Pay Setup

Dayforce Implementation Guide
Version
R2025.2.1
ft:lastEdition
2025-12-01
Pay Setup

Enables the Pay Setup feature, which contains several subfeatures used to perform the configuration and setup required to pay employees properly for their worked time.

See Pay Setup Configuration.

Pay Setup Subfeatures

Pay Setup: Enables Pay Setup in the navigation panel. You must assign subfeature roles under this feature role to gain access to any of the Pay Setup tools:

  • Attendance: Enables the Attendance subfeature. Users assigned this feature can configure the attendance management policies implemented in Dayforce, which include incident types, violations, grades, and attendance policies. Attendance policies combine all of the elements in the setup together, listing what incident types can contribute to an employee’s record, what grades employees can be placed in, and how many points within what rolling time period they must have on their record to be assigned the grades, and finally what violations the policy uses, and what grades and point thresholds cause the violations to occur. See Attendance Management Configuration.
    • Attendance Rule Policy: Enables the Attendance Rule Policy tab in Pay Setup > Attendance. Users assigned this feature can create ruleset hierarchies containing attendance rules and qualifiers to create conditional requirements for tracking employee attendance.
    • This role feature also enables the Attendance Rule Policy drop-down list in the Attendance Policy tab which is used to link an attendance rule policy with an attendance policy. See Configure Attendance Rule Policies.
  • Balances: Enables the Balances subfeature, which can be configured with several subfeatures that are required to track employee balances. Balances track employee benefits, such as vacation time, sick, and personal days in Dayforce so that the appropriate benefit is deducted automatically as employees record their time or make time away requests. See Balances.
    • Balance Access Reason: Enables the Reasons tab in Pay Setup > Balances. Users assigned this feature can configure reasons as to why employees were assigned a restricted balance. Any reasons configured and assigned to a restricted balance are available to the users who grant access to restricted balances in the Work > Balances screen of People for record purposes. See Work > Balances in the HR Administration Guide.
    • Balance Definition: Enables the Balances tab of Pay Setup > Balances. Balances must be defined and configured with information on its use, unit type, and the associated pay adjustments.
      • Balance Cascade: Enables the Cascades section in the Balances tab of Pay Setup > Balances. Users assigned this feature can define balance conversions and cascades, if any balances can cascade, or flow into other balances. This can be used for a situation where an employee takes a day off work sick, but has used up all their sick days. A balance cascade controls what balance is used in lieu of a sick day, if it has a balance of zero.
      • Balance Conversion: Enables the Conversions section in the Balances tab of Pay Setup > Balances. Balance conversions describe the relationship between two different balances configured to cascade. Conversions determine how many units of one balance convert to units of another balance.
      • Hide Balance Override: Enables the Hide Balance section in the Balances tab of Pay Setup > Balances. Users assigned this feature can control whether balances are hidden in Dayforce for certain roles.
    • Balance Transaction Type: Enables the Transaction Types tab of Pay Setup > Balances. Transaction types describe the way that balances can be altered by transactions. For example, balances can be decremented or incremented, depending on the transaction type.
    • Balance Unit: Enables the Units tab of Pay Setup > Balances. User roles assigned this feature can define the units the organization uses when it measures employee balances, and how these units relate to minutes. By defining units and relating them to minutes, Dayforce can accurately track the balances and deduct them properly, accurate to within a minute.
      • Base Unit Type: Enables the Base Unit Type column in the Units tab. In this column, you can configure whether a balance unit uses an alternative base time unit to track a balance. By default, Dayforce tracks balances on a minute basis. To change this default configuration for a balance unit, click the Base Unit Type field and select an alternative base unit type: either Day or Week.
  • Base Rate Sets: Enables the Base Rate Sets and Base Rate Policy subfeatures of Pay Setup. Base rate progression describes the functionality in which Dayforce automatically updates an employee's base rate based on a specified amount of time in years, months, hours, and others, depending on how Dayforce is configured. See Base Rate Progression.
