Benefit Pay

EBMS includes many tools to calculate and manage a company’s payroll benefit pay such as vacation pay, holiday pay, sick pay, and etc. Benefit pay is often part of a worker’s benefit package and will vary on the payment plan of the employer. The following section explains the steps to create hourly benefit pay for a Worker. Benefit pay for a salaried Worker that is paid above the annual salary amount uses the same setup procedures. Review the Salaried Pay > Entering Salaried Employee Information section of this manual for details on recording benefit hours for salaried Workers without altering their salary.

Benefit pay can include a fixed number of days or hours per year such as holiday pay or may vary based on the Worker’s employment history. The following section will list some common benefit pay types but EBMS is not limited to the following options:

Holiday Pay

Complete the following steps to setup holiday pay for Workers:

1. Go to Labor > Options > Pay Types tab. Highlight the holiday pay type and click on the properties button to view an existing pay type or click on the New button to create a new pay type.
   

2. Enter an easy-to-remember pay type Description for holiday pay such as Holiday.

3. The Base should be set to Hour since holiday pay is based on an hourly rate.

4. The Type option must be set to Benefit since it involves benefit pay. This option instructs EBMS to track the total amount of hours and pay for a specific Worker. If the user does not wish to track hour history for holiday pay, the Type can be set to Standard and all benefit features will be disabled.

5. The Reset Hours Available option should be set to At end of calendar year option.

6. Disable the Carry unused hours to next year option since holiday hours are used on the holiday and cannot be accumulated into the next year.
   Click on the OK button to save changes to the pay type.

7. Insert the holiday pay type into all the Worker’s pay rate tables. Go to Labor > Labor Options > Worker Categories highlight the Workers root folder or subfolder, and click on the Edit Defaults button. Open the Pay tab to view the standard pay rates as shown below:
   
   Note: To insert a holiday pay type into selected Workers instead of all Workers, replace the steps above by going directly into the Worker record (Labor > Workers) and click on the Pay tab

8. Click on the New Rate button if no holiday rate exists or highlight the holiday pay rate and click on the Properties button if the rate already exists.
   

9. Select the holiday Pay Type.

10. The Work Code should reflect the benefit work code such as HOL (Holiday) or BEN (Benefit) that directs the cost to a payroll overhead expense account.

11. The Active option should be enabled to make the pay rate active.

12. Set the Rate Formula to Equal to so the pay rate equals the Worker’s hourly rate. This setting can be set to an hourly amount if a fixed hourly rate is paid to the Worker.

13. Set the increment Condition to Never since the Increment settings are only used for benefit pay types that are limited such as vacation or sick days.

14. The number of holiday hours paid to the standard Worker should be entered within the This Calendar Year field in the Hours Available section. Keep the From Previous Years value at zero since holiday hours are not carried over from the previous year. The hours for the This Calendar Year should = number of holidays * hours paid per holiday. Note that this value can be altered for individual Workers if holiday hours are not consistent for all Workers.

15. Click on the OK button to save the pay type. Filter down the pay type to all Workers by right clicking on the pay type and selecting Filter Down from the context menu.
    

16. Enable both filter-down options to copy settings to all Workers. The filter down will copy the pay type and all the pay type settings to all Workers in the folder or subfolder.

17. Enter the Holiday Pay Type within the timecard to the holiday type whenever holiday pay is paid to the Worker. The work code entered in step 2 will default within the timecard. Review the Processing Payroll > Entering Timecards section for more details on entering timecards.

Vacation Pay

Vacation pay may be very similar to holiday pay although additional management tools are needed to record the amount of vacation days available for each Worker.  

Complete the following steps to allot vacation hours based on a fixed number of hours, a manually entered number of hours, or a consistent increase of hours per year.  

1. Go to Labor > Options > Pay Types tab. Highlight the vacation pay type and click on the properties button to view an existing pay type or click on the New button to create a new pay type.
   

1. Enter an easy to remember pay type Description such as "Vacation".

2. The Base should be set to Hour since vacation pay is normally based on an hourly rate.

3. The Type option must be set to Benefit since it involves benefit pay. This option instructs EBMS to track the total amount of hours used and available for each Worker.

