Quantity column on pay slip incorrect

For our payroll, we record our employees' hours against Customer:Job and Class, and use these hours to create the pay run.

STP2 is forcing us to disaggregate all-purpose allowances paid to our employees, which means that I now have to split these allowances off and list them as additions instead of including them combined with the hourly wages. I've set up new Payroll Items for these allowances, and checked the box "Track Expenses by Job".

I have created a "dummy" employee and done a dummy pay run to check this works, so that the now-'allowances' will continue to get matched against the applicable job and class.

But the Quantity column is giving the incorrect number (see this sample payslip; the quantities should read 38 / 2 / 5 / 12 / 38 / 38. The actual amounts are correct. This is hopeless for our employees; they (and I) will get confused. If I don't use "Track Expenses by Job", the quantities are correct.

From looking on this forum I see that this is a bug in Reckon, and that the quantity column only seems to work in the Standard payslip template (but that as soon as that standard payslip is modified the bug returns). The other suggestion which John made regarding having multiple allowances with slightly different names (eg for Project A/Project B) is not an option - we could end up with more than a hundred different instances of each allowance.

Does anyone know of any other workarounds which can make the quantity column work? And if not, how do we get Reckon to fix this known bug as a priority? Now the STP2 requirements are forcing employers to use the additions section it is vital that this works; otherwise the functionality of being able to track expenses by job is lost. That is; unless there is another workaround, then we have a choice of complying with ATO STP2 requirements and providing accurate payslips to employees OR being able to track expenses by job. Not both. Given that it might only be a bug fix that is needed and not a new feature, can we get this fixed?

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Acctd4

Hi Sandra

Have you tried setting them up as "Neither" (with the specific amounts in the employee records) rather than to calculate by Qty or Hrs ? :

Just an interesting note on the disaggregation .... we have been advised by our bookkeeping industry top people (who are on the board with the ATO for STP2) that the disaggregation is not required IF the contract states an inclusive rate eg if an employee's contract states they are paid "$ 26.41 p/hr inclusive of an all-purpose allowance for XYZ". In this case, as the separate amounts are not stated, they would be unable to be separated. NOTE: This is a VERY specific exception though that only applies if the contract is specifically worded this way!

Sandra_10124565

Thanks for the reply Shaz.

Can't set them up as "Neither" because they are quantity based, and often change weekly. This would require an extra calculation in an external spreadsheet, plus still not achieve a clear payslip. The actual amount paid IS calculating correctly; it's only the Qty column that is frustratingly showing an incorrect amount.

We definitely have to disaggregate these allowances; Building Award MA000020 Industry and Tool allowances. The amounts are stated.

Acctd4

That’s a shame 😬 (I was assuming because the quantities were incorrect, they weren’t based on that )

Can you not use one of the default pay slip templates ?

Yes, the disaggregation will be required with that one then 😢

ShelleyG

Did you get an answer to this problem? We have the same issues with the qtly of allowances only showing

the qtr allocated to the last class.

Sandra_10124565

No @ShelleyG I sadly never solved this problem. At least you have worked out the relevance of the quantity i shows on the pay slips; I had never worked out how it came up with its random quantities!

The options seem to be:

a) Remove the tick from the "Track Expenses by Job" and lose that functionality, or

b) Use the default pay slip.

I ended up removing the tracking; it was only ever an approximation anyway and to truly work out the labour cost per job/class (which also includes superannuation etc) I use a spreadsheet which works out hours x hourly rate. (The default pay slip is poorly formatted and doesn't show enough information for our employees. And of course as soon as you modify this formatting you have a customised pay slip and the incorrect quantities showing problem returns).

@Rav could this be fixed please? Clearly the functionality is possible if it works for the default pay slip, so there just needs t be some programming tweaks so that the functionality remains in customised pay slips.

ShelleyG

Bummer, was hoping you found a solution. Does the allowance then be classed to the default set up on the Employee file?

Sandra_10124565

I don't have a default employee class set @ShelleyG because we use so many different classes for each employee depending on the stage of job they were working on, so I can't answer this. I do know that if I do a Profit and Loss report by Customer:Job (and Class sometimes), it lists the hourly wages paid and superannuation costs for employees' time spent on those jobs/classes, but doesn't include any of the extra allowances they had been paid in these reports. Sometimes this means the report is missing as much as it includes, hence the need to take the data over to a spreadsheet and manually remove the wages/super info and add in the actual amounts paid.