  • Clock Devices: Enables the Clock Devices subfeature. Employees use clock devices to record when they start and stop work and take meals or breaks. Before employees can use clocks, they must be assigned to specific locations and associated with a time zone. See Clock Device Setup.
  • Clock Device Group: Enables the Clock Device Group subfeature. Clock device groups associate clock devices and the employees who can use them together in groups. When assigned to a clock device group, employees can clock in only at a clock device that belongs to the same clock device to which they were assigned. Employees can be assigned to multiple clock device groups, but clock devices themselves belong to only one group. See Clock Device Group Setup.
  • Entitlements: Assign the Entitlements feature and all of the related subfeatures to the user roles responsible for configuring entitlements. Entitlements control how employees earn balances that represent their benefits, such as vacation time or personal days. See Entitlements.
    • Entitlement Definitions: Enables the Entitlements and Recurrences tabs in Pay Setup > Entitlements. In the Entitlements tab, users can create and edit entitlements, which involves setting up rules and qualifiers in a hierarchy. This entitlement hierarchy dictates how Dayforce updates and recalculates an employee’s balance based on configurable settings and conditions.
    • In the Recurrences tab, users can configure the frequency upon which an employee can earn more balance units and how Dayforce treats unused balances (for example, if they roll over to the next year).
    • Important: This role feature also controls access to entitlements in other areas of Dayforce. For example, unless this role features is assigned, users with access to the Entitlement Tracer function in People and Timesheets can’t view details of system-generated entitlement transactions that involve the Dayforce entitlement rule engine. See Employee Entitlement Details in the HR Administration Guide.
    • Policies: Enables the Policies tab in Pay Setup > Entitlements where users can set up an entitlement policy, which groups together different entitlements. After an entitlement policy is configured, you can assign it to the appropriate employees in People.
  • Holiday Group: Enables the Holiday Group subfeature. Holiday groups link the holidays configured in Dayforce together so that they can be made available to locations in the organization hierarchy and assigned to employees that work at the location in the Employment > Employment Settings screen of People. See Configure Holiday Groups.
  • Holiday Types: Enables the Holiday Types subfeature. Users with access to this feature can configure holiday types.
  • Job Rates: Enables the Job Rates and Job Step Policy subfeatures. Job rate sets group a series of levels through which employees can progress incrementally, so that the effective pay rate for their job assignment changes over time. For example, job set levels can be based on months of seniority. Several levels are configured, each with pay rates defining what employees working the job earn after different amounts of seniority. See Job Rate Sets.
  • Long Service Leave: (Australia and New Zealand only) Enables the Long Service Leave subfeature. Users with access to this feature can configure how Dayforce determines long service leave (LSL) eligibility for employees. You can create an LSL policy suited to your business and regional needs and then link it with an entitlement policy. See Long Service Leave.
  • Multi-Approval: Enables the Multi-Approval subfeature of Pay Setup. Multi-Approval is used to configure Dayforce to track multiple authorizations, for different segments of time, in a single shift. This multi-approval functionality allows appropriate users to approve the portions of time within a worked shift that pertain to them. See Multi-Approval Configuration.
  • Pay Category: Enables the Pay Category subfeature of Pay Setup. Pay categories represent how an employee is paid for a segment of time. They influence how employees are paid through a multiplier, which is applied to an employee’s pay rate for the segment of time with the pay category. See Pay Categories.
  • Pay Category Group: Enables the Pay Category Group subfeature. Pay category groups are used to group multiple pay categories of the same type together. Overtime, premium pay, and regular pay are all common examples. Each pay category group can contain multiple pay categories, each of which pay employees differently. See Pay Categories.
  • Pay Code: Enables the Pay Code subfeature. Pay codes represent what an employee was doing for a particular segment of time. Each pay code is linked to a pay category which dictates how employees are paid for the time. See Pay Codes.
