HR Suite

We learnt Oracle Payroll Elements and Element Links in the previous article.
Now is time to discuss the Balances. Effectively, this is the next logical step before we jump onto learning Fast Formulas in Oracle Payroll.

Why do we need a Balance?
Lets take an example. You work at a company for stipulated 37.5 hours a week. Lets assume that you work extra hours during weekdays. At any given time of the year you would like to know how many extra hours have you worked. To work out your running total, we accumulate this in something called as a balance in Oracle Payroll.


Why do we need a special thing called Balance? Why can't we simply create an Element Entry for an Element named "Weekday Lieu Stored"?  Say I work 3hrs extra in one one day and 4.5hrs extra on some other day,  I will have two element entries for "Weekday Lieu Stored" in each month. Can't I simply add the two figures to achieve the same result that balances achieve? Why do I then need balance?
Oracle has built a generic product which works for all possible business needs. Some clients wish to track and reset  balances each month somequarterly, some annually etc. Balances provide a configurable way to do such calculations, without you having to write any SQL.


Fine, so in this example, I capture extra hours worked using Element "Weekday Lieu Stored". What if I take a day off in Lieu, how will the balance be adjusted?
This is where lies the beauty of Balances.
Before we discuss balance creation, lets touch base on Elements.

STEP 1 :- DEFINE ELEMENTS
We need to create/define the following Oracle Payroll Elements
Element 1. XX Weekday Lieu Stored
    When an employee works extra hours during the weekdays, an entry of number of hours must be added.
    If an employee works extra 4hours and also extract 3.5Hours on other day in Jan Month, then two element entries will be created for that Employee.
Element 2. XX Pay from Weekday Lieu Stored
    When employee requests the Payroll department that they wish to en-cash their Extra hours worked, then an Element Entry using this Element can be created.
Element 3. XX Day Off In Lieu
      When an employee decides to take a day off, based on extra hours accumulated, then an Element Entry for this Element will be created.

IMPORTANT:-Screenshots for all the steps will be towards the end of this article, as i do not wish to clutter the article with screens.
I will also show the test case screenshots by running the examples cited in this article.


STEP 2 :- DEFINE ELEMENT LINKS


STEP 3 :- DEFINE THE BALANCE
Coming back to setup, we need to create a Balance, as below...
Balance Name: Weekday Lieu balance
Feeds for this balance will be:-
XX Weekday Lieu Stored : Add
XX Pay from Weekday Lieu Stored : Subtract
XX Day Off In Lieu : Subtract


STEP 4 :- TESTING STEPS
a. Create 2 Element Entries for Element "XX Weekday Lieu Stored" against the Assignment record of "Mr Anil Passi".
b. Run the Payroll for this individual in Jan07 Month [which is the period during which above two element entries would be created]
We will be date-tracking to Jan07 before doing Element Entry for the period.
c. See that the Balance has been calculated by the Payroll Results
d. Now, create another element entry for same person using Element "XX Day Off In Lieu". This entry is created in Month of Feb07
e. Run the Payroll again, and see for yourself the balance getting subtracted.



NOW, ASSUMING YOU HAVE READ ABOVE, YOU WILL INDEED MAKE SENSE OUT OF STEP BY STEP SCREEN SHOTS.
NOTE: Some screenshots are animated, with an attempt to mimic actual screen changes.

Define your three elements

Define your three element links for each of the elements.

Now, enter the hours in HH:MM format ( Remember we defined the Input Value in Format HH:MM ( See first screenshot creafully !)

Now define a balance. This screenshot shows three steps
a. Creating a balance
b. Specifying its dimension
c. Specifying which Oracle Payroll Elements feed to this balance and how

Animated screenshot below...keep patience as it refreshes

Note on Dimension: Now lets assume we allow rollover of these extra hours worked from one year to another, Hence the dimension we select is that for “Assignment level”.
There are various other options like “Assignment Level in the year”, which means the balance hours will reset itself every financial Year, meaning that if you don’t encash or don’t take Lieu days off, then Employee will loose all the extra hours that they had worked.

Now, navigate to the Assignment Screen and click on button Others, and select Quickpay from LOV, to run the Quickpay[effectively run the Payroll for single person] for Mr Anil Passi.
In the Quickpay screen, click on “Start Run”

Now that we have run our Payroll, lets see the results of that Payroll Run. For this click on “View Results” in the QuickPay screen.

Select Run Results to see Payroll results

You can click on Run Result Values, and you will see that Payrolls results are directly related to our Element Entries.

As you can see, the balance is now 7 and half hours for Mr Anil Passi

To complete our test case, in the Month of Feb 2007, lets take a Lieu day off for 5hours. Create the element entry for month of Feb

Now lets run the Payroll, after Date-Tracking to Feb2007
Date Track to Feb 2007, Navigate to Assignment Screen for Mr Anil Passi, and click on Quick Pay, and run Payroll. After running payroll we will see what the balance looks like.

Click on Start Run, to run the payroll again, and lets see if balance is modified again.

Now lets view the Balance.
Click on View Results again, to view the balance again.

Hurray, the balance is now 2 and half hours !

Anil Passi

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