If anyone knows how to include a specified hourly rate per employee in a report instead of using the wages/super Reckon currently tags to the job, and without a spreadsheet, I'd love to know this!

Acctd4

Hi @Sandra_10124565

" ... The default pay slip is poorly formatted and doesn't show enough information for our employees ..."

What is the specific info that doesn't show on the default Payslip that shows on the custom one ? 🤔 As far as I'm aware, the same details are on ALL the Payslips but the Description area is smaller on the default. Therefore, I just recommend keeping Payroll Item names a short as possible (eg "Hrly" etc) 😊

" ... if I do a Profit and Loss report by Customer:Job (and Class sometimes), it lists the hourly wages paid and superannuation costs for employees' time spent on those jobs/classes, but doesn't include any of the extra allowances they had been paid in these reports ..."

That definitely doesn't sound right - If you have the Allowance Payroll Item(s) selected to Track Expenses By Job, the P&L By Class (or by Customer:Job) should be reflecting these Allowance amounts too! 🤔:

Drill down on the Total Payroll Expenses amount & check that the allowance figures aren't included, as they may just not be under a separate ("Allowances") expense account in your list.
Check the Filters in your P&L By ... report to ensure all relevant accounts are being included

Also ...

Make sure you have "Earnings Item" selected in your Preferences rather than "Entire Pay Cheque":

Sandra_10124565

Hi Shaz @Acctd4

The poor formatting is the biggest issue with the default payslips which makes them unclear and missing information. As you mention, the full fields with all their information don't show because the display widths are short; so information is truncated. I regularly need ALL the information to show. Full company details (as payer) also does not show etc. All solvable by setting up our own custom payslips, which I have done.

But then we get back to the same problem which @ShelleyG has also encountered. As soon as you use a custom payslip, the quantities of allowances do not show correctly when "Track Expenses by Job" is selected. The totals are correct, but the quantities are incorrect. A recipe for confusion and argument with employees.

So a choice has to be made. Use "Track Expenses by Job" with a default payslip, or use a custom payslip and turn off "Track Expenses by Job". I chose the latter option, which is why the allowances then don't show up in the reports.

What is needed is for Reckon to fix whatever bug is in the software that causes the incorrect allowance quantities to show on all except the default payslip when "Track Expenses by Job" has been selected. Then everything will work as intended.

Rav

Hi @Sandra_10124565

Can I just confirm whether you've had a chat with our support team in relation to this and if so, can I grab the case number for it please?

I've been speaking with the product team in regard to this post and at this stage its not something the team are able to replicate so we'd love to try and get a copy of your file in for a closer look.

If you've already got a case in with our support team then if you can give me the case number that would be great and allow me to get the ball rolling 🙂

Robyn Kelly (Partner)

Hi Rav

I have a client with the quantity issue on customised payslip for an allowance and have been told by Reckon that sadly it can't be fixed. She also has Track Expenses by job selected and Calculate this item by quantity with a default rate.

26/07/23 RKN:00000000551000001312

Regards

Robyn Kelly

Sandra_10124565

Hi @Rav ,

No I haven't discussed this with the support team, so there is no case number. In light of Robyn's post above about this matter, should this be referred to them to take another look at it, or not?

Sandra

Rav

Thanks @Robyn Kelly (Partner) 🙌

@Sandra_10124565 Let me ask a few folks internally just to see if I can get a bit more info, or at least some background, on this that I can find out and I'll come back to you.

ShelleyG

I can send you 2 different pay slips (default and custom) and a breakdown of the allowance paid in their classes where you can clearly see the pay slip only picks up the last quantity.

Robyn Kelly (Partner)

@Rav I had already sent examples last year when discussing with PSG

Thank you

Robyn

Rav

Hi again everyone 🙂

A quick update of sorts.

So I've spoken with our support team this morning and my good friend @Nickiu from our support team is going to give each of you a call for a further chat about this. After checking things over, he'll also raise an escalation which will go directly to the dev team for further investigation (if required) and it will require a copy of your file which we'll organise.

@Robyn Kelly (Partner) I had a chat with Teddy on Friday regarding the above email case number you provided and from tracking the details of that back in his emails, it seems that case ended being about something different. He's off this week but regardless though, Nick will be in touch with you today as well just so we can get everything straight and on the same page along in conjunction with the reports from Sandra & Shelley here.

I can't make any promises or guarantees but once we've got the examples in, I'll be speaking with our dev team to keep me in the loop on how things go with this and I'll share any details or outcomes here as well.

ShelleyG

Thanks would be great to get this sorted.