What are special pay codes?

Special pay codes are an option for those circumstances when your company compensates employees for extra hours, or for items not related to hours such as bonuses, uniform allowances, or auto mileage reimbursements. Employees can charge to a special pay code on any time card line in addition to the main pay code.

To use special pay codes, you first must go to the Initialization file. There, you choose to display the special pay code and amount and indicate whether they are required or optional. You can also go to the Employee Types screen to set additional special pay code options.

Note: You can redefine the term “special pay code” in the Company file to reflect the terminology that your company uses. Whatever term you use appears on all screens and messages in e-timecard.

The example below shows how you can set up special pay codes.

Example

Our demo company has employees who have to work extra hours to complete a project. These employees are exempt, so they cannot receive overtime pay. The solution is to create a special pay code (XTRA) for the employees to charge their extra hours.

1. On the Initialization screen, under the Time Card Setup tab, set defaults for special pay code and special pay code amount.

1. Select both special pay code and amount as two of the user-defined columns.

2. For both special pay code and amount, in the second row, select Editable.

3. In the third row, select whether you want the special pay code and amount to be required or optional.

4. In the fourth row, select the validation type for both special pay code and amount.

2. On the Earning Codes screen, create the XTRA earning code. Set the Rank field to Special.

3. On the Standard Codes screen, add the XTRA earning code for each employee type that uses the special pay code.
   
   Or, if the employee records already exist, enter the code manually for each employee on the Employee Earning Codes screen.

During time card entry, employees can either create a separate line for the extra hours worked or attach a special code to an existing line. Either way, they must enter a job and a regular pay code. Then, they enter XTRA for the special pay code and enter an amount to charge to it.