e-News | June 26, 2003

FAD Payroll has received nearly 4,000 PeopleSoft personnel action forms in the past two weeks, along with the 1,500 documents that were held during the processing moratorium relating to the Annual Salary Increase Process (ASIP). Added to this are thousands of personnel actions submitted on spreadsheets from multiple tubs.

For the past two weeks and through this week we have added experienced resources and have worked overtime to get all the documents received before June 24 into the system by Sunday, June 29. We are on track to meet or beat that deadline.

To ensure that no one is auto-terminated during nightly processing on June 30 because their appointment extension was not processed, we are asking all tubs to run the AWS3 Term Appointments report early in the day on Monday, June 30. You should set report parameters to select transactions with an effective date of June 30, and look for any scheduled terminations that should not happen.

Please call your direct tub contact in Payroll if any term appointment extensions are missing. We cannot guarantee that reappointment forms received after June 23 will be entered in the system by Monday.

Please contact Pat Dick, Manager of the Payroll Office, at 5-4204 or pat_dick@harvard.edu if you have any additional questions or concerns.

Payroll Customer Service Tips and Tricks top

1	When you call your direct contact, please be sure to listen to their entire voice message and then leave a message for them to return your call. If your contact is out, their message should give you the name and number of a backup person for you to call. The Customer Service reps concentrate on tickets that have been logged in the Remedy queue via the Payroll Hotline. In an effort to get these tickets resolved, most reps do not answer their phones while working in Remedy, but check their voice mail and return calls every two or three hours. So be sure to leave a message for a call back.
2	Customer Service reps deal with all Remedy tickets, regardless of tub affiliation. You may receive a callback from a CSR who is not your direct contact to resolve an open issue. Please do not start calling this CSR for other issues.
3	The off-cycle check schedule is as follows: Monday - non-time reporters Wednesday - all paygroups Friday - time reporters, and sometimes all paygroups Off-cycle checks are available for pickup at 9 a.m. the first business morning after they are processed. When requesting a check for an employee to pick up, be sure to let the employee know when the check will be available.
4	Regular check processing occurs on Tuesdays. It is recommended that you look at your payroll register first thing on Tuesday morning. If you see something you did not expect, call your direct contact in Customer Service. A second calculation will run at noon, and you should be able to see changes on your register by 1 or 1:30 p.m. The final check confirmation is run at 3 p.m., so any last-minute changes need to be called in no later than 2:45 p.m. to allow time to make those changes on the paylines. After the final confirmation runs at 3 p.m., no more changes can be made.

How Payroll Expenses Will Be Accrued at
Fiscal Year End top

In order to properly record Harvard's salary expenses for FY2003, two journals will be processed by FAD General Accounting in June to accrue payroll expenses. These accruals are necessary because there are two payrolls in July (the biweekly and weekly July 11 payrolls) that include payments for time worked in June.

One journal will be processed for the July 11 biweekly payroll, and a second will be processed for the July 11 weekly payroll. The journals will charge payroll expense for the portion of the July 11 check that relates to work performed in June; the journals will also credit a liability for accrued expenses. The accruals will then be reversed in July. The effect of these entries will be to remove the June portion of the salary costs from July and record them in June.

The calculation of amounts to accrue into June will be done as follows:

For the biweekly payroll, three-fifths of the June 27 check will be accrued into June. The June 27 check will be used because many July 11 checks include a pay rate change on July 1. Since PeopleSoft can only prorate the payroll based upon the total check, if the July 11 check were used, some of the July 1 increase would be allocated back to June. Costing for the June accrual will also be based upon costing in the June 27 check.

For the weekly payroll, two-sevenths of the July 11 check will be accrued into June. The accrual percentage will be applied to the total check amount. Therefore, if there is a rate change on July 1, the calculation will not attribute the increase to only the days after July 1.

If you have questions on this process, you may contact Karen O’Rourke at 496-3375 or Joe DeCristoforo at 495-4592.

Tax Update top

Change to federal supplemental tax rate: The federal withholding rate that is applicable to nonrecurring payments such as bonuses and non-qualified moving expenses (called the federal supplemental rate) has been reduced from 27% to 25% by legislation enacted in late May. This rate change will be implemented in PeopleSoft effective June 23 and will be used for payrolls calculated on or after June 24.

The change in the federal supplemental rate also affects the "gross-up" rate for Harvard departments, which occasionally choose to gross up payments so that the recipient will receive a certain dollar amount after required withholdings have been taken.

The "gross-up" rate includes the federal supplemental rate, Social Security (OASDI), Medicare, and Massachusetts state tax. In order to coincide with the change of the supplemental rate in PeopleSoft, when “grossing up” a payment you should divide by 0.6205 (instead of the current 0.6005).

