• Long-Term Care

• Medical

• Legal Services

• Wellness Credit

• Vehicle

• Uniform

Base Benefits Dependents/Beneficiaries
• Child
• Employee
• FostChild
• Grandchild
• DPAdult
• Dom Partnr
• DPChild
• Other
• OthQ Dep
• Stepchild Child
• Spouse
• ExSpouse
(Provide any manuals or reference procedures if applicable)
I am sure anyone who has conducted informational/discovery sessions will have information and questions to add to this blog. Please feel free to send additions or comment.

Responding Contact
Department
Question and Answers
Payroll Data In Legacy
1. What is your current payroll system?
2. How many years’ worth of payroll data is there in your current system?
a.) How many employees?
b.) How many pay periods worth?
3. Do you process payroll for both active employees and retirees? If so, are they processed in their own company?
4. How many companies, departments, locations, work/tax locations, company City /County /local taxes are currently processed. Please list in detail.
5. How clean is the legacy database? Is there duplicate payroll data, inactive payroll data, etc?

6. Provide a file layout of the legacy database(s) with field names, formats and sizes.
7. Please provide lists/query reports of the following data that you have in your current system:
a.) Active earnings codes/pay codes
b.) Deduction codes/ids
8. How much history of payroll data, would the Clients need to retain in Peoplesoft? Can the data be archived as flat files and accessed by queries?
9. How do you group your employees for payroll? Are pay groups utilized for processing the payroll? Please describe all groups and any eligibility requirements for an employee to be in that group.
10. How are contract and temporary employees paid? Please describe in detail.
11. Do you have employees whose pay workdays are not equal to pay periods? An example might be true contract pay employees?
12. Do you group earnings codes so that only certain earnings are available to certain groups of employees? Please describe in detail any groupings.
13. How do you accumulate earnings or deductions for other processing?
a.) Do you have special accumulators for determining 457 earnings? Please list all special accumulators and the earnings / deductions that affect the accumulator.
b.) Do you have special pay processing/accumulators for Retirement, 403 (b), 415 etc?

14. How many different check and advice forms are currently being used? Please describe or attach a voided sample. Indicate if the form is pre-printed.
15. How many shifts are currently processed in the system? Please attach any shift schedules and explain in detail.
16. Are any tables shared between the legacy payroll systems?
17. Are payroll changes audited? If yes, explain the process.
18. Please provide copies of current procedures, process flows, forms, and system manuals.

Payroll Administration & Processing
1. Who has overall responsibility for managing the payroll process?
2. What are your pay frequencies?
3. Please describe your pay period begin and end dates for each pay frequency.
4. How are your Check Dates relative to your Pay Period End dates?
5. What is your current payroll processing schedule?
a.) Time entry cut off?
b.) Payroll processed?

c.) Checks printed?
d.) Checks distributed?
6. How many employees are:
a.) Post-paid?
b.) Paid in advance?
c.) Current paid?
7. How far in advance do you build your pay calendars?
8. How are pay-sheets created and calculated? Does payroll launch these processes online? Are they automatically launched through batch processes? If the latter – what batch process scheduler do you use?
9. Do you create off-cycle or manual checks for ad hoc payments? How many on average would be produced in a pay period? What is the manual check process?
10. How many banks and accounts are used to process payroll checks and payroll related payments?
11. Is direct deposit offered for payroll checks to all employees? If so, is prenotification required and how many days does it take for the bank to pre-note?
12. How are direct deposits transmitted, (flat file, software, internet)?
13. Is there a limit to the number of direct deposits per employee?

14. May an employee participate in direct deposit and also receive some of their pay in a physical check?
15. How are checks and advices distributed to employees?
a.) By work location?
b.) By department?
16. Provide a list of paid holidays offered to the employees. Are any employees offered a different holiday schedule? Who determines the holidays? How are they published?
17. Please explain in detail holiday pay processing for all employees.
18. Are all employees – both full and part-time employees – eligible for all holidays?
19. Are floating holidays provided to the employees? How are floating holidays assigned? Are all employees both full and part-time eligible for floating holidays?
20. Are savings bonds available to employees through payroll deductions?
a.) Can employees purchase more than one bond per pay period?
b.) Can employees deduct for different bonds by pay period?
c.) Where are the savings bond balances maintained?
d.) What form of transmittal is used to process savings bonds?
21. Do all payrolls contain both salaried and hourly employees?

