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Using Timesheets

General

You can set a system preference to use Timesheets and to use them for just Payroll or Payroll and Time Billing.

  • If the system preference of Timesheets for Time Billing and Payroll is selected, any timesheet that contains numeric values associated with a payroll category or an activity will be available for either time billing or payroll, or both.
  • If the system preference of Timesheets for Payroll is selected, Activity and Customer fields will NOT be on the timesheet.
  • If the system preference is unmarked, you will be presented with a notice that timesheets are currently not being used, and you will have the opportunity to change the system preference.
  • You can also go directly to a timesheet to enter the activity slip when you've checked the preference to include payroll and timebilling on Timesheets.

Note: If the Preference to use Timesheets is NOT checked, Process Payroll will not allow you to include activity slips on a paycheck. If you need the ability to include activity slips on paychecks, you must check the preference to use timesheets for both payroll and timebilling.

In Process Payroll, select or de-select timesheets for your HOURLY employees. Only HOURLY employees will be eligible for timesheets. You can, however, use timesheets for booking vacation and sick pay for your salaried employees.

If you do not use timesheets, the employee's base pay is recorded in Recurring Pay, under the Payroll Details tab of the employee's card.

Example: Activity Slip with the preference to use timesheets for time billing and payroll turned ON, and using a timesheet to track a salaried employee's vacation and sick pay in the Widgets sample company file.

  1. Select Charles Berringer. He is a salaried employee.
  2. His only hourly rates are for sick and vacation pay.
  3. Enter an HOURLY Activity under Time Billing for the employee and check to include hours on a timesheet. The only available wage is the sick and vacation.
  4. Add a new wage and book the activity slip.
  5. Show the timesheet. The activity slip will show there as long as I've checked the option to 'Include on Timesheet' on the individual activity slip. ONLY INDIVIDUAL SLIPS can be included on the Timesheet. There is no provision to include slips on Timesheets when you select multiple slip entry.
  6. Show the same activity being entered on a timesheet for the employee.
  7. Note the wages available.
  8. Note that only hourly activities show in the list.
  9. Activity slips entered on the timesheet will show up on the activity log for that employee or vendor.

Activity Slips

Example: Activity Slip with the preference to use timesheets turned OFF.
The ability to include activity slips is gone when you do not use timesheets. The only way to include activity slips on a paycheck is to use timesheets. For example, to use timesheets for payroll only. Note that the option to include on a paycheck option is no longer available.

Clearing Timesheets

You can select to clear all the cells from a timesheet. Values will be removed if they have not been included on a paycheck. Otherwise, they cannot be cleared.

Changing a Timesheet That Has Been Used on a Paycheck

If you change a Timesheet after it's been processed (paid), you will get a warning, but you are not stopped from changing it. The numbers in the cells that have been processed are grayed out, but they are editable. Because of this, there is a possibility for no dependable correlation between timesheets and hours on a paycheck. The timesheet is changed, but the paycheck is not. If you change the hours on the timesheet, the sheet remains processed.

Purging Timesheets

The option to Purge Timesheets is available from the Time Billing and Payroll File menu. The purging of Timesheets includes any Activity Slips on the Timesheet. Unpaid Timesheets are unavailable for purging. If Activity Slips are purged, any Activity Slips that exist on the Timesheet are deleted from the Timesheet. The user will not be able to scroll back to previous Timesheets that have been purged.

