Version 15.8.03 New Features

Administration

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With the new provision in Western Australia's Long Service Leave Act in 2022, improvements to Preceda have been made to maintain legislative compliance and provide seamless user experience. While the legislation is for WA, this enhancement has been made available to all states/territories in Australia.

Flexible Payment Types - Half Pay, Double Pay - are now available for all Leave Types such as Long Service Leave (LSL), Annual Leave, Personal Leave, and Other Leave (i.e. Parental Leave). As the leave payment process can be initiated from multiple paths, several changes have been made to the following areas:

 

Hours Type Code

An optional field Flexibility Payment Type has been added on Hours Type Codes screen with prompt list options: Half Pay, and Double Pay. By default, this field is blank. Leaving this field blank sets the Flexibility Payment Type to Normal Pay.

Note that only one Flexibility Payment Type can be selected for an Hours Type Code. When the Flexibility Payment Type has been modified, an Acknowledgement Message will pop up to confirm the changes before saving the new record. The flexibility payment type configuration is only applicable for the Classifications L, S, O, V. The Flexibility Payment Type prompt list is disabled for other Classifications.

 

My Leave

Employees can use the My Leave (ESS) portal to submit flexibility leave applications, similar to how they would submit requests for normal leave transactions (i.e. upon set up of Flexibility Hours Type Codes and Payroll Leave Type Filters with the new flexibility payment Hours Codes).

Additional information for flexibility leave applications is displayed when an employee selects a Leave Type linked to a Flexibility Leave Type. Likewise, an information icon is presented next to the Flexibility Payment Type label, which employees can hover over to see some useful information to assist with applying for the leave type correctly.

Preceda performs leave entitlement availability calculations based on applicable Flexibility Payment Type linked to the selected Leave Type. If the Leave Balance is insufficient based on the Flexibility Payment Type against the selected Leave Type, a warning is presented accordingly.

 

Review Leave Application

For Managers who review employee leave application requests via Manager Self Service (MSS), an optional column for Flexibility Payment Type has been added to the Review Leave Applications browselist. This helps in quickly identifying any applications for leave related to a Flexibility Payment option.

When Managers drills down on a Leave Application to review it, some additional information is displayed alongside the selected Leave Type if it is related to a Flexibility Payment Leave Application. An information icon is presented next to the Flexibility Payment Type label, which the manager can hover over to see some useful information to assist in making decision on approving the leave request.

 

Entry via Single Screen

A new read-only column Flexibility Payment Type has been added to the Entry via Single Screen's Hours/Leave browselist to display the respective Flexibility Payment Type of the selected Hours Type Code. When a leave-based Hours Type Code has been selected, the corresponding Flexibility Payment Type is automatically displayed in the browselist as a read-only column. The selection of any non-leave based Hours Types Code will display blank.

An information icon is displayed next to the Flexibility Payment Type description in this column, which you can hover over to see additional information related to this transaction. This screen also displays additional acknowledgment messages when saving records if any flexibility payment transactions are saved on EvSS. This message helps keeping payroll officer informed that flexibility payment transactions are saved on EvSS.

An optional column for Flexibility Payment Type (i.e. hidden by default) has been added to the Pay Enquiry's browselist. In addition, leave payment calculation for corresponding flexibility payments types are also displayed on this screen.

 

Payrun Messages

After the Time Card Print process has been run as part of the payrun, Payroll Officers may review the Payrun Messages to verify any respective Flexibility Payment transactions which have been processed by the payrun. This is an optional step helping to identify if any unexpected Flexibility Payment transactions exist, allowing for the Payroll Officer to Reset the payrun and deal with the corresponding transactions as required.

This information is included in the Count shown in the Messages section of the Payrun Dashboard screen within the Leave Group under the column for Low rated informational messages.

 

Leave History

The Flexibility Payment Type is also available on the Leave History's browselist on the main screen as an optional column. This field is only applicable for Classifications L, S, O, V. Otherwise, this is read-only.

To assist with reviewing Leave History records for flexibility payment leave transactions, two additional fields have been added on the Leave History drilldown screen: Flexibility Equiv Units Taken and Flexibility Equiv Hours/Weeks Taken. These fields reflect the amount of leave deducted from the employee's entitlements as calculated based on the Flexibility Payment Option used.

 

Pay Slip

The standard Preceda Pay Slip now includes a message in the Notes section if there are leave payments with flexibility payment transactions. This message will explain the adjustments made to their Leave Entitlements and Pay Rate due to the Half/Double Pay option used. The Pay Slip also shows the applicable leave payment rate based on the Flexibility Payment Type, and the Leave Balances based on the selected Flexibility Payment. The Notes at the bottom of the Pay Slip will be displayed containing the Leave Type, Hours Type Code, and Leave Period.

