Business Area Overview
Payroll Accounting Management (PAM) integrates CGI Advantage HRM and CGI Advantage Financial by generating payroll accounting information that is posted to the financial system so that payroll accounts are debited and credited. The calculation of pay, tax, and deduction amounts is performed by Gross-to-Net in Advantage HRM and a payroll run creates the input for PAM. After a payroll run has been completed, PAM processes the payroll details and distributes them based on assigned accounting attributes and then updates payroll accounting journals in CGI Advantage HRM. PAM then creates payroll accounting transactions that are submitted in CGI Advantage Financial. Payroll accounting transactions convey all relevant accounting details for a payroll and include transactions that post expenses, liabilities, net pay amounts, and initiate additional processes like generating vendor payments, encumbering contracts, and posting accrued leave liabilities. The accounting and payroll information in the PAM transactions is written respectively to the Accounting Journal and the Payroll Journal in CGI Advantage Financial when submitted. All financial activity that occurs outside of a payroll run, such as external account adjustments, is not input through PAM and this information must be entered directly into Advantage Financial.
PAM utilizes a specific accounting Transaction Type, the Payroll Account (PYRL), to record payroll updates in CGI Advantage Financial. The processing and posting of payroll details by PAM and the generation of specific transactions enables system users to effectively trace those details from the payroll accounting transactions in CGI Advantage HRM to the account updates in CGI Advantage Financial and vice-versa. The PAM process creates transactions for posting the following:
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Payroll expenditures
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Payroll liabilities
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Payment of net pay
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Requests for payments to external vendor
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Internal purchase/sale, reimbursement, and operational transfer activity
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Payroll contract encumbrances
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Accrued leave liabilities
The Payroll Accounting Management Detail Inquiry (PAMPYDT) activity folder provides detailed information about the PYRL transactions that have been created by PAM for a payroll run. In addition, the PAM Exception Inquiry (QPAMERR) allows users to view error messages related to severe errors that occurred during the PAM process for a selected run. This data can be seen after the Payroll Check Processor, Leave Liability Accrual Expense Processor, and/or Contract Pay Accrual Expense Processor is run successfully. The QPAMERR alerts users to potential problems with data such as the use of a site default because an employee’s accounting distribution data has not been assigned. This inquiry provides the employee’s ID and a message indicating the error so that a user can review and correct that employee’s data.
How PAM OperatesHow PAM Operates
The Payroll Accounting Management (PAM) process is mainly a five step process with four steps in Advantage HRM and a single step in Advantage Financial. Within HRM there are three mandatory processes in PAM known as, Payroll Check Processor, Payroll Labor Distribution Consolidation, Journal Data Finalization and an optional process called the PAM Reconciliation Process. In Advantage HRM, PAM also has additional optional jobs based on whether or not contract encumbrances or leave liabilities should be posted. In addition, there are cleanup and load jobs. There is a mandatory Advantage Financial process called Payroll Transaction Generator. The five main processes are detailed below:
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Payroll Check Processor - Processes the pay checks to create payroll expense journal, payroll liability journal, and payroll fringe journal records.
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Payroll Labor Distribution Consolidation - Processes the payroll expense journal, payroll liability journal, and payroll fringe journal records and updates the summary payroll accounting tables.
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Payroll Transaction Generator (in Advantage Financial) - Processes the summary payroll accounting data and creates, loads, and submits payroll transaction(s) in Advantage Financial.
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Journal Data Finalization - Moves the payroll expense journal, payroll liability journal, and payroll fringe journal records to the historical tables.
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PAM Reconciliation Process - An audit process to verify payroll expense and payroll fringe records and reconcile against the final PREXP and PREXC Transaction Accounting lines.
Note: The following additional processes can be run as needed:
PAM DataPAM Data
PAM data consists of all payroll details, including gross and net pay, deductions and benefits, and related fringes, as well as accounting information for those details, including all applied Fund and Detail Accounting attributes. The source of accounting information in CGI Advantage HRM comes from the Chart of Accounts (COA) implemented in CGI Advantage Financial. The COA also establishes all financial details used for budgeting and reporting. The COA allows transactions processed in Financial to record all postings to budgets that have been created utilizing the COA attributes. When a transaction is processed in Financial the transaction can relate to fund accounting, cost accounting, or other accounting classifications.
Collecting Payroll DetailsCollecting Payroll Details
In Advantage HRM, COA information is obtained from multiple shared tables in the database that are actually established and maintained in CGI Advantage Financial. This allows the user to assign specific accounting information to employees or their positions that will be included with the payroll details in order to determine how the details will be posted in Financial.
It is recommend that you run Payroll Check Processor and Payroll Labor Distribution Consolidation prior to running the Payroll Finalization step on a payroll. Once you finalize a payroll, the PAM process would have to be run using the Historical option and data would be obtained from the historical tables.
For more information on Accounting Configuration in Advantage HRM, refer to the "Accounting Configuration in HRM" topic.
Additional topics available in this guide include: