MYOB Advanced Payroll lets you allocate payroll expenses to projects and/or general ledger (GL) accounts, subaccounts and branches.
Payroll expense allocation batches are generated and posted after a pay run has been completed. Then, they create their own set of GL and/or Projects ledger transactions, so transactions generated by completing the pay run are not affected.
You can allocate income and allowances. And if you're allocating income and allowances, you can also choose to allocate superannuation, leave and ACC/WorkCover.
Setting up a company
Add allocation types
An allocation type is the type of expense you want to allocate.
Go to the Payroll Preferences form (MPPP1100).
Click the Expense Allocation Settings tab.
Select a Posting Option:
General Ledger – Posts a GL journal without any project or project task information. This is the only option for sites without the Projects module. If you do use the Projects module, the allocation destinations and amounts can still be calculated from project data, but the journal itself is posted only to the GL, not the Projects module.
Projects – Posts a journal to the the projects ledger, without any GL transactions. To use this options, also select a Project Off-Balance Account Group to use when posting.
Projects and General Ledger–Posts a GL journal including project information. When the journal is released it will be posted to the Projects module as usual, using the accounts from the GL journal. The destination accounts must be linked to the project account groups.
Optionally, you can select the Flow Settings checkboxes :
Group by Labour Item – Select this to group the payroll expense allocation batch by inventory item. Use this option to correctly update projects that are configured to track budgets at the item level, or potentially to improve privacy, as it does not populate employee information.
Bypass transactions where From and To accounts are the same – If selected, an allocation batch won't include transactions for an expense that was created for one account and then allocated to that same account.
Automatically Release Allocation – Select this to release the expense allocation batch as soon as it's created.
On the table header, click the New Record icon (
) for each expense allocation you want to add.
Complete the fields for each expense allocation.
For help understanding all the options for each field, see the MYOB Advanced in-product help. Go to the Payroll Preferences form, click the Open Help icon in the top right, then click the Payroll Preferences form reference.
When you've finished adding expense allocations, click the Save icon () on the Payroll Preferences form toolbar. You're now ready to set payroll expense allocation settings for each employee.
For employees using MYOB Advanced time cards, you still need to import their data on the Import Timesheets form (MPPP7030), even if this data is not then imported into a pay run. The imported time batch is always used as the source of time-based payroll expense allocations, whether the data came from MYOB Advanced time cards or an external timesheet.
Project and Inventory Item options are available in the Entity Type dropdown on the Data Maps form (MPPP7020), so you can set up mapping for these records when they are imported with timesheets.
Project tasks aren't available on the Data Maps form. Instead, for mapping an internal project task:
If the External Project Task is specified, MYOB Advanced tries to find a Project Task for the mapped Project using Task ID.
If External Project Task is blank, MYOB Advanced uses the default Project Task specified for the mapped Project.
Project, Project Task and Inventory Items columns in the main table of the Import Timesheets form (MPPP7030) show the details of project and inventory records imported with timesheets.
Setting up employees
To set an employee’s allocation method:
Go to the Employees form (EP203000).
In the Employee ID field, select an employee.
Click the Payroll Expense Allocation tab.
Select an Allocation Method:
No Allocation – No payroll expenses will be allocated for the employee. This is the default setting for all employees.
Time Allocation – Allocates payroll expenses as per their timesheets that have been imported on the Import Timesheets form (MPPP7030).
Fixed Allocation – Allocates payroll expenses to fixed accounts or projects.
If you selected Fixed Allocation, you need to add rules to the allocation rule table.
Understanding allocation rules
Allocation rules determine how an employee's expenses are allocated. There are three types:
Amount – Allocates a set amount to an account or project.
Percentage – Allocates a percentage of the employee's expenses to an account or project.
Percentage rules apply to the remaining balance. If the first row in the table is a percentage rule, it will be calculated as a percentage of the total allocation. Otherwise, the rule is calculated as a percentage of the remaining balance after the previous rules have been applied.
Balance – Included in the table by default. The Balance rule allocates the remaining amount of an expense after the other rules have been applied. It's always the last rule in the table and you can't remove it.
How are rules applied?
Rules are applied in sequential order. So, the rule in the first row of the table is applied first. Every rule is applied to each pay item in an employee's pay, instead of being applied to the total amount of all their pay items.
WorkCover/ACC expenses are an exception because they don't have their own pay items. Instead, WorkCover/ACC expense amounts are calculated and posted as a separate set of general ledger transactions. MYOB Advanced applies the allocation rule to these transactions.
For example, say Fred has two allocation rules: an Amount rule that allocates 50 dollars, and the default Balance rule. In Fred's current pay, there are two pay items: one for his regular wages and one for overtime. If his regular wage pay item has a value of 150 dollars, the first Amount rule allocates 50 dollars of his wages. The Balance rule allocates the remaining 100 dollars. If his overtime pay item has a value of 50 dollars, the Amount rule allocates the total amount, so the Balance rule isn't applied.
On the form toolbar, click the Save icon (:ADV_Save:).
Repeat steps 1–6 for all employees whose expenses you want to allocate.