Graduated withholdings will also change: The IRS has released new tax withholding tables that reflect the lower graduated withholding rates, also enacted in May. The tax withholding table changes will be added to PeopleSoft as part of the August 24 tax update and will be effective for payrolls issued after August 24. Until then, PeopleSoft will continue to use the current withholding tables.

If employees would like to see their new tax rates, they can be found on the IRS website (www.irs.gov). The IRS recommends that employees wait until they see how much their withholding drops before adjusting the number of exemptions on their W-4, so as to avoid an estimated tax penalty for not paying enough during the year. A blank W-4 form can be downloaded from ABLE at able.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/forms.pl?dept=Payroll.

Reporting Time on Holidays top

The 4th of July is coming up, and with it questions about how to report time during holidays. A major question that keeps arising is what part- or flex-time employees are entitled to when a holiday falls on a day that they are not scheduled to work. When this happens, employees are entitled to holiday pay within the same week (FHP) or another floating holiday (HOL) that can be used within the same fiscal year. (The floating holiday is defined as one-fifth of the regularly scheduled hours the employee works per week.) This is the case for HUCTW, non-bargaining-unit overtime-eligible, and exempt staff (check union contracts for rules governing employees in other unions).

The system does not automatically track this kind of holiday-time accrual; employees and their managers will need to keep track of what floating-holiday time an employee is owed.

Example:

Ali works a 17.5-hour week: seven hours on Monday and Tuesday, and three-and-a-half hours on Wednesday. Friday is July 4th, a Harvard holiday. Ali has 3.5 hours (17.5 / 5 = 3.5) to be paid for the holiday during that week or to use as a floating holiday later.

Holidays for part- and flex-time employees

The following grid explains the rules of holiday time for employees on part- or flex-time schedules, and provides some examples. This material is adapted from the Quick Reference Policy Summaries.

HUCTW	Non-Bargaining Unit Overtime-Eligible	Exempt
HUCTW staff who are scheduled to work on a holiday will be paid their regular pay for the day. Therefore, a part-time, or a full-time, flex-time employee will not need to supplement holidays with other paid time off (personal time, vacation, compensatory time).	Non-bargaining unit overtime-eligible staff who work part-time earn pro-rated holidays based on their percent of work effort. (For example, a half-time employee earns 3.5 hours of time off for each observed holiday.) Hence, these employees may need to supplement their pro-rated holiday with other paid time off (personal, vacation, or compensatory time) in order to receive their usual pay for a holiday. Staff who work a full-time flex schedule earn holidays at one-fifth their regular weekly schedule. They may need to supplement the holiday earned with other paid time off to receive regular pay for the holiday.	Exempt staff who are normally scheduled to work on a day on which a holiday falls (and do not work that day) will be paid their normal salary for that week. This applies to flex-time and part-time staff as well. Exempt staff who are not scheduled to work on a holiday will be paid their normal salary for that week, and will be allowed to bank one-fifth of their regular weekly schedule as a holiday day for use at another time within the same fiscal year.
Example for part-time schedule: Miriam works half-time with the following regular schedule: Mon 7, Tues 7, Wed 3.5. On a Monday holiday (a day scheduled for 7 hours), Miriam will receive regular pay for 7 hours of work without using other paid time off.	Example for part-time schedule: Joanne works half-time with the following regular schedule: Mon 7, Tues 7, Wed 3.5. On a Monday holiday (a day scheduled for 7 hours), Joanne has earned half a holiday (3.5 hours) and therefore must supplement the earned holiday with other paid time off.
Example for full-time flex schedule: John works 35 hours per week with the following schedule: Mon 10, Tues 10, Wed 10, Thurs 5. On a Monday holiday (a day scheduled for 10 hours), John will receive regular pay for 10 hours of work without using other paid time off.	Example for full-time flex schedule: Mark works 35 hours per week with the following schedule: Mon 10, Tues 10, Wed 10, Thurs 5. On a Monday holiday (a day scheduled for 10 hours), Mark has earned 7 hours for a holiday and therefore must supplement the earned holiday with 3 hours of other paid time off.

Time Types for Holidays

Clerical/technical employees who work on a holiday are entitled to receive 1.5 their regular rate of pay for that day. In addition, they are entitled to either

an additional day’s pay, or
a floating holiday to be taken later during the same fiscal year.

For both the floating holiday and the day’s pay, “day” is defined as one-fifth of the employee’s regularly scheduled weekly hours.

Administrative/professional employees who work on holidays may bank a floating holiday to use later, but are not entitled to time-and-a-half, nor to an additional day’s pay if they do not use the floating holiday.

