Author: ICG

In our September posts, we talked about how to get the most out of attending a seminar and using social media to enhance the seminar experience. On December 8-10, a seminar will be held in Las Vegas for optimizing payroll in SAP.

All three speakers from the Philadelphia and Chicago seminars are excited to be in Las Vegas for the third and final seminar. They’ll bring their depth of knowledge and experience with business process, configuration, and technical to share the smallest of details about SAP payroll.

Speakers are Jennifer Adams from AspireHR, Yu Chen from Deloitte, and ICG’s own Mike Timm. You can learn more about the speakers here.

The previous two seminars went very well and the volume of information presented was incredible. Detailed explanations and open discussions focused on SAP payroll is a wonderful experience. The breadth of topics covered at the seminar will keep you going back to your session notes for all the gems and put you at the top of your game. Don’t underestimate the networking opportunity and getting to know the other attendees and speakers very well and becoming a tight knit group. You’ll be able to walk away with new friends and contacts you can continue to talk about SAP payroll with and gain new ideas and see how they work at their organizations.

Mike will be presenting five sessions during the conference and will also be on the rapid-fire Q&A panel held on the end of day two.

On day one, his presentation will cover the ten most critical factors that impact the accuracy and efficiency of SAP payroll.

On day two, he will take on integrating payroll with accounting (FI/CO) and benefits: configuration guidelines and best practices to reduce complexity. His second presentation will be a comprehensive guide to US taxes and their impact on payroll operations. The third will be on managing payroll claims, garnishments, month-end accruals, and more: lessons from the trenches.

On day three, his presentation will be on field-tested strategies to avoid or overcome the most common and costly payroll and time-related challenges.

Mike’s excited to share his knowledge and experiences in an environment where the focus is all on payroll and those who care about payroll.

Keep up with us before, during, and after the seminar by following us on twitter: @MikeTimmSAP and @SAPinsiderHR. Also, search for the hashtag “payrollseminar” to see what others are saying about the seminar.

Here at Integrated Consulting Group, we specialize in the design, development, and customization of SAP Human Capital Management business software for leading edge North American companies with global reach. Have any questions about SAP? Feel free to contact us via the contact page of our site, or on Twitter or LinkedIn.

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SAP HCM and payroll expert Mike Timm took readers’ questions on year-end payroll in SAP, as well as questions on BSI 10, and streamlining payroll in your SAP systems.

Review all the discussion in this one-hour online chat with Mike Timm of Integrated Consulting Group, a featured speaker at SAPinsider’s annual HR event

View the chat replay for all of Mike’s tips and discussion on SAP Payroll and preparing for year-end, and read the edited transcript Streamline Year-End Payroll and Processes: Q&A with SAP Payroll Expert Mike Timm.

Molly Folan, SAPinsider Conference Producer: Welcome to our Q&A on SAP Payroll! Thank you all for joining.  I’m pleased to introduce Mike Timm, who will be taking your questions today. Mike Timm of Integrated Consulting Group is a speaker at our multi-city seminar Optimizing Payroll in SAP, which is heading to Chicago and Vegas in the coming weeks.

Today, Mike is taking your questions for the hour on some changes to SAP Payroll – including BSI 10 upgrades – as well as preparing for year-end and ways to simplify payroll processes.

Mike Timm: Hi, Molly. I’m happy to be here and have been looking forward to this Q&A. I’m sure most of us are deeply involved with year-end and BSI 10 and have questions.

Molly Folan: Thank you!

Mike, as you can see, some of your participants have already posted some of their questions, so we’ll let you get to those now!

 

Comment From Guest

We are having lots of issues installing BSI 10, if we do not get this installed by the Nov 30th deadline, what are the consequences that issues that we be facing?

Mike Timm: Luckily, the November 30, 2014 deadline proved to be flexible. BSI and SAP will continue to provide updates to BSI 9 through March 31, 2015. You can see the update at service.sap.com/hrusa under the ‘Year End 2014’ tree node.

Molly Folan: When was the extension announced?

Mike Timm: Within the last few weeks is when I saw it on the SAP portal. I try to check the portal on at least a weekly basis to see what new announcements have been made.

 

Comment From Rolanda

Now that there is an extension to updates to BSI 9.0, what is your recommendation as to when to upgrade to BSI 10.0? To reduce some risk, should companies wait until after the year-end process is over and upgrade in late January?

