WageEasy uses the terms Department and Sub-Department to refer to an internal organisational units within a company. Common titles for such units are sections, divisions, groups, units, cost centres or departments. A department is different to a job in that a job will often involve a selection of people from several departments working on one project for a while before splitting and reforming to work on a different job at a later date. A job focuses on company clients rather than company structure.
Items to consider when setting up the Department Tree:
The Company Accounting System. i.e. Does the Payroll Department Structure need to be the same as set up in the Company Accounting System for exporting payroll data?
How does the Company require reports to appear for costing?
If you have branches in each state, separating your departments by state at the highest level, may assist in the calculation of payroll tax.
Departments and their sub-departments can branch down six levels.
Employees can only be added to the very lowest level i.e. items with a sphere identifier not a triangle.
The structure in WageEasy (Setup, Departments) does not have to reflect the formal company structure but it often will. In WageEasy, each Employee is allocated to a (default) department where their wages will automatically be costed to. If needed, employees can be linked to multiple departments with different pay rates, within their employee file.
At timesheet production, you can select these different departments for each block of worked hours to allocate their payments elsewhere.
This will apportion the wages appropriately to each department according to the hours worked there.
WageEasy uses the Departments to collect payroll data as a means of reporting Company Costs.
To Set up the Department Tree the best practice is to start at the top of the Company Tree and work your way down.
To Initialise the Setting Up of Your Department Structure, go to Setup, Departments, Add.
On the General tab, type a descriptive name for the first department in the Department Name field.
Department No can be left blank if you use a multi-level department structure. Note: Department No is only required if you import your times from a T&A system, using a WTC file.
Leave Sub-Department Of blank.
If no employees are set up a Manager can be added later (Non-compulsory field).
A GL Account No can be entered here or at a later stage during the General Ledger set up.
Close.
Once the initial Parent Department (steps 1 to 5 above) has been created, you can then go ahead and create the Sub Departments.
Go to Setup, Departments, Add to add a Sub-Department (Child).
On the General tab, type in the descriptive name for the Sub Department in the Department Name field.
Department No is only required if you import your times from a T&A system, using a WTC file.
In the Sub-Department Of field, by clicking on the drop-down arrow, select the existing Parent Department required. (Double click your selection)
If no employees are set up a Manager can be added later.
A GL Account No can be entered here or at a later stage during the General Ledger set up.
Close.
Things to consider:
The Department No is only used as an identifier in the case where the Employees’ hours are being imported from a Time and Attendance system. This can be alpha, numeric or alpha/numeric.
If you have a multi lever department structure (a parent and child department setup) then employees must only be added to Sub-Departments. Departments (Parent) are used to collect costs for their associated sub-departments (child).
It is this bottom tier Cost Centre/Department that needs to be coded with a GL account number for accounting purposes.
Note: A Parent Department has a triangle symbol and a Sub-Department or child department has a circle symbol