Time type	Use this when	What it does	Contributes to overtime threshold?
HWK	An employee works on a holiday	Pays the employee at 1.5 their regular rate for the hours entered	Yes
HOL	An employee takes a holiday off An employee who has worked on a holiday chooses to take a “floating holiday” later A part- or flex-time employee takes “floating holiday” time to make up for a holiday that they were not scheduled to work (see example above)	Pays the employee at their regular rate for the hours entered	Yes
FHP	An employee who has worked on a holiday chooses to receive an extra day’s pay in the paycheck covering the week the holiday occurs in	Pays the employee at their regular rate for the hours entered	No

Upcoming Time and Labor Deadlines

Friday, June 27	Time entry deadline: 5 p.m.
Monday, June 30	Time approval deadline: noon
Thursday, July 3	Time entry deadline: 5 p.m.
Monday, July 7	Time approval deadline: 5 p.m.

2003 Holidays and Winter Recess

Independence Day	Friday, July 4
Labor Day	Monday, September 1
Columbus Day	Monday, October 13
Veterans Day	Tuesday, November 11
Thanksgiving	Thursday, November 27
Friday after Thanksgiving	Friday, November 28
Christmas Eve - half-day holiday	Wednesday, December 24
Christmas Day	Thursday, December 25
Winter Recess*	December 26-31

* All administrative/professional and clerical/technical employees are granted a winter recess on December 26 through 31. Essential personnel who may be required to work on the days specified as “paid recess” may take those days as time off at another time consistent with the provisions of the personnel manual.

Here are the days of the winter holidays and recess, and the time reporting codes for clerical/ technical employees to use.

Date	If you do not work	If you work	What you are entitled to if you work
Wednesday, December 24 - morning Note: The morning of December 24 is regular work time.	VAC, PER, or Comp Time used	REG	Your regular hours
Wednesday, December 24 - afternoon	HOL	HWK	Time-and-a-half for those hours, plus an additional half-day's pay or floating holiday to be taken later
Thursday, December 25	HOL	HWK	Time-and-a-half for those hours, plus an additional half-day's pay or floating holiday to be taken later
Friday, December 26	HOL	REG	A floating holiday to be taken later
Monday, December 29	HOL	REG	A floating holiday to be taken later
Tuesday, December 30	HOL	REG	A floating holiday to be taken later
Wednesday, December 31	HOL	REG	A floating holiday to be taken later
Thursday, January 1, 2004	HOL	HWK	Time-and-a-half for those hours, plus an additional half-day's pay or floating holiday to be taken later

Excused Absences

In December, we plan to create a new time-reporting code for excused absences. Here are some typical reasons for excused absences:

emergencies due to weather, security concerns, or building problems
released time for professional development or training, such as the Bridge program, or
released time for HUCTW activities.

Until the new time code is in place, employees taking excused time off should use the time type REG and add a note in the Comments field explaining the situation.

Managing Student Temps in Summer top

Many student workers will continue temporary employment at Harvard this summer. Here is what you need to know about summertime student workers.

Student workers will be considered “student temps” until graduation, regardless of whether or not they are enrolled full-time. Hence, they

can work more than 90 days in the summer, and
are not required to have an end date on their hire forms, although end dates are recommended to manage terminations and to keep inactive jobs from multiplying.

The enrollment status of student temps does affect their FICA status.

External Postdoc Fringe Assessment
as of July 1, 2003 top

Effective July 1, 2003, certain postdoctoral fellows will be eligible to participate in the health and welfare benefit programs if they

work at least 17.5 hours per week, or
earn at least $15,000, and
receive a University paycheck.

The Benefits Services Group has determined who the eligible people are and have been notifying them with mailings, orientation meetings, and open-enrollment packets. The eligible postdocs will need to return their open-enrollment forms by June 30, and their benefits elections will be effective as of July 1, 2003. Tubs do not need to do anything to manage their postdocs’ notification and enrollment.

Tubs may notice accounting changes when fringe benefits are assessed for external postdocs who will now be receiving benefits. External postdocs are designated in PeopleSoft as Empl Class “Z.” This group includes postdocs who are working under the direction of a Harvard principal investigator when their funding is from outside the University (often sponsored funding). These are employees who were formerly in class 49; they are now paid out of object code 6450.

The fringe cost on this group will not be assessed as part of the fringe benefit allocation. Instead, Benefit Payrolls and Reporting (BPR) will assess each school a monthly charge for each eligible external postdoc. Every month in FY2004, BPR will assess each school $417 per eligible external postdoc (as described below). This assessment will be processed as a single charge to coding provided by each tub. It will be up to each tub to allocate that assessment to the proper departments or units, so individual departments may or may not see the allocation, depending on how their tub chooses to manage the process.

Monthly reports will be available to each tub showing the eligible postdocs for whom an assessment has been made. The navigation path is Home > Compensate Employees > Manage Payroll Process (US) > Report 2 > EXT PD Fringe Assessment. The report can be sorted by tub or person.