 

Reporting via Extractor

Flexibility Payment information has been added to the following Extractor views to assist with any reporting requirements related to this functionality:

Extractor Navigator Location

Extractor Fields
Administration > Leave > Leave History

Flexibility Payment Type

Flexibility Equiv Units Take

Requested Flexibility Time Off (Days)

Administration > Earnings > Timecard Cost History

Flexibility Payment Type

Flexibility Hours
Payroll > Reports > Payrun Extract > Payslip Hours

Flexibility Payment Type

Flexibility Hours

Flexibility Days
Payroll > Reference > Calculation Rules > Hours Type Codes Flexibility Payment Type

 

Note:

  • When the flexibility payment entry exceeds the available leave balance (i.e. for Normal Pay, Half Pay and Double Pay), the system will automatically apply Unpaid Leave entry.

  • The flexibility payment Hours Type Codes are excluded from being used in the employee Termination Wizard to avoid potential complications in the termination process. Therefore, restrictions have been put in place to ensure that you cannot select or enter flexibility payment Hours Type Codes in express payments - termination wizard entry browselist.

  • For more information, you may refer to the Flyer and User Guide made available on the V15.8.03 Release Centre > Highlights section in Preceda Community.

     

This new feature has been posted as an Idea: Leave at half pay on Preceda Community and has successfully made it into Preceda V15.8.03.

To access the links, make sure you are logged in to Preceda Community.

 

 

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The calculation of Leave Accruals based on Worked Hours and the rolling forward of the Date Accrued To on the employee's Leave Entitlement records has only been performed when some Hours Codes configured to be included in the Hours Worked for Leave Accrual are processed in the payrun. In most scenarios where employees receive Pay Slips that do not include any Hours Codes with this configuration, their Leave Entitlement records remain unchanged with no updates to the entitlements or the Date Accrued To.

Although this may be acceptable to many customers, we were informed that it is not always desirable to leave the Date Accrued To unchanged, particularly when Leave Entitlements are integrated with external T&A or HCM systems which project leave entitlements if the Date Accrued To is in the past.

For customers who are happy with the current behaviour of not moving the Date Accrued To forward unless the employee is paid some Hours that affect the Leave Accrual, there is no need to make any changes. If there is a preference to have the Date Accrued To moved forward when the Leave Accruals are calculated over a period where the employee receives a Pay Slip, regardless of the paid amount or whether Pay contains hours that have been configured as 'Include Worked Hours in Leave Accruals', a new Program Control option has been introduced. To update your Preceda database to the new behaviour in this scenario, you can update Position 29 of Program Control LVACC to 'Y'.

Name Position Option

Description
Leave Accruals on Worked Hours when pay slip has no Hours set to be included in the Accrual 29 Y

Update the Date Accrued To of Leave Entitlements based on Worked Hours whenever the employee receives a Pay Slip, even when it only includes Allowances or Hours which are not configured to increase the leave accrual.

N (Default)

Do not update the Date Accrued To of Leave Entitlements based on Worked Hours unless the employee receives a Pay Slip containing some Hours configured to be included in the leave accrual calculation.

 

 

69566

Any information changes linked with a future effective date are not immediately reflected in the Employee Maintenance History screen but is updated during midnight by a maintenance program, Active Record Rollover.

During the maintenance program execution, system overrides changed user information by the system user by "PRECEDA" and user change date and time overridden by rollover date and time which distorts original change user information. This has raised confusion among business users.

To avoid such confusion and enhance user experience, the Employee Maintenance History screen has been updated to have new fields to display the Original Changed User information (left information panel) for future effective dated and non-effective dated transactions. These fields will show the original change username, date, and time to which the data was changed prior to the run of the latest Active Record Rollover. The change made by the maintenance program will still be displayed in the screen.

For history transactions, system will populate original user information on the fly when business user opens the maintenance screen drilldown page.

 

This new feature has been posted as Ideas Preceda Community and has successfully made it into Preceda V15.8.03.

To access the links, make sure you are logged in to Preceda Community.

 

 

Integration

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The Global Logon messages have been improved ensuring that the correct error message is displayed based on invalid attempt/s of the user.

  • For any invalid attempts prior to the 2nd last and last attempt: "Access denied - the information you have entered is incorrect. Please try again".

  • For the attempt prior to the last retry (number of retries limit is set per database): "Warning: Next invalid login attempt will lock the account".

 

This new feature has been posted as an Idea: Looping in attempt message misleading on Preceda Community and has successfully made it into Preceda V15.8.03.

To access the links, make sure you are logged in to Preceda Community.

