COINS allows for 999 Payroll Periods for any company. Every Regular, Adjusting, or Future Period is assigned a Period Number. The period numbers automatically increment without respect to Payroll Frequency. For example, Period 1 may be used with a weekly payroll cycle, Period 2 may be a 2-Weekly payroll, etc.

You can update or change the Period End Date, Cheque Date, Payroll Month, Financial Period, or Monthly Calculation Period anytime before the payroll is posted. If timesheets exist, their status must equal Start.

The Payroll Periods are grouped and reserved as follows:

1-899 REGULAR and ADJUSTING Payroll Periods

900-998 FUTURE Payroll Periods

999 RECURRING Period used to associate Recurring Timesheets

Refer to the next section for more details on each of these Payroll Periods.

This section discusses each type of Payroll Period and how it can be used in COINS.

Regular Periods are used to represent the standard payroll cycle. Generally, there are 52 regular periods for Weekly, 26 regular periods for 2-Weekly, etc.

Regular Timesheets can be Computer, Manual, Adjusting, or Void Cheques. Manual Cheques represent payments previously made to an employee. You cannot generate payslips or EFT transfers for Manual or Voided Cheques. When Calculations prepares timesheets for Tax Withholdings and Accruals, Manual and Voided Cheques are always evaluated first. Computer and Adjusting Cheques calculations are always based on the posted Year to Date amount plus Manual Cheques when evaluating limits and additional amounts to withhold.

Adjusting Periods are used to make corrections and adjustments to a previously posted payroll or to process an interim payroll -- one not related to any payroll cycle. You may reuse a prior period’s information when creating an Adjusting Period in Period Maintenance.

This functionality allows you to run a 2nd or 3rd payroll using the same criteria as the original payroll run to enter missed time, layoffs, or other adjustments. Processing is the same as Regular periods. Regular and Adjusting Periods can be combined for reports such as Certified Payroll, Union Reports, or Tax Reports. There is no need to generate two separate reports and aggregate totals.

Adjusting timesheets will not change the value of any previously posted timesheet, but users can refer to a prior check if they wish.

You have the option to use Future Periods when processing payroll. Future Periods allow for the entry of Computer, Adjusting, Void, and Manual cheques into a period that is not ready for calculations.

A Future Period is assigned a Period End Date. When a Regular or Adjusting Period is started using that date, any timesheets in the Future Period are made current and available for processing. This is very useful for any user who may wish to process proactively, such as entering timesheets daily, making adjustments for Retroactive Pay to be processed at a later date, or entering Bonus Payments while not interrupting regular payroll processing.

You can open as many concurrent Future periods as necessary. The recommended procedure is to leave the Future Period open until you are ready to calculate it. This gives you the flexibility to process other Adjusting Payrolls while preparing the next Regular Period’s transactions.

If it becomes necessary to create a future period that will be used in an adjusting period whose period end date is in use, create the Future Period with a unique period end date. It can be changed prior to creating the Adjusting Period and pulling the future timesheets into the current Regular or Adjusting Period.