BPR may have to adjust information on this report based upon whether an individual has a multiple job; if such adjustments are made, tubs will be notified. Tubs will be able to use these reports to determine any reallocation of fringe charges that they may make.

New Earnings Codes top

Two new earnings codes have been created:

NQR - Non-Qualified Reimbursement for reimbursements to employees when more than sixty days have passed since the expense was incurred.
GTP - Gifts Third Party for reimbursements to employees who purchase gifts for other employees, when the value of the gift should be taxable to the gift recipient but reimbursed to another employee.

Both codes have been added to the earnings code grid on the atwork.harvard.edu/hradmin/ site.

New Temp Auto-Term Process to
Begin August 1 top

Many temporaries (student and other) have multiple jobs in PeopleSoft, some of which have not had any hours reported to them in months. Inactive jobs in the system are a source of bad data and confusion when reporting or approving time. To help reduce this problem, we will begin a process to automatically terminate any student or temp job that has had no hours reported to it over the past six months, beginning August 1.

This process will be run monthly to review all temporary and student-temp job records. For jobs that have had no time reported for six months or more, and which do not already have an appointment end date, an end date of 30 days in the future will be added to the job record. The nightly auto-term process will then terminate these jobs on their scheduled term date. (Any jobs that already have an appointment end date will retain that original date, regardless of how long it has been since hours were worked in it.)

Tubs can review the Term Appointments report and extend an employee’s appointment themselves, if desired.

Clarification Issued for PeopleSoft Desktop Standards:
Macs for Time and Labor Only top

Central administration publishes desktop standards for Harvard’s main administrative systems on ABLE at able.harvard.edu/other/other_index.shtml. The standards list the minimum and the recommended combinations of hardware, operating systems, and browsers for using core financial systems, PeopleSoft, and AWS3.

Generally speaking, a PC rather than a Macintosh is required to use central administrative systems. Why? In most cases, the software manufacturer does not certify (or guarantee) that its programs will work with the Mac. Key functions are untested, and if they don’t work there is little that can be done for users.

However, when it’s technically possible, certified by the manufacturer or the Harvard development team, and practical in terms of Harvard’s ability to provide “double” testing and user support, we have extended our desktop standards to include the Macintosh. For example, the Mac can be used with AWS2 and AWS3.

Recently, the desktop standards have been updated to make clearer that we can only support the use of the Mac with the Time and Labor module of PeopleSoft. We do not support the Mac with other modules of PeopleSoft (Payroll, Benefits, HR, OLTP reporting, and Employee Self-Service) or with other, smaller HR applications (specifically the ASIP, Costing, and Term Appointments upload/download tools).

Here are two additional cautionary notes:

Use of the Mac is supported only on certain operating systems and browsers. Check the desktop standards carefully if in doubt.

The PCard settlement system is currently being redeveloped as a function within Oracle financials (rather than a standalone system). After cutover in the fall, the Mac will no longer be supported for use in conjunction with PCard settlement functions.

Web Voucher Users: Did You Know That
You Can Quickly Copy Web Vouchers? top

Web Voucher has the capability to copy any voucher. You can select the Copy Voucher link from the Web Voucher or the Web Reimbursement main menu. Simply enter the number of the voucher that you want to copy and a new voucher with the same information will be created. Change any aspect of that voucher that is required. Save your changes and submit the voucher for approval. Make sure you write the new voucher number on your invoice.

Do you have a bunch of invoices that use the same coding or are from the same vendor? Perhaps the Copy Current feature is better for you. Once you have created and saved a voucher, a list of options will be available to you at the bottom of the screen. The rightmost option is Copy Current. Simply click this button and a new voucher with the same information will be created. Make necessary changes and save. Voilà – a super way to create many vouchers and save a lot of time.

Be sure to visit the e-News archive for earlier articles that explain this feature in more detail:

Copy Voucher Main Menu: vpf-web.harvard.edu/training/enews/html/091201.html#1
Copy Current: vpf-web.harvard.edu/training/enews/html/022603.html#article1
Copy Current Screen Shot: vpf-web.harvard.edu/training/enews/html/022603.html#article1

About the e-News top

The Financial Administration publishes this semimonthly electronic newsletter for users of Harvard University's financial, HR, and reporting systems, policies, and procedures. Generally, the e-News is published on or around the 12th and 26th of each month.

It contains:

updates on projects underway to build or improve University administrative systems;
information about new University policies, procedures, and forms;
reminders about upcoming deadlines and cut-over dates;
tips and tricks for working more easily or productively.

We welcome questions and suggestions for improvement from readers. If your questions are of general interest, we will answer them in future issues.

Please send comments, questions, or suggestions for improvement by email to us at: fad_communications@harvard.edu

This Just In: Be Sure to Run and Review the AWS3 Term Appointments Report on Monday, June 30 top