new payroll schedule automation

Hi everyone,

Are there any products, APIs, or methods available that can automate the creation of a new payroll schedule? Manually entering leave and other details becomes quite time-consuming with over 25 employees. We store all leave data in SQL tables and use QODBC for several tasks to integrate SQL with Reckon. I’ve already checked with QODBC support, and they’ve confirmed this functionality isn’t available.

If there isn't an option, is there another reckon application we can use for payroll that would do it?

Comments

Rav

Hi @blairmuller

How often are you creating a pay schedule in Reckon Accounts Hosted? How are your schedules currently structured? ie. do you have multiple pay schedules with differing criteria?

I'll tag our friend @PhuongDo here in case he might have an automation solution for importing data from other apps to Hosted.

cosmic

QODBC is very much old technology , that we use to use years around 1998 onwards for DESTOP VERSION, its good idea to fo hard code tool using SDK/API available . Cosimic has done imports of payroll. If you need automation, of payroll schedule , this has to be looked at what API can do in the payroll side of it.

give us a call on 0407068942 to discuss futher

blairmuller

https://community.reckon.com/discussion/comment/20649980#Comment_20649980

Hi Rav,

Thanks for your response.

I'm actually using the on-prem version of Reckon, not the Hosted version. Our payroll setup is relatively straightforward as all staff are salaried and follow a single monthly pay schedule. Reckon handles most of our needs well, but a couple of things make the process cumbersome:

Leave Without Pay (LWOP): If a staff member doesn’t have enough leave, they need to take LWOP. This complicates things because the system doesn’t dynamically adjust the accumulated leave balance. It would be helpful if Reckon could calculate leave balances in real-time, especially in unpredictable situations like this.
Manual Leave Entry: We have a considerable number of employees, and manually entering sick leave, annual leave, personal leave, and RDOs is time-consuming and prone to errors. I’ve already built SQL solutions that dynamically calculate these values, but I’m looking for a way to integrate that data into Reckon without manual input.

Do you have any suggestions for automating these processes or improving our workflow? Any guidance would be appreciated!

Thanks again,
Blair

Acctd4

@blairmuller Do you mean you're using the desktop "Premier" version ?

It's best to accumulate leave in hours (NOT per pay)! This ensures ongoing accuracy, otherwise when an employee commences or terminates during a pay period, or for any periods of unpaid leave, the accruals will be incorrect. If you set it up his way, leave will accrue & deduct automatically on Paycheques, based on the Payroll Items & Hours entered.

NOTE: Only paid leave is deducted from leave balances. (That's why an employee may need to take it as unpaid, when they've not accumulated sufficient paid time)

As there is no monetary payment for LWOP (& therefore no STP & also no affect on leave balances), it's not necessary to record an actual Paycheque when unpaid leave is taken. Instead, you can utilise the employee Notes to record the details of this. If you really WANT to enter a Paycheque, you can, you just need to have a Deduction Payroll Item that offsets it, as - in order to save it - the system requires the inclusion of $ amounts (even though the NET Pay result can still be $ 0.00) 😊 :

(In this example, LWOP has been configured to not accrue leave & also not to attract PAYG Tax or Super)

blairmuller

Thanks, Shaz,

I understand your point—if we accumulate leave in hours, it should address the issues we’re experiencing.

Currently, staff accrue 6.33 hours of sick leave, 12.67 hours of holiday leave, and 8.23 hours of RDOs per pay cycle, which is on a monthly basis. How much should they be accruing per hour worked?

Also, our staff are paid using a salary item, and we’ve never had to focus on the hours column. They receive the same amount each month (assuming no leave without pay). Assuming no LWP, how many hours should I allocate as their monthly working hours?

They work a 38 hour week and two hours extra a week for their RDOs

Acctd4

Hi @blairmuller

It depends whether your pay cycles are 4-weekly or (calendar) monthly & also on how you have the RDOs set up.

I always record the FULL (40) hours (p/wk) worked, with the extra 2 RDO hours p/wk deducted as a minus, to accrue & track efficiently:

When an RDO is actually taken, you then use this same line, but as a positive number:

This ensures that all leave - & RDO hours - will calculate & track correctly.

If the pays are 4-weekly (NOT calendar-monthly), on the above configuration, the hourly accruals are:

Sick Leave = 0.03846 p/hr (The system will change this to 0.03833 due to the 5-decimal rounding - this is fine!)

Holiday Leave = 0.07692 p/hr (Again, the system will round this to 0.07694 - this is also fine!)

NOTE: Long Service Leave depends on which state you're in - Here in WA, the LSL hourly accrual = 0.01667 p/hr.

If you set your correct hourly leave defaults in Preferences, these configs will also be automatically correct when you hire a new permanent employee, so you won't have to remember & set them up again! If you hire a casual, just enter "0" as the maximum hours on each of their relevant Leave tabs, to prevent any accruals. If they change to PT or FT down the track, you only need to delete this "0" & it will automatically accrue from the date you set for it 😊

blairmuller

Thanks Shaz

We pay on a monthly cycle, not every 4 weeks. Is that still the correct hourly accruals for sick leave and holiday leave?

Do you know what we should enter for RDO's if we accrual the correct amount per hour?

Do you know how many hours they should have per month? Is it 164.67?

Acctd4

Hi @blairmuller

The NET hours will equal that, yes.

The hourly leave accrual rates are the same but the FULL number of hours entered on the Paycheque won't be the same as 4-weekly, as there are only 12 payments (which on a 4-wkly schedule would only equal 48 wks, instead of 52!)

40 hrs p/wk will equate to 173.33 hrs p/calendar mth (40 hrs p/wk x 52 wks / 12 mths) & 8.67 hrs RDO deducted (2 hrs p/wk x 52 wks / 12 mths) 😊

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