 

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As mentioned in a recent Customer Forum, your current investment with Preceda is protected, as Preceda will continue to be developed and enhanced. At the same time, you would have the chance to extend to Dayforce for additional business capabilities (e.g. innovative HCM, Workforce Management, advanced HR Analytics, as well as a harmonized employee experience).

We are happy to update you the integration development in progress. Items added to / updated in Preceda in V15.8.03 are:

  • Dayforce Configuration Mapper (M001820)

  • Dayforce Configuration Extractor

  • Dayforce File Submission Extractor

  • Dayforce Configuration screen

  • Dayforce File Submission screen

If you are interested in learning more about this integration for your organisation, please reach out to your Account Executive.

 

 

Payroll

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To assist customers who are establishing an automated host to host file transfer for Australian ABA bank files through HSBCnet, a new option has been introduced for the ABA file to include the required ACH_Connect Header record.

This new header record will be included at the top of the ABA file when the Bank File Format on Company Bank Details screen is set to ABA and the ABA Format is set to ACH Connect. Please see the Company Bank Details screen Knowledge Base page for guidance on populating the Additional Bank File Information fields when using the new ACH_Connect option.

To support this new option, the Company Bank Details screen has been updated with:

  • (All Countries) New fields under Additional Bank File Information group box - Additional Details 4 and Authorisation Type.

  • (AU Only) Additional ABA Format option - ACH Connect.

These new fields have been added to Company Bank Details Extractor.

As ABA Format C - ACH Connect is not yet supported for ATO PAYG processing, a new validation is placed when saving records on the ATO PAYG Account Details screen. An error message will be displayed when saving with a value of C against the ABA Format field.

 

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Preceda now supports the download and email of multiple Pay Slips as well as the capability to email Pay Slips to multiple recipients in one go. The Earning History screen and ESS Pay Slip screen have been updated.

There are three possible actions that can now be done to the Pay Slips via the Earning History screen and ESS Pay Slip screen - View, Download, and Email. A new checkbox Select All (X) Pay Slip(s) is available to allow selecting all Pay Slips from the browselist. To shortlist the Pay Slips to be downloaded or emailed, you may want to utilize the Filter icon to specify the selection criteria, or simply hold Ctrl or Shift while you click the mouse.

 

View Pay Slips

The View button ( ) will be enabled when some Pay Slips are selected from the browselist and the Select All (X) Pay Slip(s) checkbox is unticked. Clicking the button will open the Pay Slips in PDF format, each in separate tabs.

 

Download Pay Slips

The Download button ( ) will be enabled when either some Pay Slips are selected from the browselist or the Select All (X) Pay Slip(s) checkbox is ticked. When only one pay slip is selected, clicking the button will also only download one PDF file, while when multiple Pay Slips are selected, a zip file containing all the Pay Slips in PDF will be downloaded.

 

Email Pay Slips

The Email button ( ) will be enabled when either some Pay Slips are selected from the browselist or the Select All (X) Pay Slip(s) checkbox is ticked. When the button is clicked, the Email Pay Slip drilldown will open to allow more than one (1) email addresses to be provided.

Encryption to emailed Pay Slips has not been changed. If encryption is turned on in the database, the recipients of emailed Pay Slips would continue to need password to decrypt each Pay Slip PDF. It is thus recommended that users to download Pay Slips and enclose them into an email, if they wish to send them to entrusted third parties.

 

This new feature has been posted as Ideas Preceda Community and has successfully made it into Preceda V15.8.03.

To access the links, make sure you are logged in to Preceda Community.

 

70820, 70821

To comply with ATO latest directives, the option Share Scheme Type - P (ESS interest acquired pre-1 July 2009) has been re-enabled for Scheme Type field via the Employee Share Scheme Statement History screen drilldown.

When Type P is selected all ATO fields will be disabled with zero (0) as value, except for the Number of ESS - Taxing Point where the user can input their desired value.

Additionally, when the Type P is selected and the Financial Year input value is 2019 and before, the Discount on ESS Interests field will be enabled where the user can input their desired value. For Financial Year 2020 and after, the field will be disabled with zero (0) as value.

Note that these changes are applied to the mapper accordingly.

 

70456

The amount reported under Allow/Deduct Classification N or S and Year End Print Flag 0 can now be excluded from STP 2 Reporting. As such, A/D Codes with Classification N or S, Year End Print Flag 0 and with STP Payment Type Excluded from STP Reporting will not be displayed in the STP Report and XML File. Likewise, no amount will be added or deducted in the employer and/or employee's gross.

 

 

System Management

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Preceda Help-About screen now displays the latest PCR Number as well as the Date and Time of the latest application.