  • Payroll Categories available within an Employee's Timesheet are the hourly wage categories as displayed in the Employee Card under the Wages tab.
  • Timesheets that have not been purged are stored for the entire payroll year. All Timesheets including future Timesheets or Timesheets that have been paid are available for viewing and editing by scrolling forward or backward for each individual timesheet.
  • The CLEAR Timesheet button clears all information from the Timesheet grid. The Employee name and the date are maintained. Only unprocessed cells will be cleared.
  • Unprocessed Timesheets or hours will be grayed out once they have been paid. Time Billing / Timesheet link Time Billing/Timesheet Rules The link between Activity Slips and Timesheets is based on the system preference.
  • The default Activity Slip behavior remains as in the current version. Upon user selection of an hourly Activity, the checkbox Include Hours on Timesheet appears in the slip and is displayed as unchecked.
  • Creating a daily Timesheet cell for with an hourly Activity will create an Activity Slip with the same attributes for the same day. This Activity Slip will have the checkbox to Include Hours on Timesheet checked by default with the appropriate Payroll Category field displayed.
  • Creating an Activity Slip for an hourly activity associated with a Payroll Category will create a daily cell with the same attributes in the Timesheet for the same day if the checkbox to Include Hours on Timesheet is marked.
  • Editing a daily Timesheet cell of an hourly Activity will change the Activity Slip to the equivalent value
  • Editing an hourly Activity Slip will change the daily timesheet cell to the equivalent value if the checkbox for Include Hours on Timesheet is marked.
  • Changing the Activity on the Activity Slip from an Hourly to Non-hourly Activity will delete it from the Timesheet
  • Timesheets contain only hourly activities Payroll/ Timesheet Rules The link between Payroll and Timesheets is based on the system preference.
  • If the Setup/ Preferences/System preference is marked, the total numeric values in a Timesheet is the value calculated for payroll for hourly employees.
  • For processing payroll, values of the Timesheet supersede the values set in the Recurring Pay Payroll Details of the Employee card for hourly employees.
  • Payroll Categories available for selection within the Timesheet are defined in the Employee Card for Hourly Wage Categories.
  • If the Timesheet is used to process Payroll, the same rules apply as with Activity Slips, the status of the daily cells changes to paid. The user is warned if they edit the Pay Employee details of the paycheck that the values edited are not reflected on the Timesheet Process Payroll Rules Select Employees to Pay grid will display all employees with weekly Timesheet values within the pay period. If the pay frequency is greater than weekly, each weekly Timesheet within the date or frequency of pay range for that Employee will be listed in the grid. For example, if the Pay Frequency is bi-weekly, the grid will display 2-3 Timesheets if the time period is one month.
  • The Timesheet grid is sorted by Employee last name and then the Timesheet date.
  • The date in the grid is the last date represented in the Timesheet.
  • Timesheets can be viewed and edited from the drill down arrows next to the date.
  • For hourly employees, the Weekly Hours column is a weekly calculation from the Hours in Pay Period field on the Employee Card/Payroll Details/Wages tab.
  • For hourly employees, the Timesheet Hours column is the total hours from each weekly Timesheet. The hourly employee payroll will be calculated from this (or a sum of this) value.
  • For salaried employees, the Weekly Hours column is blank. The salaried employee payroll will be calculated from the current base salary with the Timesheet hours added. There are no changes to the current behavior of calculations of Payroll from Activity Slips. It is not a requirement for salaried employees to have a Timesheet as salaried payroll is always calculated from the Base Salary.
  • The current behavior of reversing or deleting Paychecks calculated from Activity Slips is maintained. If the user reverses or deletes a paycheck, the status of the Timesheet used for the payroll calculation is available. The Pay-period Start and End dates determines which timesheets will appear in the list of timesheets to select or deselect in Process payroll. Processed Timesheet cells appear grayed out, but you can change them. You can be processing payroll and change the hours on the check and the timesheet will not be updated. To view unprocessed timesheets, select unprocessed timesheets from the Payroll Reports menu or from the 'Select Employees to Pay' screen in Process Payroll.

Timesheets Unavailable

Symptoms include: timesheets unavailable, time sheets unavailable, no timesheets, can't find timesheets, hours unavailable, frozen timesheets, etc.

If you start the payroll process, and an employee's hours are not available, even though they appear on the employee's timesheet, the problem may be the timesheet hours are marked as consumed. When AccountEdge processes the hours of a timesheet and a paycheck is created, the employee's timesheet hours are marked as consumed. Once consumed, they cannot be (re)used. If you started the payroll process, and your machine crashed, you experienced a power outage, or the AccountEdge payroll process was somehow interrupted, the timesheet hours could be marked as consumed, even though no paycheck was created. Sometimes the hours will appear 'grayed-out', and will be unavailable for editing.

When this happens, follow these steps to recreate the hours for payroll

  1. Locate the timesheet
  2. Select either an unused day, or add a new line
  3. Add the total hours in the unused day, or re-enter the hours on the new line
  4. These newly-added hours will be available for payroll
  5. There will be no duplication of payroll hours
  6. A Timesheet report will show the duplicate hours, but they will not otherwise affect payroll, expenses or taxes