Calculate benefits to pay employee benefit taxes such as Social Security, Medicare, health insurance, and retirement. The total withholding include the benefit taxes that will be subtracted from the employee gross pay. The remaining amount is the amount paid to the employee in the form of a payroll check or a direct deposit. 

When you calculate benefits, Connect will use the employee pay code to determine how much to deduct from the employee and employer.If there isn't a pay code linked to the employee record, Connect uses the benefit pay code from the Pay Codes table. 

This is a step in the Each Pay Period checklist. It usually happens after the step to update leave time and before the step to print the benefits register. 

Checklist flyout menu showing the Each Pay Period checklist

You can use this routine to calculate benefits for the current, past, or future pay period; recalculate benefits for an employee; and recalculate benefits for a benefits pay code. 

Calculating benefits for a pay period

1. Open Connect Payroll > Employees > Calculate Benefit Amounts. 

2. Verify the beginning and ending pay period. 

If you're calculating benefits for the current pay period, you can skip this step. The default setting will calculate benefits for the current pay period. You will need to change the date range if you're calculate benefits for a prior or future pay period. 

Beginning pay period box, Ending pay period box

3. Verify the journal. 

This is usually the PB (Payroll Benefits) journal code. Some organizations may use a different journal code for posting payroll benefits. 

Journal box

4. Show/hide the detail grid. 

Display the calculation detail grid after the routine calculates benefit amounts and prints the calculated amount for each benefit pay code that's linked to the employee. The Calculate Benefits window gives you another way to review the calculated benefit amounts. 

Display benefit detail grid checkbox

This is an example of what you will see if you select to show the Calculate Benefits window. It will be displayed on the screen after you click GO to calculate benefits. 

Calculate Benefits window

5. Select the benefit pay codes. 

The pay code lists includes the any benefit type pay code that is set up in the Organization > Pay Codes table. Select the benefit pay codes that you want to use to calculate amounts.  

Pay codes list

6. If you're calculating benefits for a specific employee, set up the selection criteria. 

The default setting will calculate benefits for all employees. If you're calculating benefits for the Each Pay Period checklist, use the default setting. If you're calculating benefits for a specific employee, change the Employee.Employee number value to the employee number for the employee. 

Selection criteria, All value for the employee number

7. Click GO (CTRL+G). 

The benefit amounts calculate for the selected benefit pay codes and employees. You can use the report that prints to verify the benefit amounts. If everything looks good, you're done. If there are benefit amounts that are not correct, you may need to check if the employee benefit pay code is set up correctly and then recalculate benefits for the selected employee. 

8. Print or preview the calculated benefit report. 

The report shows you the transactions that will be created. You can preview or print the report. When you're done, reviewing the calculated benefits, close the report. 

Calculate benefit amounts

 

Calculating benefits for a prior pay period

In some instances, you may need to calculate a benefit for a prior pay period. For example, if you make changes to a SUTA tax rate that was updated after the SUTA benefit was run for a previous period. You can use this option after the SUTA pay code is updated. Running the routine will replace the SUTA benefit that was calculated using the old SUTA pay code with the new SUTA benefit amount. 

What if I need to calculate benefits for a future period? In rare circumstances, you may need to calculate a benefit for a future period. You can use this routine to calculate benefits for a future period; however, when you calculate benefits for the pay period as part of the Each Pay Period checklist, the calculated benefits for the pay period will replace the benefits that were calculated for the future pay period which is now the current pay period. 

 

Calculate benefits for multiple pay periods

You may need to add a benefit that wasn't set up during one or more prior pay periods. In that situation, you may need to set up a new benefit and then use it to calculate benefits for employees in a prior period. To use this option, click to select the Calculate On Unpaid Employees checkbox. This option will allow you to calculate the benefit pay code even when the employee has not been paid for the pay period. 

 

Selecting benefit pay codes

The pay codes list will only show benefit type pay codes. You can 

• click to select a single pay code. 

• press CTRL and click to select more than one pay code. 

• press SHIFT and click to select a pay code range. 

 

To view the pay code type, open Organization > Pay Codes. The pay code type is listed on the Pay Code tab. Benefit pay code types include: 

 

 

 

Linking calculated benefits to a job number

Use this option to calculate benefits and link the calculated benefit amount to a job number. Job numbers can track expenses across multiple Connect application. Usually, this checkbox is not selected. 

Why can't I use this checkbox? This checkbox is available when an organization uses the Payroll application with the Project Account application and job numbers are set up for tracking. 

 

You can set up the default options to always calculate benefit amounts with job numbers. Click Options (F12) to change the view preferences. To learn more about using job numbers, see How do I set up project accounting?

Options

 

Recalculating benefits for an employee

You can use this routine to replace benefits that have already been calculated for an employee. After you make changes to the employee benefit pay code or benefit pay code that's in the Organization > Pay Codes table, run this routine to use the updated benefit pay code to calculate a new benefit amount. The new benefit amount will replace the old benefit amount. 

When you need to recalculate a benefit for a specific employee, use the selection criteria to select the employee's employee number. 

 

 

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