The Pay Group Properties Tab

The length of the pay period for the pay group:  

• Bi-Weekly: (Not for use in UK, Ireland, or Singapore pay groups) Two week pay periods.
• Fortnightly: (Australian and New Zealand pay groups only) Pay period every two weeks. This is a name change from bi-weekly to fortnightly for Australia and New Zealand. The visibility of the Fortnightly frequency depends on the user's culture setting:
  • For Australian configurations, the user's culture must be set to English (Australia).
  • For New Zealand-specific frequencies, the user's culture must be set to English (New Zealand).

When you set the appropriate culture, the Fortnightly frequency is shown in Pay Setup >Pay Group, in the Pay Group Properties tab, in the Calendar Properties section, in the Frequency field.

• Custom: (Not for use in UK, Ireland, or Singapore pay groups).
• Quarterly: (Australian pay groups only). This option is available when you select Australia in the Country drop-down list of the Payroll Properties tab.
• Monthly
• Semi-Monthly: (Not for use in Australia, New Zealand, UK, Ireland, or Singapore pay groups) Twice a month pay period.
• Weekly
• 2 Weekly: (UK and Ireland pay groups only) Two week pay periods.
• 4 Weekly: (UK and Ireland pay groups only) Four week periods, also known as lunar pay frequency, where there are a minimum of 13 pay periods in the year.
• Four-weekly: (New Zealand only) Four week periods.

Recommendation: Use the same setting in Frequency as for the Payroll Frequency (below).

How often employees are paid.

Use the same setting in Payroll Frequency as for the Frequency (above), if you want to transmit pay on the same schedule. To use a different schedule, select a different frequency option.

Examples:

• Weekly frequency with biweekly payroll frequency.
• Semi-monthly frequency with monthly payroll frequency.

The number of days to offset the unlocking of the pay group’s transmitted pay periods using the Pay Period Unlock background job.

Leave the field blank and Dayforce doesn’t unlock any of the pay group’s pay periods when the background job runs.

Tips

If you enter 7 in this field, the job unlocks only pay periods in this pay group if they were transmitted at least seven days before today. Enter 0 in this field and Dayforce unlocks transmitted pay periods immediately without having to run the Pay Period Unlock background job.

It’s recommended that you don’t enter a negative value in this field.

The start day of the week when weekly pay rules are calculated within monthly or semi-monthly pay periods.

Tips

A group’s calculation period can be different from its pay cycle. For example, a monthly pay cycle can be configured to calculate overtime on a weekly basis.

For weekly and bi-weekly pay periods, the Start of Week selection should be the same day of the week that the Start Reference falls on.

The pay group’s start date. A pay group’s start reference is used to generate all of its pay periods. The first pay period generated starts on this date and runs for the duration specified in the Frequency drop-down list.

Tips

Consider the following example: if you select Bi-Weekly in the Frequency drop-down list and 3/1/2010 as the start reference, Dayforce creates two-week pay periods starting on 3/1/2010. The first pay period would run from 3/1/2010 to 3/15/2010. When Dayforce generates pay calendars for semi-monthly pay periods, it generates two pay periods for each month: one from the 1st to the 15th of the month, and one from the 16th to the end of the month. The date selected in the Start Reference field is ignored. These two semi-monthly pay periods are fixed and can’t be customized.

Dayforce takes into account which month it’s generating semi-monthly pay periods for when calculating the duration of the pay periods. For example, Dayforce would create the second pay period in February for the 16th to the 28th in non-leap years.

Additionally, you should configure the Start Reference to the same day of the week as the location’s Start Day of Week. See Configure Locations.

Note: This field isn’t enabled for custom frequency pay groups.

(Optional) The pay group’s end date.

Tips

When you configure an end date, any employees assigned to this pay group need to be reassigned before the specified end date for Dayforce to calculate and generate their pay.

The business day start time. If the business day alignment for the pay group is different from the default business day alignment for the organization, enter a start time in this field.

Tips

Consider an organization with a default business day start time of 11:00 PM. The Northern pay group is configured with 10:00 PM in the Day Start Time field. With this configuration, Dayforce costs the hours for a worked shift from 10:30 PM on Monday to 4:00 AM on Tuesday only for employees belonging to the Northern pay group, because the shift starts after the 10:00 PM business day alignment start time.

The number of days after the end of a pay period that a manager can begin approving gross hours and timesheets. Enter the number of days after the end of a pay period that managers need to approve the pay period by. This value creates both a deadline and a validation. Managers are reminded that the pay period is due for approval in Pay Approve Checklist, but a validation also occurs because managers can’t approve the pay period before the Approve By Offset date. Enter a negative number to specify the number of days before the end of a pay period that managers can approve the pay period.

Tips

Before you configure an offset for approving pay, consider the following:

• It’s recommended that you configure a one-day or two-day offset.
• If your organization has an unpaired threshold configured (that is, the maximum time between in and out clock entries that can be considered a single shift), you should take its length into account when configuring an offset. For example, if your organization has an unpaired threshold of 16 hours, you should configure an offset of at least one day to cover scenarios where employees work long shifts near the pay period end date.
• You can configure an unpaired threshold using the Unpaired Threshold client property in the Time and Attendance section of the Properties tab in System Admin > Client Properties. See Time and Attendance.
• While you can configure a negative offset, it isn’t recommended because it permits pay approval in an open pay period. This can result in clock entries that aren’t reconciled because they were performed after the pay period was approved.

The number of days after the end of the pay period that a manager can approve overtime banked hours by. After the number of days entered in this field have passed, banked overtime hours from the previous pay period cannot be approved.

Note: This feature is available only when the Toggle OT Banking Approve By Offset checkbox is selected in System Admin > Client Properties in the Properties tab, in the Employee section.

The number of days after the end of a pay period that administrators must transmit the payroll data to your organization’s payroll application. This value creates a deadline and a validation. Payroll administrators are reminded that the pay period data needs to be transmitted in Pay Admin Checklist, and payroll administrators can't transmit the payroll data before this date. Enter a negative number to specify the number of days before the end of a pay period that administrators can transmit the payroll data.

Tips

Before you configure an offset for transmitting pay, consider the following:

• It’s recommended that you configure a one-day or two-day offset that follows your Approve By Offset value. For example, if you configured an approve-by offset of “1,” you should enter 2 or 3 in this field.
• While you can configure a negative offset, it isn’t recommended because it permits pay transmission in an open pay period. This can result in clock entries that aren’t reconciled because they were performed after the pay period was transmitted.

Select this checkbox and payroll data can be transmitted with unauthorized time and attendance records.

Tips

This checkbox applies only when approving payroll data with unauthorized records in Pay Approve Checklist.