Portal Setting Timecard Advanced Configuration "Automatically re-create portal batches for each open pay period if batch is not open" needs an accompanying setting that would limit the time after the Payroll End Date the re-create feature would be on.
If the user entered 48, this would mean that 48 hours after '23:59:59 999' of the Payroll End Date the portal would no longer re-create a batch if the batch is closed, and would no longer allow new records to be added in the existing open Portal batch, except by the Timecard Admin.
We use daily templates.
We move approved time from the portal batch to a new batch in Vista daily.
Friday, Saturday and Sunday are moved on Monday.
We have two week payroll periods. 26 biweekly per year.
We have the Portal to automatically re-create the batch when non-existing at midnight every night.
The payroll period remains open from the last day (Saturday) to payment (EFT) which occurs on Thursday or Friday.
We don't want new time entries past Monday, (Tuesday on a long weekend). To mitigate that, we want to control where or when a user can enter time in that given payroll period.
Impact:
When multiple Pay Periods are open (usually at the close of one and the opening of the subsequent one), users often enter time in the wrong Period/Batch thereby impeding the timely process of payroll, causing thrashing and loss of efficiency, not to mention erroneous data.
Based on our payroll process we want to control how long after the Payroll End Date we will allow data entry before the Payroll Department has a chance to close the Period.
Richard Beaulieu
| Company | Alstar Oilfield Contractors Ltd. |
| Job Title / Role | Application Support Specialist |
| I need it... | Yesterday...Come on already |
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Hi Richard,
Once a template is locked for a user, they should not be able to edit or add any more time on that template. The Auto-Lock portal setting is how most customers handle this situation by having the batch lock a specified number of hours after the pay period end date. The manual Batch lock on the Timecard Dashboard does the same thing, but has to be manually locked by an admin. Are you seeing different behavior in your environment?
Thanks!
Hello Mark:
Thank you for the response.
I'll take your advice under consideration. You're right that presenting the most recent period may reduce entering in old periods when not desirable. And that may be more likely than entering in the incorrect future period if the current one isn't closed yet.
If we do implement that suggestion, we will need to re-educate users on what to expect and what is expected of them.
So am I to understand that your recommendations mean that our suggestion with not be considered for future development?
In addition, my testing has revealed that the Batch Action feature Lock All Employees prevents existing entered time from being modified but does not prevent new time from being entered. Is "Lock All Employees" what you're referring to? Cause if it is, it ain't working. This feature seems to correspond to "Hours from 12:00 AM on the PR End Date to lock the portal batch from further editing". I suspect my testing would reveal the same behaviour.
Hi Richard,
Have you considered using the advanced portal setting "Auto-Select Pay Period Based on Current Date" which will select the most recent pay period for your users instead of selecting the oldest pay period by default? This may help prevent users from accidently entering in their time to the wrong pay period.
I would also recommned leveraging the auto batch lock feature so users are not entering in time to the older batch after a specific day. Your timecard admins can manually unlock users that still have time to enter if you run into that situation.
Please let me know what you think about the above suggestions!
Thank you
I updated the description for clarity.
The problem is entering time in the old batch when payroll is in the process of completing payroll. They need to be confident they know their numbers and that these numbers will not change on them unexpectedly.
Hi Richard,
Is your biggest issue that users are entering in time incorrectly to the old batch or the new batch?
Thanks!