The Basics: Deductions in Arrears

New functionality often comes out, and I find it is ignored, or users think its "too complicated" to spend time or money on configuring. So I thought I would break down one of my favorites in recent years- Deductions in Arrears (DIA). This was part of Payroll Extensions in GP 10.0, and it makes life so much easier for payroll folks who have to deal with the impact of part time or seasonal employees when they do not earn enough to cover their deductions.

DIA will track when a deduction is not taken completely due to a shortage of wages. It will then attempt to collect the deduction until the obligation is met in subsequent payrolls. You can manage the arrears, and make manual adjustments (for example, if a portion fo the arrears is forgiven).

First, to view the DIA options, you must grant access to the alternate HRM Solution Series windows for Payrolls using Microsoft Dynamics GP>>Setup>>System>>Alternate/Modified Forms and Reports. These steps are covered in detail in the Payroll Extensions user guide.

In the spirit of keeping it simple, here are the fields available in Deduction Setup for DIA (Microsoft Dynamics GP>>Setup>>Payroll>>Deductions):

• Allow Arrears: Mark if arrears transactions should be tracked for this deduction. For example, DIA might be used for health insurance deductions but not for voluntary United Way contributions.
• Mandatory Deductions: These work in tandem with Transactions>>Payroll>>Mandatory Arrears, to create arrears transactions for an employee who was not paid in a payroll. For example, a part time employee has no hours to be paid but still needs to pay their health insurance premium. You can use mandatory arrears to create the arrears transaction for the employee.
• Collect When Possible: Mark this if you want the arrears to be collected even if the deduction is not included in the payroll build. For example, if an employee has an arrears transaction for health insurance, should it be collected during a bonus payroll which does not include a health insurance deduction?

Although all of these options are available in deduction setup, they can be modified per employee as well, Cards>>Payroll>>Deduction.

So, during a payroll, arrears transactions will automatically be created for deductions that are marked to allow arrears and cannot be fully collected from the employee during the pay run. You can then view the arrears transactions using Cards>>Payroll>>Arrear Transactions. By employee, you can view the number of arrears pending including the original, collected, and remaining amounts. There is also an adjusted column, which tracks any manual increases or decreases to the arrears amount. You can use the Trx # expansion to view detailed transaction information for the selected arrears, including amounts collected and dates.

Those are the basics. In most cases, it takes less than 15 minutes to configure DIA and it saves a tremendous amount of time and manual tracking. Plus, it increases the odds that correct amounts are collected from employees as quickly as possible!