The Payroll Process in SAP begins with the entry and maintenance of data and
ends with the “Subsequent Activities” performed after each payroll is completed
to satisfaction.
Data Entry – Data for a given pay period can be entered in the system any
time before the pay period is run. If using an interface for time data, the
interface is generally run just prior to the payroll run, along with Time
Evaluation, if appropriate.
Release for Payroll – Once data has been entered in the system for a given
pay period, the Control Record is set to Released for Payroll. As discussed
in the previous unit, this locks all employees in the Payroll Area, preventing
any past or present data maintenance.
If any employees are already being processed at the time the Control Record
is set to Released for Payroll, a message will be issued indicating that not all
employees could be locked. This is because an employee can only be
Start Payroll
The Start Payroll transaction is the step where payroll calculations are
performed; where payroll is "run." Payroll is processed using the Payroll Driver
(payroll program), a screen where pertinent information is entered in order to run
payroll for the appropriate group of employees, for the appropriate pay period,
and using the proper payroll rules and calculations.
The Payroll Driver screen has several important fields that must be filled in prior
to execution:
Payroll area – choose the appropriate payroll area that you want to process.
Current period – when running live payroll (as opposed to simulations), you
should always be running the current payroll period according to the control
record.
Other period – can be used when running simulations, which do not store
payroll results to the database.
Personnel no. – used to select only specific personnel numbers, or a range
of personnel numbers, when running simulations or re-processing employees
that have had errors or changes during the payroll process.
Search Helps – useful when re-processing employees that have had errors
or changes during the payroll process. Use Search Help W to select such
employees.
Schema – configured set of rules and operations used to calculate payroll. It
is critical that you select the schema configured for your company in order to
properly calculate payroll.
Forced retro. Accounting as of – allows you to force the system to
retroactively process payroll back to specified date. Used primarily for
testing purposes.
Display Log – When checked, a list of steps of the payroll calculation will be
shown so you may view the inputs, calculations, and outputs of each step of
the payroll calculation. Use only when processing a small number of
employees, as this can extend processing time greatly.
Test-Run – Select this to run a simulated payroll.
Remuneration Statement variant – allows you to select a variant of the
Remuneration Statement (check stub) program so that you can generate a
remuneration statement based on the results of your pay run. Use only when
processing small number of employees, as this can extend processing time
greatly.
The display log is built into the output screen when running payroll. This can
be a very useful tool to validate payroll results, and research errors or
incorrect calculations from the payroll run.
Even when the log is switched off (for larger runs), errors will still be
displayed so you can see what employees did not process successfully
through payroll and the reason they were unsuccessful. You will not,
however, be able to drill into the details leading up to the error.
When the log is switched on, you can drill into the steps of the payroll run to
determine what caused errors or incorrect results.
Check Results
The Check Results transaction allows you to check errors as well as run reports
to check the accuracy of your payroll results. Both are important. Payroll cannot
be exited until all errors are resolved so that all employees in the payroll area can
be successfully processed with results stored. The same is not true for incorrect
results. If an employee’s pay is incorrect, you can still exit payroll and move on
when time constraints require. However, if you want to check for accuracy, you
can use payroll reporting tools to do so while in the Check Result status.
Another valuable activity while in the Check Results status is running simulations
for subsequent activities, such as Posting to Accounting and Third Party
Remittance. Simulating such programs in advance is recommended in order to
identify any issues that may cause errors in those programs, before it is too late
to change master data and re-run payroll.
Once you have determined the cause of payroll errors or incorrect results, you
can un-lock your employees for master data maintenance using the Release for
Corrections status. This is necessary in order to make changes to employee
data, since it was locked during the Release for Payroll step.
***It should be noted that this un-locks ALL employees in the payroll area,
not only those with errors.***
As you make changes, Infotype 0003 is updated to flag those employees for re-
processing. Match-Code W (also called Search Help W) can then be used to re-
process payroll for only those employees who had errors and those that have
had changes made while in Release for Corrections.
Exit Payroll
Once all payroll errors have been resolved, all employees have been
successfully re-run through payroll, and all payroll results are satisfactory, payroll
can be finalized or closed by changing the control record to Exit Payroll status.
Subsequent Activities
Once payroll has been exited, Subsequent Activities that rely on payroll results
can be performed. Such activities may include:
1. Simulate payroll for the employee you hired in the previous unit.
a. Access the Payroll Driver in simulation mode via transaction
code PC00_M10_CALC_SIM or the menu path shown in the
screen shot below:
c. Click Execute
Click the Back button to return to the Display Log Tree screen.
i. From the SAP Easy Access screen, access the SAP US Payroll
menu by entering transaction code PC10 in the Command Field
as shown below. Press Enter.
l. Verify that the correct pay period will be released (pay period
covering the start date for your employee) and click Yes. If the
pay period is not correct, consult the course instructor.
***Be sure that the Current Pay Period defaults to the correct
pay period for your employee. ***
Click Execute.
Sample snapshot of the Payroll Driver for the Start Payroll step.
v. Once satisfied with results, use the Exit button to return to the
SAP Easy Access screen.
w. Exit Payroll from the SAP Easy Access screen.
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