Payroll is one of the most crucial — and most complex — components of any organization. To avoid payroll funding headaches, we’ve compiled these payroll funding “best practices.”

Ongoing monthly funding

Planning effort and funding before payroll begins is the easiest and most efficient way to capture funding and report effort accurately. 

Funding is tied to each active position. Positions are tied to employees via job data. A CU Funding Entry will update position funding for the current pay period and for future pay periods. When funding entries are no longer valid because of an inactive or invalid SpeedType or project, funding will post to a predetermined campus suspense SpeedType. Each unit is responsible for determining how to manage payroll that posts to suspense.

Funding for vacant positions may use effective dates earlier than the current period up to the last posted payroll.

Tip: Enter new positions with a date at least several days earlier than the HIR date for new employees so that funding and additional rows may be added and not adversely affect the new HIR row. Never use correction to change an effective date on NEW or DPC position rows once the HRGL Request has been submitted, or funding may end up in suspense.

Appointment end dates are included in the personnel roster and may be used as a strategy to manage funding for positions that are temporary with a predetermined end date, or for hires that are active term-to-term. Couple this data with accurate funding and the need to update funding.

Watch the payroll calendar for payroll deadlines. Target this deadline for CU Funding Entries. No new job data information will be sent to payroll after the payroll deadline; however, the CU Funding Entry is available during the current pay period while the paychecks are being created.

The funding rules are applied during post-payroll processing after the paychecks are confirmed. You will know that payroll post-processing has begun when the current pay period is no longer available on the CU Funding Entry page. At that point, a message will display indicating the next available pay period must be used.

Utilizing position funding before payroll processes is the best practice to apply funding.  The Department Budget Table (DBT) determines (1) suspense, (2) default earn code SpeedTypes (like ENP and PPL); and (3) general position funding for earnings, taxes and deductions. Beyond the DBT, other processes come into play.

Create Additional Pay or CU Time may apply override SpeedTypes. Each campus has different rules to post taxes and deductions for additional pay and post doc funding. Multiple positions are also factored into the rules. Encumbrances and encumbrance fringe amounts are calculated using account codes and position funding. The payroll post-processing job handles all these processes in concert with each other for the most efficient and accurate results.

Ensuring accurate posted funding before payroll has several advantages:

• The costs for taxes and deductions are applied correctly for direct cost and pooled cost analysis.  Encumbrances and encumbrance fringe rates calculate correctly.
• For campuses that post fringe amounts, fringe amounts calculate correctly.
• Pay data is used for ePERS.
• Pay with current earnings periods in sync with the current pay periods is best suited to certification accuracy. 

No new funding entries may be created for past payroll periods after payroll processes. Instead, to change funding after payroll, a Payroll Expense Transfer (PET) is required. Never use a FIN Journal Entry to update funding as it will create out of sync payroll impacting the potential success of future PETs and accurate HCM payroll reporting. Stay tuned next month for PET best practices.

Cross-Campus Funding

Remember that each campus has their own rules for earnings, taxes, and deductions — default earnings SpeedTypes, taxes and benefit SpeedTypes, HCM encumbrances, and FIN fringe allocations. (Refer to the blog post in January for more information.)

Reach out to your campus controller if special consideration is needed for taxes and deductions on a position rostered at your campus with cross campus funding.

Need extra help?

You can learn more about funding entires and find payroll calendars on the HCM website. You can also email: hcm_community@cu.edu or System.HRGL.Team@cu.edu.

Additionally, you can find HCM queries here:

1. Log in to the employee portal.
2. Open the CU Resources dropdown menu and click Business Tools.
3. Select the HCM tile and choose HCM Community Users from the drop-down menu.
4. Click the HCM WorkCenter tile.
5. Select the Resources tab and click the query you desire.