Mike Timm: I think it depends on where you are and your timeline. Many companies have BSI 10 in place or are a week or two away from having it in production. If things are working, I wouldn’t stop the upgrade.

If the upgrade is having significant issues or hasn’t been started, then definitely wait until W2’s are out the door.

 

Comment From Deb

Hi, in upgrading BSI Tax Factory it appears that we must now enter estimated quarterly taxes into a table through SPRO; I heard that it is only required for NY. If we are in Florida, must we do it for any tax types? All tax types? What are the consequences if we don’t do it at all, or if we do not update it as the quarterly estimates would change?

Mike Timm: I’m not an expert on local taxes across all the states, but know that New York imposes an employer tax called ‘Metropolitan Commuter Transportation Mobility Tax’ based on quarterly gross wages. It is a tiered tax, so estimating the quarterly determines the tax rate BSI will use. If you are interested in NY tax, it is SAP tax type 19 Payroll Expense Tax.

This NY MCTMT is the only tax I have seen that would utilize the estimated quarterly gross wages. The companies I have worked with to install BSI 10 are not in NY and we have not maintained the IMG node. One is live and the other will go live shortly with no consequences. With that said, those companies will monitor whether or not they need to start maintaining as updates come through, but are comfortable eliminating the maintenance at this point.

 

Comment From Deborah

Hello, one question regarding the New York estimated gross wages: Will we be required to update the table after each quarter?

Mike Timm: I believe the intention is to update each quarter, however, if your estimates are consistent quarter to quarter you can probably get away with using date delimitation further in the future. I’d probably use a calendar year and make sure it doesn’t get lost before the next calendar year.

Comment From Bijay

Just one follow up 🙂 — all states, or I will have to add 100s of OHIO locas?

Mike Timm: You should be safe with just NY at this time, but review of updates from SAP and BSI will need to be thorough enough to identify additional tax authorities that may need the functionality.

Comment From Pankaj

Where in BSI 10 can we look at the tax rates to be used for example rates to be used for NY Metro Tax?

Mike Timm: The rates BSI provides are all ‘hidden’ behind the scenes. As users we can override the rates BSI sends us in updates, but within the BSI GUI we don’t have a method to look directly.

You can use the testing tools to work around this to a degree, but this method has caveats such as limits being hit, etc. and requires several iterations of the test with differing input values.

 

Comment From Bijay

We are just upgrading to BSI 10.d. Can you say one thing that we need to do for the Courtesy Withholding concept?

Mike Timm: Under Tax Areas Courtesy Withholding V_T5UX9_COUWH needs to be maintained to get IT0207 and IT0208 working nicely together. BSI by default has the courtesy withholding turned off, which was not the case prior to BSI 10.0. This has caused a fair amount of problems for many companies because it is such a big change.

 

Comment From Guest

We have some questions about HRSPs or CLCs – when do we need them and what are other options?

Mike Timm: Ideally, the year-end HRSP or CLC is being put in place during November.

Comment From Trish

Is there documentation available that would detail the information contained in the year-end HRSPs?

Mike Timm: Yes, through the SAP support portal you can get a list of all the individual notes that are included in HRSPs and CLCs. You can also get a list of issues that have been found after implementing the HRSP and CLC with the corresponding correction note.

Comment From Debbie B

You may want to remind your attendees that additional CLCs may be released in late November, December and even early January, so they should continue checking service.sap.com/hrusa for updates.

Molly Folan: That’s great advice, we will be sure to share that info – thank you!

 

Comment From Guest

I have also had some issues with the TF10 upgrade, specifically regarding reciprocity. For instance, our employees who live in MD and work in DC used to pay MD taxes, but after the upgrade no state tax is assessed. Any suggestions there?

Mike Timm: Yes, reciprocity has been an issue. You need to look closely at the Courtesy Withholding node in the IMG. I recently had to implement some Nexus configuration as well that wasn’t needed prior to BSI 10.

 

Comment From Debbie McCarty

We have upgraded to BSI 10, but are having trouble with applying updates. Has anyone had any experience with using the Sync Tool?

Mike Timm: The sync tool will be very helpful by removing the dual maintenance we’ve had to do prior to BSI 10. It’s crucial that the correct level of BSI updates and SAP updates are in place. I know making sure the new process is followed to get the cross-client and client-specific transport created has been troublesome.

SAP provides a user guide on the service portal that details it all out.

 

Comment From Rolanda

We are also upgrading to BSI 10.0. Is there a template of what should be tested? Not sure if we know what all to test.

Mike Timm: I’m not familiar with any templates, but recommend a very thorough testing.

Depending on your system environment, you can have BSI 9 and 10 running at the same time and access them directly to run the batch tests for comparison.

If you have used the BSI batch testing tool in the past, you can use the same file in 10.0. Just change the check date and see how the taxes calculate.

Comment From Matt

We ran a full payroll in our test environment that was a copy of production before and after the upgrade to TF10 and compared the results to identify any differences. Quite a lot changed, so I would recommend doing something similar.

Comment From Guest

To Matt: in your testing did you find any significant issues?

Comment From Matt

When we did our parallel test of before and after BSI 10 upgrade, we found a lot of issues with reciprocal agreements, as well as issues with NYC taxes (both withholding and the metro tax type 19).

 

Comment From Guest

In 2016 will SAP be providing a solution for the new IRS tax forms 1094 and 1095 to satisfy ACA reporting requirements?

Comment From Guest

Will SAP support the Obamacare reporting to individuals via Tax Reporter?

Mike Timm: I haven’t seen any documentation pointing either way at this point. It’s something we’ll have to continue watching for on the SAP service portal.

Comment From Debbie B

This was part of the ASUG end of year presentation: Affordable Care Act — SAP Benefit

— SAP Note 2060131 announces the legal change delivery for Information Reporting for Employer Sponsored Coverage and Minimum Essential Coverage

— SAP FAQ Note 1910650 publishes a list of questions and answers related to Section 1511 of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA)

— SAP Note 2015562 enables you to comply with the changes in the Model COBRA Continuation Coverage Election Notice and General Notice

— SAP Note 1869937 delivers the updated Model COBRA Continuation Coverage Election Notice

Molly Folan: This is great, thanks for sharing with everyone!

 

Comment From Pankaj

Good afternoon, Mike. What is the significance of BSI introducing Estimated Quarterly Gross Wage Parameter as part of BSI 10 upgrade? Is this config mandatory? I ask since the absence of this config does not seem to have an effect.

Mike Timm: The configuration only appears to be mandatory for New York at this point to handle the tax type 19. However, it is something we will all need to monitor as updates occur in the future.

 

Comment From Carol

Are there consequences for not creating and activating feature 10EET?

Mike Timm: To be honest, I have followed the BSI 10 upgrade guide and have always activated the feature. I would expect underlying code will be wanting it activated, but can’t say for sure.

Comment From Lou Ann

We didn’t activate it at first in testing, and got one error message per employee in the Job Log, so have now activated it to eliminate all the error messages.

 

Comment From Guest

Is there a transaction code for the BSI Batch Test Tool?

Mike Timm: You access the batch test tool through the BSI GUI. Prior to 10, it was a GUI installed on Windows machine, but with 10 it is now web based. There are some differences, but the testing tools are very similar in functionality and use.

 

Molly Folan: Hi all! We are nearing the end of the forum, so if you have any more questions, please submit them in the next minute or so, to ensure there is sufficient time for Mike to get to them. Thanks!

 

Comment From Trish

Can you explain the new wage type/TWD that was added with BSI 10.0 and what it is used for?

Mike Timm: /TWD is the new wage type to provide tracking of Nonresident Days Worked. Note 1937142 goes into a good amount of detail with regards to how it is utilized.

 

Comment From Pankaj

When you mention nexus configuration, are you referring to configuration(Override) both in SAP as well as BSI?

Mike Timm: Nexus configuration is done in SAP. I can’t remember the exact IMG node, but it is under the tax node of the Payroll tree. I’ve used this in the past to override reciprocity, but have had to use it more with BSI 10.

 

Comment From Trish

Do we have to retroactively reprocess payrolls to populate the /TWD wage type for all of 2014?

Mike Timm: No, utilize the wage type going forward in 2015.

 

Comment From Guest

What’s the difference between the BSI Batch Testing Tool and the Synchronized Payroll Data?

Mike Timm: The batch testing tool allows you to take raw data from the SAP payroll log (BSI Interface), put it in a text document, and then upload to BSI. You can tweak the text document by changing values and reupload and run again.

It’s a nice way to take a test base representative of your employees, change check date or other values and see how the tax calculations come out directly in BSI. I find it easier than getting all the data setup correctly in SAP.

 

Comment From Guest

Hi Mike, Can you please advise on critical tasks for closing out the year? When do these tasks need to be completed (timing of employee updates etc.)?

Mike Timm: Ideally, activities such as HRSP and CLC application have are done in November or the first week of December.

Claims clearing activities have been ongoing and completed by mid-December. There are always a few last-minute that pop up.

HR needs to be extra diligent getting any master data change in, especially, if they have any impact on payroll such as base pay changes or bonuses.

Ideally, we’ve been working on year-end activities since early October to keep things more relaxed through the last quarter.

 

Comment From Guest

Hi, please elaborate on the logic SAP provides regarding overpayments, so-called “claims.”

Mike Timm: One of the nice features of SAP in the overpayments handling. It can be difficult at first, but once understood and the process is outlined, it works well.

The SAP service portal has documents specific to retro activity and the claims process that dive in more detail than I could go here. However, don’t hesitate to contact me to discuss in more detail.

 

Comment From Debbie B

Have any of your clients rolled out the online W2s with the recent improvements provided by SAP? If yes, how did it turn out?

Mike Timm: We are in the process of testing. Had a few bumps, but initial tests are good.

 

Comment From TK

Can you explain how Base Wages are used for tax calculation? Used to be Base Wages are /114. SAP introduced some changes regarding handling of pre-tax deductions and supplemental payments, but I don’t see how the change in Base Wages affects tax calc. What am I missing?

Mike Timm: I don’t think you are missing anything and haven’t seen an impact to the tax calculations either.

 

Comment From Guest

While trying to use new SAP Synchornize Payroll Data Tool with transaction HRPAYUS_SYNC_TAX_DT. We are expecting this tool to make changes to only new changes to Tax Authorities. Instead it is trying to update all the entries in tables T5UTD (Tax Types). Are you aware of any problem regarding that?

Mike Timm: I haven’t run across this issue at this point, but you may want to look at notes 1975742,  1984911,  1992315,  1992697, and  2009438.

 

Molly Folan: This brings us to the end of today’s forum, and what a successful one it was! Such excellent questions and answers! Thank you to all who posted questions and followed the discussion.

And a special thanks to Mike for sharing your expertise with us today! We truly appreciate it.

Mike Timm: Thank you and everyone for attending and asking good, tough questions. If you think of more questions or would like to discuss any in more detail, please don’t hesitate to contact me at mtimm@integratedcg.com or @MikeTimmSAP.

 

Molly Folan: Thank you, Mike Timm, again for taking these questions. Great information and advice today in just 60 minutes!  Looking forward to seeing you soon!

In a September post, we talked about how to get the most out of attending a seminar. On November 17-19 in Chicago, SAPinsider will present Optimizing Payroll in SAP, which is the preeminent seminar for HR, payroll, and time specialists seeking to derive maximum value and efficiency from existing SAP ERP HCM payroll systems.

The speakers from the Philadelphia payroll seminar in October will be reprising their roles in Chicago. They all bring vast amounts of experience and knowledge and plan to share as much as possible in the two-and-a-half days. Each speaker brings something different to the seminar and knows the language of business, both functional and technical.

The speakers are Jennifer Adams from AspireHR, Yu Chen from Deloitte, and ICG’s own Mike Timm. You can learn more about all the speakers here.

The seminar will provide a deeper knowledge of the inner workings of payroll, ideas on how to make processes more efficient, and methods to employ more functionality. The sessions, focused exclusively on SAP payroll, will dive deep into business processes, configuration, and technical settings. Chicago attendees can get answers to their most difficult issues at the Rapid-fire Q&A Panel, which proved to be exciting and highly informational in Philadelphia. There are also plenty of networking opportunities to discuss how other SAP customers are running their payrolls and what they’ve found works well and what doesn’t.

Mike will be presenting five sessions during the conference and will also be on the Rapid-fire Q&A panel held at the end of day two.

