Setting up payroll budgets

The Payroll Planning page enables you to maintain information to support payroll budget planning and to configure and perform payroll planning processes.

To access this page, from the Command Center home page, click Payroll Planning.

Click the name of a payroll budget to open it in the Budget Editor. The Budget Editor includes the following tabs:

Tab	Description
Settings	Configure the basic budget settings, such as the budget name, standard hours, benefits eligibility, and other payroll budget information.
Load Data	Select and copy payroll data to the database and review validation reports.
Drivers & Assumptions	Configure settings for rates, statistics, and other data types to help calculate planning data.
Plan Files	Process the budget to pull in the appropriate data and publish the budget to end users.
Plan Utilities	Access the utilities needed to perform a variety of administrative functions.
View Reports	View the production reports for the selected budget

Adding a payroll budget or scenario

To add a payroll budget or scenario:

From the Command Center home page, click Payroll Planning.
In the Budgets tab, click + in the upper-right corner of the page to display the Add New dialog box.

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In the Add New dialog, complete the following fields, and click Add:

Field	Descriptions
Type	Select Budget or Scenario.
Select source	Select an existing payroll budget to use as the basis for the new budget or scenario.
New file group year	[Budget only] Type the financial planning year for the budget. To include the year in the financial planning budget name, select the Use in file group name check box.
Name	Type a name for the budget or scenario.
Table suffix	[Scenario only] Enter a suffix to be appended to the scenario name.
Description	Type a description for the budget or scenario.

From the list of payroll budgets, click the name of the budget you just added.
Complete the following tabs:

After you have created a budget, you can assign an alias and make it available to end users.

Setting an alias

Aliases are used to specify the current budget, next year's budget, budgets used for forecasting purposes, and other designations. The following aliases are available:

Alias	Description
PayrollBudgetCurrentYearApproved	At the start of a new fiscal year assign the appropriate payroll file group for reporting.
PayrollBudgetCurrentYearRevised	An official revision of the budget will be assigned to this alias.
PayrollBudgetNextYearApproved	This alias indicates an approved budget. At the start of reporting for a new fiscal year, this will be promoted to the current year budget.
PayrollForecastApprovedCurrentYear	This alias indicates the most current forecast approved for reporting.
PayrollWorkingFGForEndUser	This alias indicates the working file group. It is assigned to a budget or forecast file group before the plan files are opened to the budget or forecast owners. It is the file group they access in the payroll budget editor.

To add an alias:

On the Payroll Planning home page, click Add Alias in the Aliases column for the appropriate budget row.
In the Aliases dialog, place a check mark next to the alias or aliases you want to add.

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Click Save.

Making budgets available for end users

In order for users to view and interact with a budget or scenario, it must first be made available.

To display a payroll budget or scenario in the Axiom FI Suite's Payroll Planning module, on the main Budget Editor page, slide the Available for end user toggle to Yes.

Editing a payroll budget or scenario

To edit a budget:

From the Command Center home page, click Payroll Planning.
In the Budgets tab, click the name of the payroll budget or scenario from the list to open it in the Budget Editor.
Use the information in the following sections to make any needed adjustments to the budget or scenario.

Settings tab

The Settings tab allows you to configure basic settings, such as the name, standard hours, benefits eligibility, and other payroll budget information. It also provides you with the ability to specify manager permissions and bonus details.

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Field	Description
SETTINGS
Name	The name of the budget or scenario. TIP: Add the budget year to the plan name.
Base period	The last period of actuals of the fiscal year for the budget or forecast. Typically, this is the most recent closed fiscal period. This period is referenced by planning templates, utilities, and the Cash Flow Forecaster.
Description	A description of the budget or scenario.
Source	An existing budget used as the basis for this budget. NOTE: This field is not editable.
New file group year	The Axiom system groups all the configuration and data information related to a budget or scenario into a file group, which normally references a planning year. NOTE: This field is not editable.
Standard annual hours	The total number of hours per year for full-time employees (example: 40 hrs per week x 52 weeks = 2080 hours).
Minimum FTE for benefits eligibility (new employees)	The minimum percentage (represented as a decimal) of standard annual hours that qualifies employees for benefits (Example: employee working 30 hours per week = 3/4 time = 0.75).
Allow employee transfers	Select Yes to allow employee transfers. Select No to not allow employee transfers.
Calculate Payroll Taxes	Select Yes to calculate payroll taxes as part of the budget or scenario. Select No to not calculate payroll taxes as part of the budget or scenario.
Use job codes to set employee benefits for open positions	Select Yes to link employee benefits for open positions to the job code. Select No to not link employee benefits for open positions to the job code.
Process definition file	Select Yes to link employee benefits for open positions to the job code. Select No to not link employee benefits for open positions to the job code. Click Import to to save a copy of the process definition file to the current file group.
MANAGER PERMISSIONS
Threshold for Manager adjustments requiring approval and comments	Sets the threshold below which managers have discretion for salary adjustments.
Require commenting for transfers, new employees and terminations	Select Yes to require comments when transferring employees, hiring new employees, and terminating employees. Select No to allow tranfers, hires, and terminations without comments.
Can adjust bonus	Select Yes to allow managers to adjust employees' bonuses. Select No to prevent managers from adjusting employees' bonuses.
Can override benefit eligibility	Select Yes to allow managers to designate employees as ineligible for benefits. Select No to prevent managers from overriding benefits eligibility.
Can adjust merit increase for employees	Select Yes to give managers discretion to adjust merit increases. Select No to prevent managers from adjusting merit increases.
Can adjust secondary increase for employees	Select Yes to allow managers to adjust secondary increases. Select No to prevent managers from adjusting secondary increases.
MERIT INCREASES
Merit increases are on the anniversary date (new employees)	Select Yes to set merit increases to the anniversary of employees' hire dates. Select No to not tie merit increases to the hire date anniversaries.
Effective period of merit increase	The effective month (1=January, 2=February, etc.) for merit increases, if the not the anniversary date.
SECONDARY INCREASES
Enable secondary increase	Select Yes to enable secondary increases (increases beyond annual merit increases). Select No to disable secondary increases.
Effective period of the secondary increase	The effective month (1=January, 2=February, etc.) for secondary increases.

