Date printed: 03-28-2024   Last updated: 01-07-2019

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Applies to versions: 2.5, 3.0



Custom Reporting/Payroll Export Settings



The TimeIPS Custom Payroll/Report Engine allows users to define the characteristics and contents of the file including the file extension, number of columns, field delimiter, line terminator, and data output. Custom Payroll requires the IPSCPE Customizable Payroll Export module (included in the IPSEPI Extended Payroll Integration module). The defined file can be generated then imported in your payroll application. Custom Reporting requires the IPSRPT Custom Report Module.

 



For Payroll:

Using the left pane Main Menu » Administration, click on: Payroll » Payroll Export

 

 

 

For Custom Report:

Using the left pane Main Menu » Administration, click on: Reports » Custom Report

 

 

 

 

Before you export:

 

 

 

 

Prepare Payroll for Export

First, choose to generate the report by Payroll Type or Manually select employees and a range of time.

 

    Payroll Type

  1. Under Export Type, select Payroll Type to generate the report. (See "Manual" below for specifics on that option.) 
  2. Select a Payroll Type. All employees (including released employees) that are currently in the selected Payroll Type will be included in the prepared payroll data.
  3. Select the Payroll Period from the drop-down boxes.
  4. Select a Time Zone. The start and end time of the export can be interpreted in the company's timezone or separately for each employee.
  5. Optionaly, enter the amount of the Required Break. If set, an employee must be logged out for at least this duration of time in order for the time to not be included on this payroll period. The start and end dates/times of the period will be moved forwared as needed for each employee to the next point where a break in worked/benefit/holiday time exceeds this duration.
    •  For example: If the payroll period ends at 12am Sunday morning, the Required Break is set to 1 hour and the employee works Saturday night through Sunday morning at 4am without taking at least an 1 hour break after 12am on Sunday, then those extra 4 hours will be included in this payroll period. If the employee works until 2am and then logs out for 1 hour or more (possibly for lunch) then logs back in and works another 2 hours, the 2 hours from 12am to 2am will be applied to this payroll period and the final 2 hours after break will be applied to the next payroll period.
  6. Select Pre-checks to determine what the system will check prior to attempting to prepare a payroll export.
    • The following choices are available in the drop-down box: All, Currently clocked in, Overlapping time events, Default Overtime Policy, Already payrolled events, and Timesheet approvals.
  7. Optionally, select whether or not to Lock While Preparing. In choosing to lock the payroll period while the export is pending, you can also choose to include influence bounds which expands to include the full range of time affected. 
  8. Optionally, click the Run pre-checks only. If you receive the "All chosen checks passed" message, you can choose to do a different check or progress forward to preparing payroll.
  9. Click the Prepare Payroll for Export button.

 

 

    Manual

  1. Under Export Type, select Manual to generate the report. (See "Payroll Type" above for specifics on that option.) 
  2. Select an employee or group of employees to include in the export. .
    TIP: If your organization is quite large, you may wish to speed up the processing time by creating a custom Selection Group for Payroll. "Active or Recently Active Employees (last 90 days)" is especially useful for payroll reports. This option allows all the recently active employees to be included so they receive pay, but excludes the majority of inactive employees you do not need (that only slow down the processing time). See the Selection Group article for more details.
  3. Manually select a range of time for this report, or use the quick selection drop down box.
  4. Select a Time Zone. The start and end time of the export can be interpreted in the company's timezone or separately for each employee. 
  5. Optionaly, enter the amount of the Required Break. If set, an employee must be logged out for at least this duration of time in order for the time to not be included on this payroll period. The start and end dates/times of the period will be moved forwared as needed for each employee to the next point where a break in worked/benefit/holiday time exceeds this duration.
    • For example: If the payroll period ends at 12am Sunday morning, the Required Break is set to 1 hour and the employee works Saturday night through Sunday morning at 4am without taking at least an 1 hour break after 12am on Sunday, then those extra 4 hours will be included in this payroll period. If the employee works until 2am and then logs out for 1 hour or more (possibly for lunch) then logs back in and works another 2 hours, the 2 hours from 12am to 2am will be applied to this payroll period and the final 2 hours after break will be applied to the next payroll period.
  6. Select Pre-checks to determine what the system will check prior to attempting to prepare a payroll export.
    • The following choices are available in the drop-down box: All, Currently clocked in, Overlapping time events, Default Overtime Policy, Already payrolled events, and Timesheet approvals.
  7. Optionally, select whether or not to Lock While Preparing. In choosing to lock the payroll period while the export is pending, you can also choose to include influence bounds which expands to include the full range of time affected. 
  8. Optionally, click the Run pre-checks only. If you receive the "All chosen checks passed" message, you can choose to do a different check or progress forward to preparing payroll.
  9. Click the Prepare Payroll for Export button.
  10.  

    Next you should see the payroll calculation being scheduled.

 

 

 

     

     

Export Payroll

After the payroll data is prepared for export, the Pending Export window will open.

