We should consider a labor allocation application written in peopletools and populating tables in PeopleSoft. This application would be a standalone application and not be a customization. It would be used for the purpose of spreading salaries to the proper distributions each pay. This would reduce the accounting for pay by multiple account codes from the HR system and do it within the accounting system. It is envisioned that units around the campus could change the distributions on their employees on a webform that would feed a PeopleSoft table. The information from this table will then be used to relieve the single central pay account, and charge employees correctly for that pay period. The accounting feed from PS HR would go directly to this application, where the distribution code for each affected employee and pay type would be revised to reflect the desired distribution. All other pay entries would pass through this filter application untouched. The output product would be a PS journal passing full payroll accounting to the general ledger.

This process would only be utilized for Semi-monthly line item employees. All hourly, student, overload, overtime, supplements, and S-contract pay would carry the proper PeopleSoft coding through the HR system and on to the general ledger. Most such pay is not subject to code changes after initial input in any case. At this time, the thinking is that the file would run on a percentage distribution basis, not on a dollar distribution basis. The rationale is that if campus units may all interact directly with the distribution file, the percentage basis forces the process to balance in dollars even if an error is made in percentage.  Input panel will allow dollars or percentages, but will convert all to percentage.

Advantages:

1. Quicker turnaround time. It is envisioned that units around the campus could change the distributions on their employees right up until the date that the JV is run (normally on pay date), rather than at the beginning of the pay period as is now the case in HR. It would allow a change deadline to be perhaps as much as two weeks later than input that actually affects pay amounts.
2. Relieving the HR system of some of its many transactions. Input thru HR would decrease in volume based on distribution changes.
3. Reduce the number of retro journals needed to accommodate late notices of award by fed and other sponsors.
4. Clearing Account colleges would no longer have to maintain within their colleges their labor distributions – simply plugging in the current distribution for each of their employees would now do it and the JV would be processed centrally through Journal Generator.
5. Possibility of reinstating the system-generated retroactive funding changes capability that was lost with PeopleSoft HR.
6. Easier Budget Turnaround for HR. While funding distributions would still have to be collected during the BTA process, only one line of "central" funding would be fed into HR, thus relieving this very busy unit of the need to make funding corrections. HR could concentrate on their main focus – processing paychecks.
7. More timely information regarding funding distributions than is now the case.
8. If we decide to record matching, it will be easy to add those changes to a distribution file and takes concerns about HR workload and volume out of the decision.
9. It is possible the file could be used to drive effort reports, although no serious thought has been given to fleshing that out.

1. Keeping the distribution file pay total for an individual in "sync" with the pay for all employees may be a bit complex. A distribution should be present for each employee paid. A report run from each system once per pay along with a default or suspense procedure may suffice to resolve this issue.
2. Security for this additional table and/or webform may require some extra time if other existing security cannot be directly utilized.
3. Audit trail reports will need to be developed since the primary purpose for pay distributions relates to direct and indirect costs on federal funds, and all such changes are subject to audit under A-133 and DOD indirect cost procedures.