Day 1: Mike’s presentation will cover the ten most critical factors that impact the accuracy and efficiency of SAP payroll.

Day 2: Mike will take on integrating payroll with accounting (FI/CO) and benefits providing configuration guidelines and best practices to reduce complexity. His second presentation of the day will be a comprehensive guide to US taxes and their impact on payroll operations.

Day 3: Mike will discuss managing payroll claims, garnishments, month-end accruals, and more lessons from the trenches. Mike’s second presentation of the day will be on field-tested strategies to avoid or overcome the most common and costly payroll and time-related challenges.

Mike is looking forward to sharing his knowledge and experiences in an environment where the entire focus is SAP payroll and those who care about payroll.

Keep up with us before, during, and after the seminar by following us on twitter: @MikeTimmSAP and @SAPinsider. Also, search #payrollseminar to see what others are saying.

Here at Integrated Consulting Group, we specialize in the design, development, and customization of SAP Human Capital Management business software for leading edge North American companies with global reach. Have any questions about SAP? Feel free to contact us via the contact page of our site, or on Twitter or LinkedIn.

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There isn’t a better way to find like-minded people than at a seminar. These peers can help you learn about different topics that will better your understanding and therefore, your business. Making new connections is key to furthering your career. Knowing how to network at a seminar is crucial. Here are a few tips.

How to Prepare Prior to the Seminar:

• Come ready. Make sure you bring updated business cards. Know your goals—what do you want to get most out of this seminar? Are you looking to find a new job? Do you want to bring in more business for your company? Or do you want to meet people who will deepen your understanding of your craft and keep you updated on trends?
• Make a schedule. Once you know your goals, you can make your schedule. Which people do you need to meet or see present in order to achieve your seminar goals? Who do you want to talk with? Typically, your seminar will have a website that has the schedule and background on the presenters.

If you aren’t sure about what to expect, check our blog post for tips on attending seminars.

Things to do During the Seminar:

• Collect business cards from people you want to stay in touch with. It’s better to network with people who will build your career rather than exchange your card with everyone you meet.
• Listen and ask (meaningful, excellent) questions. Introduce yourself and pay close attention to what the other person is saying to find out if there is any common ground. Remember, building connections takes time and effort.
• Join the conversation on Twitter. Chances are your seminar will have a hashtag. When a presenter says something worth sharing, retweet it. Check the hashtag to see what others are saying. Can you answer someone’s question? Then do so. You might meet people on Twitter that are worth having a bite to eat with while at the seminar.

Things to do After the Seminar:

• Send follow-up emails; find your peers on Twitter. Make notes about people you met, and attach them to the business cards they’ve given you.
• It’s possible that you didn’t get to connect with everyone you wanted to. Send a note to the presenter or panelist and let them know you appreciate their expertise. You can then request additional information if necessary.

It’s important to establish yourself and connect to the people you met or the presenters you listened to. Otherwise, you aren’t getting the most out of the seminar.

Here at Integrated Consulting Group, we specialize in the design, development, and customization of SAP Human Capital Management business software for leading edge North American companies with global reach. Have any questions about SAP? Feel free to contact us via the contact page of our site, or on Twitter or LinkedIn. We’d love to hear from you.

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On October 1, Mike joined Ken Murphy at SAPinsider for an HR Connections podcast. During the 13 minute podcast, Mike was able to cover a range of topics. They include:

The Tax Factory BSI 10.0 upgrade and end-of-support for 9.0

• BSI 9.0 will no longer be supported after November 30, 2014
• Companies are moving over to 10.0, but not without bumps
• Upgrade early to allow yourself enough time to adjust

Accounts payable

• It is often unutilized by companies that would truly benefit from it
• Garnishments, deductions for benefits included
• Allows for auditing and streamline process when put in place

Considerations for integrating SAP Payroll with FICO 

Year end’s approach

• Clearing of claims
• Schedule yourself out of this year and into January
• Head over to the SAP support portal for the newsletter, reference materials/guidelines, support packages, and SAP notes

Streamlining of payroll processes by creating a process model

Custom area menu use

• Outline step-by-step for users
• Custom transaction code to call specific variant

If you’d like to listen to the entire podcast, you can find it here.

On November 5, Mike will take your SAP payroll questions live online during a Q&A chat. You can find more information about the Q&A here; we hope you’ll join!

