The purpose of this section is to provide a general outline of the payroll capabilities and structures used in Control. Detailed information about the sections identified in this chapter will follow in subsequent chapters.

Employees

Any individual that is paid wages through Control is setup as an employee. The following payroll information is specific to the employee:

  • Employee Type
  • Pay Frequency
  • Rate of Pay
  • Tax Withholdings
  • Tax Deductions
  • Vacation, Sick, and Holiday Pay eligibility and accruals
  • Default Workers Comp Category

Payroll information for employees can be accumulated through the following processes:

  • Time clock entries
  • Manual labor usage card entry
  • During payroll processing

Hourly personnel are paid based on hours worked. The total hours paid in Control can be accumulated through the first of these two methods, or manually entered during the third (payroll processing). Hourly pay is broken down into the following categories:

  • Straight Time
  • Overtime
  • Double Time
  • High Time (aka Shift Differential)

Hours may be recorded and accumulated for salary personnel, but this is not factored into the wage calculation. For salaried personnel that also receive overtime, the adjustment to the base salary will have to be done manually during payroll processing.

Earnings & Wage Categories

Control supports the following employee types:

Salary: Salaried employees receive a fixed amount of pay for a time period.

Hourly: Use hourly for employees that are paid based on the hours they actually work.

For both hourly and salaried employees, Control supports the following pay periods:

  • Weekly
  • Bi-weekly
  • Monthly
  • Semi-Monthly

Since many companies use different pay cycles for hourly and salaried employees, Control allows you to set each employee to the appropriate pay period. To simplify processing, Cyrious tracks when each type of pay period was last closed (processed).

Caution: Many states/provinces have restrictions that require hourly employees to be paid at a specific frequency. Consult with your local labor laws to determine which options are available to you.

Deductions & Accruals

Deductions to income are items that are taken out of an employees pay, such as taxes or medical insurance premiums. Some deductions are mandatory while others are optional; each company will have different deductions according to the state, and possibly city, they are based in, and what they have to offer to their employees.

Accruals to income are similar to deductions, but instead of deducting, these items are added to an employees pay. This can be anything from a car allowance to a bonus given to an employee.

Control handles the following categories of deductions and accruals:

  • Standard Employee Deductions: These are mandatory tax deductions that come out of the employees' wages.
  • Standard Employer Deductions: These are mandatory deductions the employer pays (including matching taxes) that do not come out of the employee's wages.
  • Optional Employee Deductions: These are optional deductions that come out of the employees' wages. They may be pre-tax (like 401-K plans) or post-tax (like uniform deductions).
  • Optional Payouts: These are also called fringe benefits. The taxability of these benefits will differ from one to the next; see IRS Publication 15-B, Employer's Tax Guide to Fringe Benefits to find out the taxability of any fringe benefits offered by your company.

In some cases, notably FICA and Medicare, the government tax is made up of both an employee deduction and a matching employer deduction. In Control, these are set up in both categories based on the relative contribution from each.

Income Taxes & Tax Tables

An income tax table contains the relevant tax rates for an employee within that jurisdiction. Control comes with the Federal Tax table already installed, but you can create others. In fact, Control supports an unlimited number of state and local income tax tables.

Caution: Though Control comes with the Federal Tax table already installed, you might receive a table that is no longer current. Be sure to check the table values with the IRS before processing any employee payroll.

Payroll Cycle

Every paycheck is part of a payroll cycle. Payroll cycles are classified by the employee pay periods covered, specifically:

  • Weekly
  • Bi-weekly
  • Monthly
  • Semi-Monthly

In addition, Control supports a special payroll cycle. A special payroll is used to process payroll checks outside of the normal pay cycles.

During each payroll cycle (including special payrolls), employees are selected, hours and amounts entered, deductions and taxes are calculated, and checks are printed. The payroll cycle is then closed and the corresponding entries are made in the General Ledger.

If payroll processing is being outsourced, the only significant difference will be that instead of printing checks, the user will print reports containing the information necessary for the payroll processing company.

Workers Compensation

Workers compensation is a government mandated work-related accident insurance program paid by every employer. The cost of worker compensation insurance is calculated by multiplying the applicable rate times the employee's wages (excluding overtime premiums). The rate is determined based on the employee's position (and the company claims history).

Workers compensation codes are traditionally a 4 digit number. In Control, you can give names to those numbers making the entire process more user-friendly. In order to provide accurate tracking, Cyrious provides two “levels of control” when setting your workers compensation rates.

At the first level, you can specify a default workers compensation rate for each employee. This is often used for salaried employees or anytime you are not creating labor usage cards to track where the employee is spending their actual time.

At the next level, Control allows each station to correspond to a worker's compensation code. When an employee clocks in at a station, the proper workers compensation code is automatically assigned to that employee. This is very useful for production employees who might work in multiple categories, but even for more sedentary employees it provides a painless method to associate their time with a workers compensation code.

With this information in the system, Control can report the actual workers compensation calculations for any historical time period.

Unemployment Tax

The unemployment tax is collected to help provide unemployment compensation payments to employees who have lost their job. This tax is not deducted from the employees' wages; it is paid only by the employer.

Time Clock and Labor Usage Cards

When using Control to track production in a real-time mode, employees will clock in and out. These actions will produce time cards. Time cards can be associated with an order, a specific line item, or even a part in the line item. A time card is always associated with a station, which identifies where the employee is working at that time.

Time cards are not (by themselves) used to record labor costs associated with an order.

Vacation, Sick Time, and Holiday Pay

Control tracks vacation, sick, and holiday pay used. Further, Control can accrue vacation and sick pay based on individual rates for each employee. The accrual and deduction both occur as part of payroll processing.

Vacation and Sick pay accrual accounts are specified in the employee record.

As an option, vacation and sick can both be accrued in the general ledger. An accrual expense account is specified (for each) in the employee setup. When payroll is processed, if the value of vacation and sick time are not being accrued, the cost of vacation used is recorded as an expense for the pay period. If the value of vacation and sick are being accrued, then the cost of vacation earned is expensed and the corresponding liability account increased. The cost of vacation used is deducted from the corresponding liability account. If the balance in the liability account is zero, any remaining amount is deducted from the expense account at that time.

Employee Advance Tracking

If you have the option to allow advances to your employees, Control's Payroll Module will help track the amounts advanced to employees, and will also keep track of advance repayments. When an employee requests an advance on their paycheck, you can set up the repayment terms at the time of payroll processing. You can also specify a GL account to post the accrual to. You will also be able to view the history of advances made to the employee and repayments made by the employee.

If this option is not checked on the Payroll Setup screen, the Allow Advances option will not show up on the employee screen.

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