  • Pay Code Group: Enables the Pay Code Group subfeature. Pay code groups restrict which pay adjustments a manager can assign and specify which pay adjustments can be assigned to an employee, based on the pay codes in the group. See Pay Code Groups.
  • Pay Group: Enables the Pay Group subfeature. Pay groups dictate the pay cycle for a group of employees. See Pay Groups.
    • Election Workers: (Canada only) Shows the Election Workers checkbox in the Payroll Properties tab in Pay Setup > Pay Group. This feature only applies to Canadian pay groups. See Canadian Election Workers.
    • Reconcile Pay Calendar: Enables the Reconcile Pay Calendar button in the Pay Calendars tab in Pay Setup > Pay Group. You can reconcile a current or past non-transmitted pay period by clicking the Reconcile Pay Calendar button for the selected pay calendar. For more information about reconciling pay calendars, see the Pay Approval Guide.
    • Note: You can enable the same reconcile functionality under the Pay Admin Checklist role feature to reconcile pay calendars in Pay Admin Checklist.
  • Pay Holidays: Enables the Pay Holidays subfeature. Dayforce can be configured to pay employees holiday pay or apply different overtime rates or premiums for working on a holiday. To take holidays into account, the holidays your organization observes must be set up. See Configure Pay Holidays.
  • Pay Policy: Enables the Pay Policy subfeature. Pay policies are used to assign configurable pay rules and qualifiers in Dayforce to appropriate the employees so that employees are paid correctly, according to the organization’s policies and business needs. Each rule controls an aspect of your organization’s pay policy, such as when and how daily, weekly, and holiday overtime is paid, or what shift premiums employees can earn. A pay policy groups the appropriate instances of these rules together, so that they can be applied to the same group of employees. See Configure Pay Policies.
    • Audit: Enables the Audit button and the Advanced Audit screen in Pay Setup > Pay Policy. Users who have access to this feature can view a detailed audit trail of the changes made to each pay policy, rule, or qualifier. See View Audit Information.
    • Dynamic Reallocation: Enables the Dynamic Reallocation tab in Pay Setup > Pay Policy. Users with access to this feature can configure dynamic reallocation rules. Dynamic reallocation rules reallocate the hours and costs associated with specific pay categories. The most common use of this feature is to redistribute overtime to certain shifts or departments based on a set of rules, rather than when the employee’s worked time crosses the overtime threshold. See Dynamic Reallocation Configuration.
  • Period Authorization Policy: Enables the Period Authorization Policy subfeature. Period authorization policies automatically authorize all days in a pay period without you having to review each record individually, while using an Unauthorization Rule to identify exceptions and unauthorize records based on a configured set of parameters. See Period Authorization Policies.
  • Note: The Period Authorization Policy role feature is only displayed when Period Authorization is enabled in System Admin > Client Properties.
  • Time Entry Policy: Enables the Time Entry Policy subfeature. Time entry policies control what time entry method employees use, as well as dictate the optional rules and validations that Dayforce applies when employees record their worked time. These include settings that control time capture, validation, grace, exception, and meal and break rules. See Time Entry Policies. Users with access to this feature can configure time entry policies.
    • Rounding Direction: Enables the Rounding Direction drop-down list in the Main section of the Main tab, and in the Rounding section of the Meals and Breaks tabs of Pay Setup > Time Entry Policy. With this setting, you can specify whether Dayforce rounds early and late clock entries and meal durations in a single direction (up or down) or in both directions.
  • Time Review Administration: Enables the Time Review Administration subfeature. With this feature assigned, users can create and assign specific views in the Load panel in Time Review. They can create favorite queries and assign them to users. For example, users can save a query for managers that shows only their part-time, hourly employees, so that managers don’t have to manually apply these same filters multiple times in Time Review.
  • Tips: Enables the Tips subfeature, where you can configure the types of tips that employees can record on their timesheets and on clocks. See Tip Processing.
    • Tip Type: Users with access to this feature can add tip types.
    • Tip Type Group: Users with access to this feature can add tip type groups.