Payroll Time Entry Guidelines

Time Entry Guidelines and Payroll Processing Controls

Departments, employees, submitters, approvers, and proxies share responsibility for making sure time is accurate, approved, and submitted by the payroll deadline. Payroll processes approved time as submitted.

Payroll deadlines

MTU Payroll runs off-cycle payments weekly approximately 50 weeks per year, excluding fiscal year-end and calendar year-end processing weeks.

Department responsibilities and controls

Departments are responsible for maintaining effective controls over the time entry and approval process. These controls help confirm that time is accurate, approved by someone with knowledge of the work or absence, submitted on time, and available for audit support.

Departments should encourage all approvers to set up and maintain proxies before they are needed. A proxy helps prevent late approvals when an approver is out of the office, in meetings, traveling, or otherwise unavailable before payroll deadlines.

Time entry methods

Time should be entered and approved through Experience Web Time whenever possible. Manual timesheets are an exception process and should be used only when online submission is not available, an employee is unable to submit online, or an employee forgot to submit online before the deadline.

Experience Web Time

1. The employee or authorized submitter enters hours worked and unproductive time in Experience Web Time.
2. The employee or submitter reviews the time entry for accuracy and submits it before the deadline.
3. The approver or proxy reviews the submitted time and approves it before the payroll deadline.
4. Payroll processes the approved time that is submitted through the system.

Manual timesheets

Manual timesheets are an exception when the employee cannot submit online or missed the online submission deadline. When needed, an approver may create a manual timesheet and submit it with estimated hours and documented approval for payment on behalf of the employee.

Manual timesheets must report total hours worked and claimed for the full two-week pay period. Manual timesheets overwrite web timesheets, so departments must submit a complete and accurate record for the full pay period, not only the missing or corrected line.

The biweekly payroll deadlines are the same for web time and manual timesheets.

1. The department completes the manual timesheet with the hours, earn codes, dates, and employee information needed for payroll processing.
2. The approver or proxy reviews the manual timesheet and documents approval for payment.
3. The department submits the approved manual timesheet to Payroll by the applicable deadline.
4. The department retains local support for the time record according to applicable retention requirements.

Prior pay periods and revisions

Once web time entry deadlines are closed, the employee or department can no longer enter or revise that pay period online. Prior pay periods and corrected time entries must be submitted on a manual timesheet with the appropriate description selected.

Manual timesheets may also be used to revise prior pay period earn codes when unproductive time was not reported correctly. This can correct the classification of time and, when applicable, allow the time to be charged to the correct index or University fringe account. If the only change needed is to move payroll dollars between indexes and the earn code is already correct, submit a payroll reallocation request instead of a manual timesheet.

Overpayment notes

If revised hours are less than originally reported for an hourly employee, the department is requesting that Payroll review the potential overpayment and, when applicable, work with Accounts Receivable to begin overpayment recovery. Add “process for overpayment” in the comments so the intent is clear.

For salaried employees, an overpayment usually means the job record or job setup needs to be adjusted. Contact MTU’s Employment office so the job record can be reviewed and corrected. If the correction is needed for the biweekly payroll that is paying soon and Employment cannot update the job record before payroll processing, report docked pay using earn code 600 for the salary hours that should not be paid. For example, use earn code 600 for 20 hours if an 80-hour job employee should only receive 60 hours of pay.

Earn codes and unproductive time

Departments, employees, submitters, and approvers are responsible for using the correct earn codes and reporting the correct number of hours for the employee’s circumstances.

If you are unsure what earn codes to use or how many hours to book for unproductive time based on the employee’s employee class, please contact MTU’s Employment office for guidance before submitting or approving the time.

Payroll processing role

Payroll processes approved time submitted by departments. Payroll does not replace departmental review, departmental approval, or the approver’s responsibility to confirm the accuracy of submitted time.

Late, missing, incomplete, or inaccurate time may delay payment or require an off-cycle correction. Departments should build internal timelines that are earlier than Payroll’s final deadline so employees, submitters, approvers, and proxies have time to resolve issues before processing begins.

Monitoring and verifying payroll transactions

Departments are responsible for monitoring payroll transactions after processing to confirm that payroll expenses, earn codes, hours, and index distributions are accurate. This review is a departmental control and should be completed timely so errors can be corrected as soon as possible.

Use the WebFOCUS report HRREPT005A - Gross Earnings by Index Org Excel Version to review payroll detail by department index and organization. Departments should compare the report to approved time records, manual timesheets, known corrections, and expected labor distributions.

• Confirm that approved hours and earn codes were processed as expected.
• Confirm that unproductive time and leave adjustments were classified correctly.
• Confirm that index overrides or labor distribution changes were applied correctly.
• Submit a payroll reallocation request when only the index needs to change and the earn code and hours are already correct.

Record retention and audit support

Departments should retain supporting documentation for time entry, manual timesheets, approvals, and corrections according to applicable University retention requirements. Documentation should be sufficient to support who submitted the time, who approved the time, what was approved, and when it was submitted for payroll processing.