format_list_bulleted Topic Overview

Labor Schedules and Pay Allocation

Roles and responsibilities for administration of employee pay are set by each school or department. When an employee is hired by Stanford, their job-related data, such as type of job held, rate of pay, and the type of pay (salary or hourly) is entered into the PeopleSoft Human Resources Management system. This page describes how Oracle Financials labor schedules are used to establish the project-task-award (PTA) account or accounts to be charged for the employee's pay and how pay is allocated.

Labor schedules are set up for the following types of employees:

  • Exempt
  • Non-exempt
  • Faculty
  • Bargaining unit
  • Hourly-paid contingent and student employees

Graduate students and postdoctoral scholars are paid through the Graduate Financial Support (GFS) system and therefore do not require a labor schedule.

Labor schedules are created for future payroll earnings using the Labor Schedules system in Oracle Financials. Labor schedules consist of one or more PTA, the salary expenditure type associated with the employee’s job classification code (JCC) or type of pay, the start date and end date for the allocation, and the percentage of funding by PTA and E (expenditure type). 

  • Types of labor schedules:
    • An assignment labor schedule determines how an employee’s pay is to be distributed.
    • A pay code labor schedule determines how a supplemental payment and/or housing payment is to be distributed if it hasn’t already been specified in PeopleSoft. 
  • Labor schedules can have multiple lines, each with a different PTA, start date, end date, and percentage of effort. 
  • Labor schedules must be set up to account for 100% PTA allocation for each assignment, regardless of the employee’s FTE.
  • End date considerations:
    • For employees funded by non-sponsored PTAs, this field must be populated with the last day of the fiscal year (31-AUG-XXXX) unless the assignment ends before this date.
    • For employees funded by sponsored PTAs, the end date should match dates from the sponsored agreement (possibly in future fiscal years).
    • End dates on labor schedule lines will be used to create Salary Encumbrances (Commitments).
    • At  fiscal year-end close, central administrative staff in Financial Management Services change all labor schedule lines on non-sponsored PTAs with end dates of 31-AUG of the current fiscal year to 31-AUG of the next fiscal year.

For detailed instructions, see How to: Create or Update Individual Labor Schedule and How to: Create or Update Individual Labor Schedule with Salary Cap. For more instructions and information including access, training, reporting, and more, refer to Labor Schedules

The PTA account charged for a payroll payment depends upon the type of employee being paid and the type of payment. Payments are allocated to an Expenditure Type using logic determined by the combination of the payroll earn codes used for the payment and the job classification code (JCC) associated with the employee's job record in PeopleSoft. For details, refer to Resource: Job Classification Codes (JCCs) Mapped to Salary Expenditure Type Codes.

Expenditure Type Codes drive the fringe benefit rate charged on the payment and the description of expense on OBI Consolidated Expenditure Reporting (CER) dashboard reports.

Salaried Employees

Regular salary payments are allocated to the PTA indicated on the employee's Oracle Financials labor schedule. The Expenditure Type Code, and associated fringe benefit rate, is automatically applied based upon the combination of the payroll earn codes and employee's JCC.

Hourly Employees

Hourly pay is allocated to the PTA indicated on the employee's Axess timecard or the labor schedule if the timecard so indicates (i.e., LD). The Expenditure Type Code and associated fringe benefit rate is automatically applied based upon the combination of the payroll earn codes and employee's JCC.

Overtime Payments

Overtime payments are allocated to a PTA using the same logic as indicated above for salaried and hourly employee types. Overtime payments receive an Expenditure Type Code specific to overtime.

Other Payments

Payments for items that are not regular salary or regular hours are allocated to the PTA indicated on the payment request. Most payments receive the Expenditure Type Code, and associated fringe benefit rate, associated with the employee's regular job. Exceptions are payroll payments that are not considered part of base wages, such as bonus and housing payments, or payments charged directly to a benefits pool, such as vacation, disability or workers' compensation related to an illness and severance.

If the PTA indicated for a payment is not valid at the time of allocation in Oracle Financials, the charge is applied to the Organization Suspense Account (OSA) associated with the department (org) of the employee work assignment (job) in PeopleSoft. Payments charged to the OSA must be cleared by creating a labor distribution adjustment to move the charge to the appropriate PTA. Refer to Topic Overview: Organization Suspense Accounts and How to: Clear Organization Suspense Accounts for Labor.

Departments and budget units receive Labor Schedules (LS) system-generated email notifications organized by org code when action might be required on an employee’s labor schedule. The following are the types of email notifications LS users might receive, which include a table of the impacted employee(s) and instructions on how to resolve the issue:

  • No Labor Schedule: This notification is sent when an employee is missing a labor schedule in the current pay period.
  • Labor Schedule Ending: This notification is sent when an employee has a labor schedule end date that is earlier than the current pay period end date.
  • Invalid PTA: This notification is sent when an employee’s labor schedule has a PTA that is not valid for the current pay period.
  • Assignment Transfer To: This notification is sent when an employee has transferred from one department to another within the same budget unit. This is sent to the new department to confirm the employee has transferred to this department.
  • Assignment Transfer From: This notification is sent when an employee has transferred from one department to another within the same budget unit. This is sent to the former department to confirm the employee has transferred from this department.
  • Budget Unit Assignment Transfer To: This notification is sent when an employee transfers from a budget unit to another. This is sent to the new budget unit to confirm the employee has transferred to this department.
  • Budget Unit Assignment Transfer From: This notification is sent when an employee transfers from a budget unit to another. This is sent to the former budget unit to confirm the employee has transferred from this department.
Last Updated: Aug 11, 2023