22. How are exempt employees maintained?
23. Describe your time collection process for the following types of employees:
a.) Salaried exempt
b.) Exception hourly
c.) Hourly non-exempt
d.) Contractual
e.) Other
24. Do hourly employees report time on a daily basis or do they summarize their time?
25. Describe the approval process for timesheets.
26. How are final checks processed? Are they part of the current payroll cycle or are they processed manually? Describe the process.
27. How do your current systems interface with your bank?
28. Describe your check reconciliation processes.
29. How does the Payroll system interact with Human Resources and Benefits?
30. Do the systems currently share information? Is there duplication of data because the systems do not share data?

31. What third party systems does the current Payroll system interface with? (Savings Bonds, retirement funds, outsourced benefits, etc) Is the data to other systems inbound or outbound?
32. Are payroll vendors paid from the payroll system or Accounts Payable?
33. Describe your check printing process.
34. Describe your check reprint process.
35. Describe your paycheck reversal/adjustment process.
36. How are garnishments, child support, court orders, etc, processed? How are garnishments paid? Please describe in detail the garnishment process.
37. Are company fees deducted for employee garnishments?
38. Please provide a list of all garnishment vendors.
39. How are balances tracked, reconciled, maintained and adjusted? Please explain with reference to:
a.) Earnings Balances
b.) Check Balances
c.) Deduction Balances
d.) Tax Balances

e.) Garnishment Balances
f.) Accumulator Balances
40. Is there a need of balances other than calendar year?
41. Do you adhere to FLSA rules? If so, which earnings are included as:
a.) Regular
b.) Overtime
c.) Excluded from FLSA calculation?

Earnings and Deductions Processing
1. Are all earnings eligible for Retro Pay processing? If not, please list what earnings are not eligible.
2. How is Retro Pay determined? What is the process to pay?
3. Are all earnings subject to the same tax methods such as annualized or do you have some earnings that are based on supplemental tax rates?
4. Are there any earnings that are considered memo earnings that are calculated but not paid to the employee such as vehicle valuations?
5. Are all earnings subject to Federal Withholding, FICA, City /County Withholding, and Federal Unemployment Taxes? Please list all that are not subject.

6. What earnings, if any, require special calculations? Are there any earnings that are based off other earnings? Please explain the special calculations.
7. What earnings have an effect on leave accruals? Please list all earnings and describe in detail their effect on leave balances.
8. How do you handle sick payments (in house and third party)?
9. Describe the process flow for sick leave donations.
10. Describe your process for maintaining additional pay (recurring earnings)?
11. What is your process for balancing the additional pay (recurring earnings)?
12. Describe your process of handling one-time payments.
13. Are there any data entry issues that require timekeepers not to be able to select certain earnings?
14. What types of general (non-benefit) deductions do you have?
15. Do you allow partial deductions or arrears?

16. Are there times when only certain deductions are taken? Please describe your deduction schedule.
17. Describe your process of handling one time deduction overrides.
18. Are employer deductions taken at the same time the related employee deductions are taken?
19. Are medical/dental/LTD/Life Insurance deducted every pay period on the employer’s side?
20. Are there any deductions that are employer related only?
21. Are there any deductions that require any special calculations? If so, please provide the calculation requirements. For example, imputed income calculations for life insurance premiums and employer paid automobiles?
22. Describe the process for paying step up pay.
23. Does the City /County retain any percentages on fees?

Payroll and Human Resources Data
1. Are employees assigned a job code?
2. Are employees assigned to a position? Is the position within a job code?

3. Provide compensation rate tables. Discuss when these rates will change in the future. Do union contracts determine future pay rates?
4. How do you handle pay rate changes in the middle of a pay period? Do you use proration? If so, how is it calculated?
5. Are gross-up paychecks processed in the current legacy payroll system?
6. Do you have a process to calculate “what if” scenarios? Please describe the process in detail.
7. How often do you pay bonuses? Pay Rise? Who processes these payments? HR or Payroll? How is information fed to Payroll?

Accounting
1. Please describe in detail your current General Ledger interface process.
2. What determines your posting period, check or period end date?
3. Describe your payroll accrual process?

Tax Administration
1. In what City /County s and localities does your organization pay taxes?
2. Are City /County and private disability plans being used in the current system?