Load Data tab

The Load Data tab allows you to copy payroll data to the database and review validation reports.

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To load data:

In the Payroll file row, select the file to load in the Select file to load drop-down list.
Click Load in the Load data column.
Click OK in the confirmation dialog.

To view the validation report, click Open in the Review payroll data column.

Drivers & Assumptions tab

Driver and assumption files include rates, statistics, and other data types referenced by each budget file group to help calculate planning data. Driver and assumption files can also include global values such as calendar information. You can open the driver to edit it, or change the status for processing.

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To open a driver:

Click the name of the driver you want to open.

NOTE: The driver and assumption files open in the Desktop Client.

To change the status of the driver:

In the Status column, select one of the following options for each driver:
- Completed – the driver is configured and ready for use.
- In Progress – the driver is in the configuration process.
- Not Used – the driver will not be used for this budget.

The options selected in the Status column do not have any effect on system processes. It simply provides a way for you to track the status for the drivers relative to the budget.

For instructions on configuring driver and assumption settings, see the links in the following table.

Driver	Description
Benefits	Maintains the list of benefit-related expenses planned at the employee level. The table is already set up for the pre-defined bonus and benefit columns, so use this utility to enable benefits for the Benefit16 through Benefit20 columns of the Payroll table.
Benefits Projections	Contains forecast monthly expense and percentage rates for benefits that use a Lookup Amount or Lookup Percent driver.
Job Codes	Lists the job codes that link new employees to benefit plan codes or benefit amounts.
Merit Increases	Contains the merit increase values by pay grade for each comparatio range. Comparatio is calculated as the employee's current salary divided by the midpoint of the salary range for their pay grade code as defined by the company's pay policy.
Payroll Accounts	Contains a list of General Ledger (GL) accounts that are mapped to payroll items for each company.
Payroll Calendar	Specifies the number of work hours per month for payroll budgeting.
Payroll Taxes	Contains data to calculate federal and state payroll taxes.

Plan Files tab

After you load data and configure drivers and assumptions, you are now ready to process the budget to pull in the data from the database and insert it into the budget. This process also publishes the budget to end users.

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When you click Process, Axiom does the following:

Refreshes the Axiom database queries for the budget, including specifying exactly which queries to run.
Saves data to the database.
Saves the budget.
Adds the budget to the list of available planning budgets in the Financial Planning module from the FI Suite home page.

You perform this action not only when you first create a budget but continuously throughout the planning cycle so that budgets are always updated with the latest data. For example:

After initially creating budgets, you process the budget to build out the Axiom queries and save the initial data to the database.
Budgets can reference information included in reference and driver tables. If tables are updated, the data in budgets may be out of synch with the data in the database. To synchronize the changes, process the budget.
If budgets are designed to accommodate ongoing data updates—for example, rolling forecasts—processing the budget brings updated data from the database into the budget.

After the system is done processing, you can then open the budget to review it before making it available to your end users.

Process and Review tab

Do any of the following:

To process the budget, click Process. Once the process is complete, the system displays the budget in the list of budgets in the Payroll Planning module. For instructions on entering values into the budget, see Working with payroll planning budgets.
To only process specific data, click Edit Filters.
To view the processed budget, in the Review Plan Files section, click Open. This is the budget end users will see in the FI Suite > Financial Planning page.

Process Management

To manage the process steps for your organization, click Open Process Management. For instructions, see Plan file processes.

Plan Utilities tab

The Plan Utilities page allows you to enter allocation assignments and run the Payroll Budget Allocation utility for the selected plan year. You can also view the validation report from this page.

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Do one of the following:

To open the Allocation Assignments utility, click Enter Allocation Assignments.
To process the payroll budget allocation, click Process in the Process Plan Utilities column.
To view the validation report, click Review Report in the Review Validation Reports column.

For more information on payroll planning utilities, see

View Reports tab

The following reports provide detailed information regarding the selected budget or scenario.

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Click the name of any report to open it in the Desktop Client.

Name	Description
Department Payroll Budget report	Displays the payroll planning budget, which contains monthly planning data for the current plan year, for the department or comparable entity associated with the currently selected plan file group.
Payroll Allocation Validation report	Displays a summary of allocations in the payroll planning budget for the current plan year for a department or comparable entity associated with the currently selected plan file group.