On November 17-19, Mike will be speaking at the Optimizing payroll in SAP seminar in Chicago. He will be reprising his role on December 8-10 at the Las Vegas seminar.

At Integrated Consulting Group, we specialize in the design, development, and customization of SAP Human Capital Management business software for leading edge North American companies with global reach. Have any questions about SAP? Feel free to contact us via the contact page of our site, or on Twitter or LinkedIn.

120 sessions—including comprehensive workshops, lectures, demos, panel discussions, and interactive roundtables—presented by top experts at SAP, leading customers, and the most authoritative consultants in the SAP HR arena.

Field-tested strategies to avoid or overcome the most common and costly payroll and time-related challenges

Mike Timm, ICG
Time: Tuesday, March 3 10:45 AM Pacific
Room: Raphael 3

This session tackles some of the most common payroll and time-related pitfalls and offers proven techniques for identifying, troubleshooting, and resolving them, including lessons to:

• Identify the object master data, configuration, or systemic issue causing the payroll error, and determine the best approach for resolution
• Overcome technical complexities associated with setting up and customizing process models, schemas, and rules
• Manage common challenges associated with mergers and acquisitions (M&A) and get tips to accelerate the acceptance of a new payroll system
• Leverage CATS and the time schema to more easily process complex time rules and avoid time-related discrepancies

Integrating payroll with accounting (FI/CO) and benefits: Configuration guidelines and best practices to reduce complexity

Mike Timm, ICG
Time: Tuesday, March 3 4:30 PM Pacific
Room: Raphael 3

This session examines key process decisions and technical considerations for integrating SAP payroll with accounting (FI/CO) and benefits applications and processes. By attending this session, you will:

• Examine the integration points between payroll and key accounting (FI/CO) applications like GL, treasury, cost accounting, and accounts payable and get tips for optimizing data flows
• Discover payroll interface design techniques that help drive streamlined integration
• Understand what’s required to process benefits in conjunction with payroll in SAP ERP HCM, including an overview of required configuration and integration

Managing payroll claims, garnishments, month-end accruals, and more: Lessons from the trenches

Mike Timm, ICG
Time: Wednesday, March 4 1:00 PM Pacific
Room: Raphael 3

Through detailed screenshots and system demos, this session provides critical guidance based on real-world experience for ensuring accurate and timely processing of overpayments, garnishments, retroactive calculations, and month-end accruals. By attending, you will learn how to:

• Configure wage types to support claims forgiveness, repayment, and deduction recovery
• Reconcile claims from a user, functional, and technical perspective, including insight into the impact of IRS regulations related to claim processing and the different taxing rules that apply
• Avoid common pitfalls associated with posting retroactive calculations and month-end accruals
• Ensure the accuracy of garnishment configuration and administration, including tips to manage effective garnishment dates and track and monitor their activity

Panel discussion: Payroll Q&A with SAP customers and experts

Mike Timm, ICG
Linda Crosby, United Launch Alliance
Steve Bogner, Insight Consulting Partners
W. Eric Sauerhoefer-Thompson, The Walt Disney Company
Time: Wednesday, March 4 2:30 PM Pacific
Room: Tower Ballroom 8

This no-holds-barred exchange of ideas with peers and experts tackles your most pressing payroll challenges. Join this panel to:

• Learn how your peers are streamlining and increasing the consistency of their regular payroll runs
• Examine how others are reducing the time spent making payroll adjustments through proactive analysis and error correction
• Hear about best practices to adopt (and worst practices to avoid!) to ensure the accuracy and timeliness of payroll results

A comprehensive guide to US taxes and their impact on payroll operations

Mike Timm, ICG
Time: Wednesday, March 4 4:45 PM Pacific
Room: Tower Ballroom 8

This session examines key factors essential in avoiding costly tax-related pitfalls, including a thorough review of US tax regulations and associated reporting and auditing requirements. By attending, you will:

• Master tax configuration in SAP ERP HCM, including lessons to avoid or overcome challenges associated with setting up key tax models and wage types
• Get critical guidance to comply with state and federal tax regulations and auditing requirements
• Explore how to use Tax Reporter to run multi-worksite, SUI, and W2s, including how to reconcile between Tax Reporter and payroll results
• Obtain best practices for managing and tracking BSI Tax Update Bulletin (TUBs), and get an overview of new and enhanced functions delivered in the latest version of BSI TaxFactory

Date: Wednesday, November 5, 2014
Time: 12:30pm EST / 9:30am PST
Duration: 60 minutes

Prepare now for year-end payroll in this live Q&A with Mike Timm. Join this one-hour online chat with payroll expert Mike Timm, a featured speaker at SAPinsider’s seminar Optimizing Payroll in SAP.