  1. Select Custom from the drop down menu.
  2. Next click on the button labelled Export Payroll Data.
  3. NOTE:: Editing of time events is locked during payroll processing to avoid having another user make changes via the Time/Edit Report that would not be reflected properly in the current payroll run.

     

 


If you have not already created a Custom Export Setting, you will see the following screen.


Click the Add Settings button to begin setup.

NOTE: Export Settings are a set of stored preferences that are used each time a payroll file is generated. If your preferences change from one group of employees to another, you may create multiple Export Settings and then select the set that applies for the group you are exporting at the time.

 

 

The Custom Payroll Export Settings window will appear with 8 tabs of customizable information.

 

 

The General Tab

The General tab defines information about the format of the file.

The Custom Payroll Export General Tab

 

 

 

 

The Pay Codes Tab

The Pay Codes tab associates each type of earning or pay with a specific name or numeric code for identification in your payroll application.


EXAMPLE: In the screen shot above, standard time hours will be designated with code 1, overtime with code 2, and so forth. In that way, all hours can be included in a single column with a specific code (or name, such as "Hourly" and "Overtime") identifier.

NOTE: The Landon Payroll Application file requirements from example A separate each pay type into its own row. Therefore, the pay codes will not be used.

 

 

 

The Preamble Tab

The Preamble tab defines file heading rows that include summary data about the file. Unless preamble records are specified in the file layout requirements provided by your payroll application, leave the default value at “Do Not Use”.


NOTE: Most payroll applications do not require a preamble.

  • To add a Preamble, enter the Number of Columns and click the Apply button.
  •  

  • Click the + (plus) sign to the left of the column number to expand the window.
  • In the field to the right of the cell identifier (shown as "1 (A)" in the above example), enter that columns header.
  • From the drop down menu, choose the information that will be displayed in the preamble. (In the example above, the Export Range Start Date/Time will appear as the preamble.)
  • If there are multiple preambles, click and drag the blue arrow icon to re-order them.
  • To insert a new column after this one, click the green plus sign .
  • To duplicate this column, click the double paper icon.
  • To move to the bottom of multiple preambles, click the blue dot/arrow icon .
  • If the value of Data is blank and set to Default, then the report uses the value from the Default or Expression field. If Data is set to Expression then the report pulls the expression from the Default or Expression field.
  • Select the advanced Data Style to apply to data in this column. Options include all named styles, the same style as other columns, or a style chosen through a custom logic expression.
  • Filter text through an Advanced Formatting pattern. For more details view the TimeIPS Knowledge Base.
  • Enter in a Padding Character, Length, and Alignment on fixed width reports. Select the character to pad with, the length to pad this column, and whether to align data to the left or right of the assigned width. (In the example above, X is the Padding Character and 5 is the Length. This Length restricts the preamble to be only 5 characters long.)
  •  

     

    The Columns tab

    The Columns tab defines the number of columns, the format for each column, and the data contained in each.


     

     

  • The Number of Columns defines the number of data fields included in the export.
  •  

    If you wish to ADD MORE blank columns:

    EXAMPLE: The default setting selected includes 6 columns. The payroll file layout requires 3 additional fields at the end. Therefore, adjust the "Number of Columns" to 9, "Save Settings," and edit your export settings again.

    If you wish to DELETE an existing column:

    NOTE: You do not need to adjust the # of columns as TimeIPS will automatically adjust them based on the duplicated/deleted columns entered.

    If you wish to MOVE a column:

    or

    If you wish to INSERT A SINGLE blank column:

    If you wish to DUPLICATE A SINGLE column:

     

     

  • The Header defines the name of the column. If "Include Column Headers" is checked on the General tab, the first row of the generated file will contain Column Headers, otherwise, the first row will be the first data record/row.
  •  

  • Pad Character defines the character to use in order to pad fixed length fields. Generally, fields are padded with a “0” or a space. For space padding, type a space in the Pad Character field.
  •  

  • Length defines the maximum length of a field. Fixed length fields will be truncated or padded to the defined Length. Delimited fields will be truncated to the Length.
  •  

  • Align defines how data is aligned in a fixed length field.
    EXAMPLE: The Employee name “Thomas-Jones, Michael Anthony” will be output based on the column settings as indicated in the table below. Do note that text fields are generally padded with spaces. "x" is used in this example to provide a better visual explanation of the available settings:
    Length Pad Align Output
    20 x Left Thomas-Jones, Michae
    20 x Right nes, Michael Anthony
    40 x Left Thomas-Jones, Michael Anthonyxxxxxxxxxxx
    40 x Right xxxxxxxxxxxThomas-Jones, Michael Anthony
  •  

  • The Data field defines the contents of the column – the TimeIPS field to output in this column.
  •  

  • The Default data will be used if the selected "Data" field is blank.
    EXAMPLE: Job Code is mapped into a column. If employees do not specify a job code when clocking in, their time should be billed to the job code 1511. The "Data" field should be mapped to the "Job Code" and the "Default" should be "1511."
  •  

