Did You Know?

Payroll > System Organisation > Dictionaries

Lets you print out the values contained in Affinity lookups (pick-lists) like Department and Branch.

Select the dictionary you want to print then select Print.

In the final of our long-running series, we look at two forms that streamline mundane tasks.

• Accurate employee-initiated information is collected.
• Authorises related departments to perform required tasks.
• Reduces paperwork.
• Increases efficiency.

Lets staff request to join the company social club and confirm that they are comfortable having fees deducted.

Automatically authorises Payroll to deduct the required membership fees from staff.

Employee Masterfile > Initiator. This lets any active employee initiate the form.

Form Initiator to Payroll

Key things about this workflow:

• Anyone in the ‘All Active Employees’ ESS group can initiate the form.
• The initiator (any active employee) completes the details then submits the form to Payroll for processing.
• Payroll has the option to return the form to the initiator and request more information.

This form uses the field display element to automatically populate employee details from Affinity. The remaining fields are for the employee to complete.

Lets managers request equipment for their staff, such as IT gear and security cards.

Part of on-boarding. Allows managers to request assets like PCs, mobile phones and security cards for new employees.

Employee Masterfile > Managers Direct Reports. This lets any active manager initiate the form on behalf of their direct reports.

Manager to IT to HR to Payroll

This form uses the field display element to automatically populate employee details from Affinity. There’s a set of check boxes which lets managers select the required items.

System > Flexifield Setup

Flexifields provide extra space to record data that can’t be entered into existing fields. They appear in certain Affinity screens, like the employee masterfile.

In flexifield setup, select the screen where the flexifield is located then select an available flexifield (say, Flexifield2). Give it a new label and set some attributes. If it’s lookup (pick-list), you’ll also need to create some values (Payroll > System Organiation > Dictionaries).

Select OK then open the setup screen to check that the label is in place.

The new flexifield is ready for use. In this case, we turned Flexifield2 in the employee masterfile into a date field to record contract-end dates.

Payroll > Timesheets > Pay Adjustments
Payroll > Timesheets (available to all except bulk-entry and fast-entry timesheets)

Grouping timesheets and pay adjustments lets you apply different tax, Super/KiwiSaver and banking calculations to each group. You can also add informational codes to affect the resulting payments. For example:

• Apply different tax calculations to timesheet earnings within each group.
• Split calculations across groups (based on superable earnings within each group).
• Apply allowances and deductions in employee masterfiles to each group, or add the ALLDED informational code to certain groups to suppress them.

Joe’s previous pay has an adjustment for a missing timesheet. He is also to receive a back-dated hourly rate increase from two months ago. He wants the back pay in a different bank account. By grouping these pay adjustments separately and adding some informational codes, you can pay the adjustment into his balance bank account and the back pay into another account.

Group Jane’s meal allowance, first-aid allowance and uniform allowance in group A. Add the WKSWKD code to group A so that the three allowances are subject to WKSWKD calculations.

Select the timesheet or adjustment then select Options > Grouping from the menu. Select a group between A and F.

The group code appears in the G column:

Select the next timesheet or adjustment and repeat the process.

Add informational codes if required. In our example we added ALLBAL to group B so the bonus payment goes into the employee’s balance bank account. If we add more adjustments to group B they would also be paid into the balance bank account.

Reports > Standard Reports

This report is for New Zealand employers. It calculates the organisation’s current annual leave, sick leave and long service leave liability.

Used in timesheets and pay adjustments, DEDWKS finds all regular employee deductions and does the following:

• If 99 units is entered, suppresses all deductions.
• If another unit is entered, deducts the multiple.

So, if an employee has a regular $12.00 social club fee deduction, entering 3 units of DEDWKS will deduct $36.00. If 99 units is entered, nothing is deducted.

You don’t have to go back to the browse screen to search for records. Use the Find option in the toolbar to search for other records from the current record: