How do I make correction time entries in Pacific Timesheet?

Question

How do I make correction time entries in Pacific Timesheet?

Answer

Background

Unsubmitting an employee timesheet and simply editing an employee's timesheet is one method of "correcting" an employee time entry. Pacific Timesheet's audit trail captures the original employee time entry made by the employee on their timesheet, and the correction of that time entry by an administrative user. However, there are important use cases where this method is insufficient and can create liability for your organization:

• If the original employee time entry has already been sent to a third-party account, payroll or ERP system, in most cases there no proper method to send and synchronize these edited corrections and update the original time entry.
• To minimize State and Federal labor-law liability, best practices require that the original employee time entry remain as recorded in the system. So-called "Correction Entries" must be made to modify that original time entry. These Correction Entries also require a reason code for the modification. With both original employee time entry and the new correction entries in the system    

How to Create Correction Time Entries

Correction time entries usually involve creating a pair correction entries:

• A negative time entry that backs out or "zeros out" the original time entry and all its properties.
• A positive time entry that replaces the original incorrect time entry with correct values and/or properties.

The Add Correction Interface

After an employee timesheet has been submitted, administrative users they can Add Correction time entries as follows:

1. Using the Timesheets tab, search for and drill into the employee timesheet you need to correct.
2. Then, using the Day View navigate to the the date on the employee timesheet where you need to add a correction entry.
   

   Figure 1: Day View of Submitted Timesheet with Add Correction

   

3. Move your cursor to the left of the time entry and click to create a checkbox.
4. Click on the Add Correction button to add the first of two correction time entries.
5. The system will default to a negative correction time entry.
6. Enter a description of the reason for the correction (e.g. employee was called back to the office after he clocked out)

   Figure 2: Time Entry Correction Page

   
   
   
7.  Clock OK to save the correction time entry which will display with an orange background.

   Figure 3: Saved Correction Time Entry

   
8. Then check the original time entry row again so it is checked.
9. Click the positive Add Correction and edit the time entry correction page as follows: a) change the Finish to 6:00PM b) change Hours to 10.00 c) enter a Correction Reason. 
   
   
10. Click OK to save.
11. Now the system will have a pair of negative and positive time entry correction entries. These will be unmarked in the system and are ready to send to your third-party systems as new unmarked time entries. 
12. There are other ways to handle this use case: the correction entry could have left the original 9:00AM - 5:00PM time entry as correct, and added one positive correction of 5:00PM - 6:00PM for an additional 1.0 hours of time to the employee's timesheet.

Sending Correction Entries

By definition, correction time entries are new time entries. If you are "marking" time entries as having been exported (a best practice), new correction time entries created after a payroll cycle will reside in the system as unmarked and ready to include in a export to your third party system. Or, you can create a correction entries exports. There are two methods to include correction entries in exports:

Run a special corrections time entries export to send new correction time entries.

1. Navigate to the Timesheets tab
2. Click Advanced Search
3. In Timesheet Notes enter the word 'corrections'
4. Set a date range to capture new correction time entries.
5. If you are using batches, use the batch filter to create individual batches. Or you can not use to include all system correction entries in one export.
6. Click Search and the system will display all timesheets that contain new correction entries.
7. Note that the returned timesheets will have the Exported flag unchecked. This indicates that the timesheet contains new unexported unmarked time entries.
8. To run a test timesheet export go to Tools > Export Timesheets you will see the new correction time entries in the timesheets.csv file.
9. After reviewing and verifying the time entries, you can run the timesheet export and this time mark the time entries as exported.
10. When you are done, note that timesheet Export checkbox will now have a blue check.     

You can also run your standard timesheet exports to include new correction time entries.
In this case, just prepare a timesheet export that includes the Last 90 Days, Year to Date or whatever date range you want for timesheets up to and including the current pay period you want to process. This will include all time entries, non-corrections and corrections.