  • If Total is checked, the data will be summarized for each record of matching information.
    EXAMPLE: Below is the column data for a file without totals:
    Record # Employee Name Date Job Code Reg Hrs O/T Hrs
    1 Jones Mark 2007-06-04 84005 3 0
    2 Jones Mark 2007-06-04 84005 1 0
    3 Jones Mark 2007-06-04 37121 4 0
    4 Jones Mark 2007-06-05 84005 3.5 .5

    EXAMPLE: Below is the same column data for a file with Total selected for the Reg Hrs field. Note that the regular hours were totalled from the first and second records because the employee name, date, and job code were the same. The third row was not totalled because the job code was unique, and the fourth record was not totalled because the date was unique.
    Record # Employee Name Date Job Code Reg Hrs O/T Hrs
    1 Jones, Mark 2007-06-04 84005 4 0
    3 Jones, Mark 2007-06-04 37121 4 0
    4 Jones, Mark 2007-06-05 84005 3.5 .5
  •  

  • If Clear Duplicate is checked, the data in the column will be cleared if it's the same as the row(s) above. This is used, for example, to clear the employee's name for all rows after the first row to improve the appearance and readability of the report.

     

  • Notes on Payable Time Duration

     

    Notes on Payable Rates

     

    Notes on Removing Rows

    Any row that contains any field that evaluates to or consists of nothing but the keyword "action_remove_this_row" will cause the entire row to be removed. This is useful in cases where specific types of time, pay, jobs, workorders, etc. should be excluded from the report.

     

     

     

    The Footer Tab

    The Footer tab defines file footer rows that include summary data about the file. The Footer is an optional single line at the bottom of the exported file.


    NOTE: Most payroll applications do not require a footer.

    Unless Footer records are specified in the file layout requirements provided by your payroll application, leave the default value at “Do Not Use”.

     



  • Click the + (plus) sign to the left of the column number to expand the window.
  • In the field to the right of the cell identifier (shown as "1 (A)" in the above example), enter that column's header.
  • From the drop down menu, choose the information that will be displayed in the footer. (In the example above, the Current Date/Time will appear as the footer.)
  • If there are multiple footers, click and drag the blue arrow icon to re-order them.
  • To insert a new column after this one, click the green plus sign .
  • To duplicate this column, click the double paper icon.
  • If the value of Data is blank and set to Default, then the report uses the value from the Default or Expression field. If Data is set to Expression then the report pulls the expression from the Default or Expression field.
  • Select the advanced Data Style to apply to data in this column. Options include all named styles, the same style as other columns, or a style chosen through a custom logic expression.
  • Filter text through an Advanced Formatting pattern. For more details view the TimeIPS Knowledge Base.
  • Enter in a Padding Character, Length, and Alignment on fixed width reports. Select the character to pad with, the length to pad this column, and whether to align data to the left or right of the assigned width. (In the example above, X is the Padding Character and 5 is the Length. This Length restricts the footer to be only 5 characters long.)
  •  

     

     

     

    The Subtotals Tab

    The Subtotals tab allows you to create subtotals in the custom pay export.


     


    The Subtotal Triggers define what information will have a subtotal.

     

     

     

     

    The Parameters Tab

    Extra parameters are optional input boxes you can use to provide additional data to a custom report. These can be accessed through expressions as [parameter_n] where n is the parameter number. This is not available for Payroll Export, only for Custom Reporting.









     

     

     

     

     

    The Styles Tab

    Styles are named sets of formatting rules used for advanced Custom Reports. To use advanced styles this report must output a file with the an extension of "xls", "xlsx", "pdf", or "html".



    Columns are linked to styles on the Columns tab. Preambles, footers, and subtotals can also be styled. Additionally a general style can be applied to the entire report from the general tab.

     

  • Click the + (plus) sign to the left of the Style number to expand the window.
  • Name the style.
  • Use the drop down menus to define the characteristics of the style.
    In the EXAMPLE above: Style #1 will be used to display the Duration Subtotal with BOLD text inside an AQUA cell.
  • If some characteristics take precedence over others, change the Priority value. The smaller the number, the higher the priority.
  •  

     

     

     

    Once your Export Setting has been configured, click on "Save Settings" to save, or "Cancel" to exit without saving.

     

    1. On the next screen be sure that your new Export Setting is the one selected in the Export Settings drop down menu.
    2. Optionally, you can add a comment to the export making it unique and easily identifiable.
    3. Click Continue.                                 
    4.  

       

      Next you should see the payroll calculation being scheduled.

     

     

    Payroll Export Data - Final Step

     

     

     

    Run Custom Report

    If you are just wanting to run a Custom Report, go to the Custom Report page.

     

     

    For immediate assistance with any of the above payroll exports,
    call our Customer Support staff at 877-846-3256.



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