3. Do you have self-funded alternatives to City /County Unemployment Insurance and City /County Disability Insurance? Do you offer a Voluntary Disability Insurance plan?
4. Are fiscal and calendar year to date tax totals required?
5. Are any tax reciprocities being used in the current payroll system?
6. Do you have special requirements for Taxable Gross Definitions, where taxability for specific earnings and deduction codes are treated differently for the City /County and local level?
7. Provide the City /County and local tax formulas that are used in the current legacy payroll system. Is marital status used in determining City /County tax?
8. Does the current payroll system offer employees additional tax withholding amounts? Federal, City /County and local taxes?
9. Do any employees work in multiple City /County s? Describe how taxes are withheld for the employee.
10. How are new hires W-4 information entered into the system? How is this information maintained? What is the process to change W-4 information?
11. Do you produce W-2 and W-2c’s internally or is this function outsourced? Please describe in detail the W-2 and the W-2c process.
12. Are non W-2 personnel paid through the payroll system?

13. Do you file local, City /County and federal taxes? Are tax payments made internally or externally? What is the quarterly process? What is the yearly process? Please describe each in detail.

Payroll Reports and Inquiries
1. List and provide samples of the reports generated from the payroll system
2. What other reports do IT or other departments produce for payroll?
3. What on-line inquires are presently used?
4. Are there additional informational requirements not being currently met?
5. What are the current interfaces into your payroll systems in addition to those listed previously? Out of your payroll systems? Please list in detail.
6. What would you like to eliminate and/or change in the current Payroll process? Please be specific.

Policies and Procedures
Please provide any policies and procedure manuals and desk references currently being used by the Payroll Department.

Some information that has been gathered includes some facts:

It is the third release since the acquisition

It has 1350 new features approximately

It has 28,000 or more page enhancements

It has Web 2.0 Capabilities

Approximately 300 new web services

And a large number of industry specific enhancements

Like many new releases, there is a new look and feel to the product. You still have the My Favorites area and in addition there is a recently used area on the menu.  In addition the navigation menu is only visible when pulled down.

9.1 also includes mouse over functionality on the menus.  In going through some of the changes and talking with clients one of the features they seem very happy with is the ability to use zoom grids for more working space with drag and drop, grid scrolling and column locking capability.  The grids are also sortable.

Some of the other items include an updated style sheet, a rich text editor, mouse-over pop ups as mentioned previously and an instant message capability with Yahoo and Beehive.

Some other features include out of the box role-based dashboards and reports.  The fact that it uses PeopleSoft  security is not a change.

There are some nice HR analytics dashboards including: workforce profile, Recruitment, Leave and Absence, Learning Management (a favorite mine), HR Performance, Compensation, Retention and Workforce Development.  Some of these are new and some enhanced.

So why would you want to upgrade?  Well, if you are on 8.8 you are going to have to get extended support which certainly is a financial reason to upgrade.  Others are increasing the effectiveness of your workforce by ensuring compensation rewards top performers and you have pay for performance capabilities.  Making sure that you have a strong pipeline for key talent is critical to any organization and maintaining this internally is a cost saving for recruitment.  Nine one will provide executives with the ability to make better informed decisions with metrics available.    Eliminating interfaces could reduce IT expenses and eliminating customizations during the upgrade usually results in cost savings and additional efficiency.

Some links that will provide additional information include:

http://www.oracle.com/education

Http://www.oracle.com/pls/psft/homepage

http://www.oracle.com/applications/peoplesoft-information-portal.html

If you are interested in some great decision trees, read this article from Gartner, it is packed with good information and would be helpful in deciding if you want to go to 9.1.

When customers are planning a new installation of PeopleSoft, Gartner suggest to implement version 9.0. “Gartner believes that v.9.1 will be released during 2H09, but most customers will not want to be the first to take on a new release. If you need the newest functionality right away (such as compensation management or succession management in HCM), then implement v.9.1 as soon as is practical for your organization. If you don’t need the new functionality, then implement v.9.0 until v.9.1 has more market traction and proof points, which Gartner expects within 12 to 18 months of release.”

Read the full article.

Source: Gartner (July 2009)

This year Oracle released new versions of PeopleSoft (8.50) and Applications (9.1). Will customers start upgrading to 9.1 in 2010? If customers follow Gartner they will wait. My opinion is that the evolution steps between the PeopleSoft versions aren’t that big. Loads of fixes, patches, bundles and maintenance packs from previous versions have been included in this new release. Big functional changes haven’t been made in 9.1. The risk between upgrading to 9.0 or upgrading to 9.1 isn’t that big. If your customers are multi language users, you might want to consider the upgrade to 9.1 as it is unclear when the language pack will become available.

Do you have the Deltas?  Have you started implementing 9.1?  Add Comments or follow RSS.

Human Resources Enhancements

Talent Management Enhancements

Self-Service Enhancements