter the date directly, or click on the drop-down $image\downarow.gif$ list arrow to bring up the Calendar window. Time can be entered in 24-hour format, or in 12 hour format using A or P to specify am or pm.

Shift Ending Date and Time – Enter the ending date and time. Once you have entered this information, Elite Payroll will calculate the hours for each period of the day as specified in the award and pay the employee accordingly.

You can create a pay rate in the employee’s award called Meal Break (or something similar) to track unpaid breaks and know not to pay the employee during the meal break. See Setting up an unpaid break for instructions on setting up an unpaid break.

Customer:Job and Class – You can assign the wages to a particular customer:job or class.

6 On the Leave Taken tab, enter or edit any leave details.

7 If necessary, make any adjustments to deductions, allowances, sundries, commissions, or superannuation.

Deduction tab – Enter or edit any deductions that will be taken from the employee's pay for this pay run. DO NOT use deductions to record salary sacrifice, this is done through the superannuation section.

Allowance tab – Enter or edit any allowances that are to be paid to the employee this pay run.

Sundry tab – Enter or edit any sundries or adjustments that are to be paid to the employee this pay run.

Commission/Bonus tab – Enter or edit any commissions or bonuses amounts that are to be paid to the employee this pay run.

Super tab – Check that the superannuation details are correct for this pay.

8 Manual tax – If for some reason you need to manually adjust the tax, Elite Payroll will place a check mark in the þ Manual Tax checkbox at the bottom of the window. You should only do this if you have a very good reason. If the ATO audits you and you cannot explain why the tax is different to what it should be, you may be fined. To revert to the calculated amount, click to remove the check mark from the Manual Tax checkbox.

9 Click OK to save the details ready for processing.

10 When employee pay details are completed, click Activities>Process Pays to open the Process Pays window.

Troubleshooting.

If you have tried the import, and nothing seems to have imported, you should check the following:

$image\bullet.gif$ Ensure that the employee and award details are set up correctly as explained above.

$image\bullet.gif$ Check to ensure that the employee actually has a timesheet record in the timesheet import file. You can do this by locating the import file using Windows Explorer and then clicking on the file to open the file with Notepad. To display all the details in Notepad, choose Word Wrap from the Notepad Edit menu.

$image\bullet.gif$ Ensure that the Pay Date and date paid match the pay being processed.

$image\bullet.gif$ Ensure that the timesheet file format is correct. The correct format is comma delimited, with a carriage return line feed after each record. This means that after each field there is a comma and after each timesheet record there is a carriage return and line feed characters. See Timesheet Data File Format for the import file format.