Setting up pay items
You can use any existing pay item to allocate payroll expenses, as long as the pay item's type on the Pay Items form (MPPP2210)matches an allocation that you added to the Payroll Preferences form (MPPP1100). For example, if you added an Income allocation type, then any pay items with an Income type are included when expenses are allocated.
The only exceptions to this are entitlement pay items, which are allocated depending on whether accruals are set to be included in the general ledger.
Excluding a pay item from expense allocation
You can select the Exclude from Allocation checkbox on the Additional Info tab of the Pay Items form.
This checkbox also excludes expense amounts and on-cost expenses related to the pay item.
For example, if you've set up income and superannuation expenses to be allocated, but excluded an income pay item from allocation, then the portion of superannuation expenses related to the income pay item are also excluded when the superannuation expenses are allocated.
Posting time-based allocation quantities to the general ledger
For Income pay items, you can choose whether quantities are posted to the general ledger when allocating time-based expenses.
On the Additional Info tab of the Pay Items form, if the Update Quantity for Time Allocation checkbox is:
Selected, the Quantity and Amount columns are both populated in allocation batches.
Not selected, only the Amount column is populated in allocation batches.
Allocating entitlement pay items
MYOB Advanced Payroll includes two types of entitlement pay items: entitlement accrual and entitlement payment. For each entitlement, you can only allocate one of these two types at a time.
To allocate an entitlement accrual
On the Additional Info tab of the Pay Items form, select the Include Accrual in GL checkbox.
To allocate an entitlement payment
For an entitlement payment to be allocated, you need to correctly set up the entitlement accrual that the payment is linked to. In this context, linked means that the payment pay item has the same entitlement as the accrual pay item, and they're both included in the current pay.
Go to the Pay Items form.
In the Pay Item ID field, select the entitlement accrual that's linked to the payment you want to allocate.
On the Additional Info tab, deselect the Include Accrual in GL checkbox.
The expenses will be posted to the general ledger when the entitlement is taken.
On the form toolbar, click the Save icon (:ADV_Plus:).
If an employee is set to Fixed, MYOB Advanced applies any allocation rules that you've added to the Employees form (EP203000) for them.
If an employee is set to Time, the calculations depend on the allocation type.
How time-based amounts are calculated
Income and allowances
MYOB calculates income and allowance amounts based on data from the Import Timesheets form (MPPP7030).
First, MYOB Advanced uses the Employee, Pay Item and Pay Run ID fields to check if imported timesheet details match a pay item in the pay run being allocated. If it doesn't find any matching data, then it checks the Employee, Pay Item and Pay effective date fields.
That way, imported timesheet data can still be used to allocate expenses, even if the timesheet data hasn't been added to a pay run. This is useful when a pay has been calculated without externally or internally imported timesheets.
How is the basis superannuation amount calculated?
For each pay item, MYOB Advanced divides the Pay Item Amount by the Total amount for all pay items liable for super.
Deductions are excluded from the selection and basis calculation, meaning the super amount to be allocated has already been reduced by the deductions.
WorkCover/ACC
For WorkCover/ACC expenses, the source expense transaction isn't included in pay run as its own pay item. Instead, the WorkCover/ACC expense amount is calculated and posted as a separate set of general ledger transactions. These transactions are used as the source to be allocated.
Leave
When MYOB Advanced calculates the percentage of a leave pay item to be allocated, it uses income pay items as the source, not the leave pay item data on the Import Timesheets form (MPPP7030). If you've set superannuation and leave to be allocated, the superannuation portion related to entitlement payment leave pay items will be allocated using the same allocation percentage as for the income expenses.
A leave pay item's Accrual Method field on the Pay Items form (MPPP2210) determines which income pay items are used as the source.
If the Accrual Method is set to:
Accrued Pro rata – Pay items in the Entitlement Accrual Basis section are used as the source if they're in the pay run being allocated.
Full Contract Accrual – Pay items with a Type of Income are used as the source if they're in the pay run being allocated.
Explicit – Depends on what the pay item's Method is set to:
Amount, Percent Of or Rated (with units set to Entered). The allocation basis is calculated based on all Income pay items in the current pay.
Percent Of or Rated (with units set to Derived). The allocation basis is calculated based on the derived pay items or pay items added to the Pay Item Rollups form (MPPP3210).
If the rollup is used as a derived pay item, the allocation basis is calculated using the pay item from the rollup.
Only one level of inclusion of Rollups is supported. If Rollup A includes Rollup B and Rollup B includes Rollup C, then Rollup C won't be used during allocation.
What's next?
If you correctly set up payroll expense allocation, then it's simple for an MYOB Advanced user to actually allocate expenses. All they have to do is create an allocation batch and release it.
FAQs
Can I allocate expenses if my company has one location?
Yes. You can allocate payroll expenses whether you have a single location or multiple branches.
Can I choose which cost codes are used for allocation transactions?
No. Default cost codes are used for transactions in an allocation batch.
Can I allocate on-cost expenses?
Yes, you can allocate superannuation, leave and WorkCover/ACC expenses, but only if you also allocate income and allowances.
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