CARES ACT Payroll Setup Questions for Sage 300 Construction and Real Estate
#WeCare
Recorded at a CARES Act Payroll setup event. Attendees asked great questions, and Sage Certified Senior Consultant Kyle Zeigler provided valuable answers. During these highly unusual circumstances, sharing this info with the Sage community is the right thing to do. You can watch the recorded event on the ETHOSystems Video Gallery.
Payroll Setup Questions and Answers from Users
We previously used a different Pay ID for COVID sick or FMLA time. But now we want to switch to the COVID Pay IDs. How can we correct the posted checks?
To reverse pay and recalculate using a COVID Pay ID, you must void and reissue the original checks. See Knowledgebase article 54808, “How to correct a Pay ID on a printed check.”
We have employees who consistently work overtime and want to pay them an average rate of pay per U.S. Department of Labor guidelines for calculating average rate of pay. How should we set up Sage 300 CRE to do this?
Use reports to determine the total regular and overtime hours and total regular and overtime wages for the look-back period. Calculate the average rate of pay using this information. After calculating the average rate, enter it in the Employee Pay setup for the COVID pay line. Payroll will use this rate instead of the formula. For COVIDFMLA, enter 66.7% of the average rate.
We use hh2 for time entry and the COVID hours are included in our import from hh2. How can we issue separate checks for COVID in this case?
According to Kevin Hadley at hh2, you can do multiple uploads in hh2 Remote Payroll to Sage. The workflow for this would be as follows:
- In hh2, approve any time that is coded to the COVID Pay Types. Then export only those approved hours and import into Sage.
- Process and print those checks and/or generate direct deposits for the COVID paychecks. You do not need to post the checks immediately.
- In hh2, approve all of the other regular hours like you would do normally and then do a second export from hh2 and import those hours into Sage. If the prior checks were not posted, this import will create a second check record for the same pay period. Kevin assures us that hh2 WILL NOT duplicate any time that has already been exported.
- Process and print the second set of checks/direct deposits.
- Post all checks when ready.
Alternatively, approve and process regular hours first, then handle COVID hours separately after importing them into Sage.
A note from Kevin: You can learn more about how hh2 suggests you set up the CARES Act Pay Types in Sage and then sync them over to hh2 by clicking here on our website: https://www.hh2.com/families-first-covid-19. This is simply a suggestion that was put together by our CEO. Since Sage is so configurable, each company will need to decide what is best for them.
Can we use the Limit features on the Employee Pay setup to limit the total amount paid to an employee for each of the COVID Pay IDs?
Testing showed that the Limit settings on COVID Pay IDs didn’t stop overages, so modifying the rate formulas to track hours without calculating dollars after the limit may be more reliable.
For example, if the desired hours limit is 80, the following formula will first look up the YTD Units on the COVIDSICK employee pay and add to that the number of hours entered on the check being processed. If the total YTD Units including the current check are greater than or equal to 80, the formula returns a rate of zero. If the total YTD Units are less than 80, the formula returns the value in the Amount field on the REG employee pay.
IF(LOOKUP(YTD Units (PR Employee Pay), Employee (PR Check), 3, “COVIDSICK”) > 80, 0, LOOKUP(Amount (PR Employee Pay), Employee (PR Check), 1, “REG”))
Please note: You must still pay attention to the number of hours being paid to the employee until the employee reaches the limit! If the employee already has 75 hours and you enter 10 more, no pay calculates because the total exceeds 80. Enter hours up to the limit, process the check, then add a second line for extra hours with no rate or amount.
We work with unions and would like to retrieve the pay rate from the Union Pay Rate Table. Can we create a formula to do this?
Yes. Some examples for these formulas are below. The assumptions for these formulas are:
Union rates are in a Pay Rate Table named “UNION”, with a rate key of Union, Local, and Class
The default employee pay ID is entered on the employee setup
Set up the following Public formulas in the order shown below. Note: The “Ck” abbreviation in the first three formulas indicates lookups based on the PR Check record, not the Employee record.
PR_CkEmp Rate-Union – This formula retrieves the Union rate of pay from the Pay Rate Tables
LOOKUP(Rate (PR Pay Rate Table), “UNION”, JOIN(LOOKUP(Union ID (PR Employee), Employee (PR Check)), LOOKUP(Union Local (PR Employee), Employee (PR Check)), LOOKUP(Union Class (PR Employee), Employee (PR Check))))
PR_CkEmp Rate-Emp Rec – This formula retrieves the Employee rate of pay from the Employee Pay table
LOOKUP(Amount (PR Employee Pay), Employee (PR Check), 1, LOOKUP(Pay ID (PR Employee), Employee (PR Check)))
PR_CkEmp Rate of Pay – This formula checks if the employee is Union and compares formula #1 and #2 and uses the higher of the two
IF(LOOKUP(Union ID (PR Employee), Employee (PR Check)) <> “”, IF(PR_CkEmp Rate-Emp Rec (Public Formula) > PR_CkEmp Rate-Union (Public Formula), PR_CkEmp Rate-Emp Rec (Public Formula), PR_CkEmp Rate-Union (Public Formula)), PR_CkEmp Rate-Emp Rec (Public Formula))
PR_COVIDFMLA Hourly Rt – this formula goes on the COVIDFMLA pay ID
IF(LOOKUP(Salary (PR Pay),LOOKUP(Pay ID (PR Employee), Employee (PR Check))), PR_CkEmp Rate of Pay (Public Formula) / 40, PR_CkEmp Rate of Pay (Public Formula)) * 0.667
PR_COVIDSICK Hourly Rt – this formula goes on the COVIDSICK pay ID
IF(LOOKUP(Salary (PR Pay),LOOKUP(Pay ID (PR Employee), Employee (PR Check))), PR_CkEmp Rate of Pay (Public Formula) / 40, PR_CkEmp Rate of Pay (Public Formula))