How do I set up Reckon to track payroll by department using job codes?

Good morning,

I am wanting to start budgeting wages per department and then track employment costs during the year per department. I'm wondering what the best way is to go about that? The time and attendance software we use has the capability to track hours per job centre, I just need to set the job codes up within Reckon. I'm just not sure on a few things:
- Will I need to set up a different set of jobs per class seeing there are six classes within our company file representing the six different sites for the company. Eg. A - Kitchen, A - Cleaning, B - Kitchen, B - Cleaning and so on
- If I start tracking employment costs by job codes will it also apply a job code to superannuation and other employment costs or just the actual wages?
If someone has experience in budgeting wages per department and tracking it in Reckon I would love to hear about how you did it.

Thanks so much

Comments

Adrian_6974554

Hello Rosie

Does only one person work per class or do they work over multiple classes?

In Single user mode

Edit Preferences Payroll & Employees Company Preferences

Tick Job Costing Class and Item tracking for paycheque expenses.

If all employees only work for one class then select Entire Pay Cheque, If they work across multiple classes then select Earnings Item.

Then List Payroll item list, for each super and addition item select Track Expense by Job.

For Each Employee go to Employee and Compensation Info and select the Class.

When processing the pay the wages and super will be allocated against the classes.

If you are tracking by earnings item then you will need to put the class on each line item.
Eg Normal Hours, Overtime etc.

Reckon will then split the super and allowance based on % of each payroll item, Normal Hours, Overtime Etc.

Hope that helps

Adrian

Rosie

Hi Adrian,

Thanks so much for your quick reply. We have the class allocated to each employee in their employee card so that part works well.

Some employees will work across a few different departments and will therefore need to select a different job code when they clock on for different shifts. They will then have hours coming into Reckon under a couple of different job classes.

Does that mean that if 50% of their earning go to the kitchen job code and 50% go to the cleaning job code that super will then be split between these based on the same proportion?

Thanks, Rosie

Adrian_6974554

Hello Rosie

Yes the super will be split in the same proportion.

Adrian

Tamara_7614685

Rosie / Adrian - Hi!
Are either of you in Melbourne by any chance??? Would love to chat to someone about your experience in job costing salary costs & time & attendance systems that integrate with Reckon.
My email is tamaraj@teamems.com.au if you have some time???

Thank you....

Rosie

Hi Tamara,

I'm a couple of hours from Melbourne. I can send you an email with details of the T&A system we use but I'm new to the job costing side of things re. payroll.

Rosie

Great. Thanks so much Adrian

John Graetz

Hi Adrian. Thanks for the very comprehensive answer that you provided. In my case, I have employees who work across different classes and I seem to have got my setup the same as you have stated above. However, I have never been able to get reports to split the superannuation.

I decided to do some more checking and refer to your line above ?"For each employee go to Employee and Compensation info and select the Class". ?Did you perchance mean ?Payroll (rather than Employee) and Compensation info?? You mention to select the Class, however there is only an option to select one class and not multiple ones. So as a test I deleted the class and left it blank, ran a pay and despite this, can still only get the super to report under one class only. Is there some other trick that you employ?

I did raise this issue with Reckon many years ago, and my understanding then was that as superannuation was not an earnings item, it was not able to be split.

Any further information that you have would be appreciated.
John L G

Adrian_6974554

Hello John

Sorry yes Payroll and Compensation.

In Preferences Payroll and Employees you have selected Earnings Item not Entire Pay Cheque.

Need to check each payroll item for super that it is ticked to Track Expenses by Job.

I have just gone and checked a couple for client files, and remembered from the 2016 update splitting super did stop allocating correctly and only goes to the first class.

It had been working prior to the 2016 release.

Adrian

Adrian_6974554

Hello Tamara

I am a couple of hours East of Melbourne

John Graetz

Hi Adrian, Rosie and anybody else who is affected. This feature is not currently working in the 2016 edition. I have confirmed this with Reckon Support. I was also informed that a Team Leader has confirmed that this issue will be addressed in the upcoming 2017 release.

To me it seems that it works for one year and then crashes with the next upgrade. There is a "work-around" but as you might expect, this requires one to pass a journal entry to fix the failure of the program to operate as it should. The "as it should" bit relates to the fact that "help" within Reckon states that the super is supposed to be allocated on a pro rata basis. You can find out more information about the problem and "work-around" here:

http://kb.reckon.com.au/issue_view.asp?ID=5458

This problem affects both desktop and hosted versions of the Business Range.
John L G