4. The Reset Hours Available option should be set to either:

1. At the end of calendar year if the vacation hours for all Workers are reset at the end of the calendar year

2. At Worker anniversary if the Worker hours are based on the Worker’s employment year and are reset at the end of the Worker’s anniversary.
   NOTE: The Worker’s anniversary date is determined by the hire date found within the Worker’s personal tab. If the anniversary date needs to be different then the hire date because of part time status changes, place the original hire date in the Worker note area and change the hire date to the desired anniversary date.

3. Never is used if the user wishes to zero and change the vacation hours manually. This option is not recommended unless a high level of user intervention is desired.

4. Enable the Carry unused hours to next year option if the company policy allows the Worker to accumulate vacation time from one year to the next. Disable the option if vacation time is not transferred from one year to the next.

5. Click on the OK button to save changes to the pay type.

2. Insert the vacation pay type into all the Worker’s pay rate tables. Go to Labor > Options > Worker Categories, highlight the Workers root folder or subfolder, and click on the Edit Defaults button. Click on the Pay tab to view the standard pay rates as shown below:
   
   Note: To insert a vacation pay type into selected Workers instead of all Workers, replace the steps above by going directly into the Worker record (Labor > Workers) and click on the Pay tab.

3. Click on the New Rate button if no vacation rate exists. Highlight the vacation pay rate and click on the Properties button if the vacation rate already exists.
   

1. Select the vacation Pay Type that was created in step #1.

2. The Work Code should reflect the benefit work code such as VAC (Vacation) or BEN (Benefit) that directs the cost to a payroll overhead expense account.

3. The Active option should be enabled to allow the pay rate to be used within the Worker’s timecard.

4. Set the Rate Formula to Equal to so the vacation pay rate equals the Worker’s hourly rate. This setting can be set to an hourly amount if a fixed hourly rate is paid to the Worker.

5. The Increment Condition can be set to the following 2 options:

1. The Never option should be used if the user wished to manually set the number of vacation hours each year or if the number of vacation days or hours do not change from one year to the next.

2. The Beginning of Calendar Year option or Beginning of Anniversary Year option (depending on the setting within the pay type – Payroll > Options > Pay Types) should be used to reset the vacation hours annually.

6. The Increment Amount and Hours Available settings should be set globally only if the amounts are identical for all Workers. Normally these values are set for individual Workers as explained later in this section.

7. Click on the OK button to save the vacation pay type.

1. Right click on the Vacation pay type and select Filter Down from the context menu.
   
   These steps are necessary only to insert the vacation pay type into all Workers. This will filter down not only the pay type but all the settings within the pay type.
   

2. Enable the top option (Check this box to change existing data along with the folder defaults) to insert the new holiday pay into existing Worker records. Click OK to insert pay type in all Workers.

3. Set vacation days for individual Workers.

1. Open the Pay tab of a worker and go to Labor > Workers > Pay tab.

2. Highlight the Vacation pay rate and click on the Properties button and the following dialogue will open:
   

3. Set the Increment Condition to one of the following options if the default setting is not correct.

1. The Never option should be used if the user wished to manually set the number of vacation hours each year or if the number of vacation days or hours do not change from one year to the next.

2. The Beginning of Calendar Year option or Beginning of Anniversary Year option (depending on the setting within the pay type – Labor > Options > Pay Types) should be used to reset the vacation hours annually.

4. Enter the increment Amount to increase the hours available for next year.  Next years available hours will be increased from the hours available this year by the increment Amount.   For example, if a worker receives an extra vacation day each year the Condition should be set to Beginning of Year and the Amount should be set to 8 hours. Note that the system does not automatically create thresholds for incrementing vacation so the manual setting (Condition = Never) should be used for any vacation policy that does not increment time consistently each year.

5. Enter the total number of vacation Hours Available This Year for the Worker.  This value will be copied as the next year's amount when the current year payroll is closed unless the number of hours is increased based on the Increment Amount.

6. The hours From Previous Years will be disabled unless the Carry unused hours to next year option is enabled within the pay type. See Labor > Options > Pay Types tab > Properties to change this option setting.

4. Save changes by clicking on the OK button.

Vacation, sick, or other benefit pay factored from the total hours worked requires an advanced benefit pay calculation script.  Contact you Eagle Business Software representative to implement a payroll script to configure a formula based method of calculating Hours Available.

Sick and Leave Pay

Review Sick and Leave Pay for setup instructions.