Mike will take your SAP payroll questions on Wednesday, November 5 at 12:30pm ET. Listen to Mike’s recent podcast on SAPinsider, then follow up with with your specific questions, including:

• What are the changes you need to be aware of in Tax Factory BSI 10?
• When should HRSPs or CLCs be in place?
• Do we have other options to make updates besides HRSPs and CLCs?
• Where can we look for the updates we need to put in place towards year-end?

We look forward to your questions and a great discussion on streamlining SAP Payroll processes and preparing for year-end payroll.

This blog post was written by Mike Timm, founder and managing partner here at Integrated Consulting Group.

Over the last few weeks, we’ve been posting about the Philadelphia Seminar and tips for attending seminars. During the Optimizing Payroll in SAP, several different areas were discussed, and I’d like to provide some follow up information that I feel attendees and others might find useful.

As mentioned in the seminar recap blog post last week, BSI 10.0 was talked about at great length during the seminar with many having struggles to get it up and running. Sources of information about installation and configuration are available at the SAP Community Network:

• A very timely series of blog posts have been released by Matt Fraser about installation tips and tricks.
• Hemanth Jamithi provides an overview to using the new BSI interface with screen shots to help you familiarize yourself with the program.
• Finally, the BSI Tax Factory 10.0 forum thread covers many struggles and resolutions people have been finding during installation and configuration.

Tip: If you are having difficulties with reciprocity, maintaining table V_T5UX9_COUWH may be what you’ve been looking for.

A second area we discussed heavily during the payroll seminar was streamlining and automation of processes:

• Payroll process models can provide a significant amount of automation that follows the step-by-step manual process.
  • Stop points can be placed at strategic points to allow validity of data and then started up again.
  • Simulations, reports, and custom programs can be added easily.
  • The flexibility when developing process models is great, and in the end will reduce how often someone needs to check whether the next payroll step needs to be started.
• If you aren’t ready to make the jump to payroll process models for regular payroll, the creation of an area menu keeps focus on the step-by-step process.
  • The area menu is just like the SAP menu, but you get to define what transactions are seen.
  • Put your step-by-step manual process in an area menu and the transactions you have it point to can pull in program variants automatically. This takes away the need for the user to enter the selection screen parameters or search for the correct variant.

Tip: We’ve seen the area menu significantly improve the payroll process consistency from one pay period to the next, especially when a payroll department has turnover. Knowing that the process is outlined exactly as it should be run in the area menu takes guessing out of the equation.

If you missed the Philadelphia Seminar, check out ICG’s Mike Timm and his recent podcast on SAPinsider regarding FICO integration and payroll year-end. And, on November 5th, SAPinsider will host Mike Timm for a live online Q&A to discuss SAP Payroll Year-End. Make sure to join in and get your questions answered.

Do you have any questions about Philadelphia’s seminar or the areas Mike touched on in this blog post? Please drop us a comment or reach out to us on twitter: @MikeTimmSAP and @SAPinsiderHR. We’d love to hear from you!

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Mike Timm, founder and managing partner of Integrated Consulting Group, joins SAPinsider for an HR Connections HR Connections – Mike Timm on Year-End Payroll and FI/CO Integration. Topics of this conversation include:

• The Tax Factory BSI 10.0 upgrade and end-of-support for 9.0
• Streamlining of payroll processes by creating a process model
• Custom area menu use
• Considerations for integrating SAP Payroll with FICO

For more EOY payroll tips, follow Mike’s Q&A with readers here.

Below is an edited transcript of the conversation:

Ken Murphy,SAPinsider: Hi, this is Ken Murphy with SAPinsider, and welcome to another installment of HR Connections, which is an SAPinsider podcast series which focuses on current developments and trends in the HR space. Today, I’m pleased to be joined by Mike Timm, the founder and managing partner of Integrated Consulting Group, and an SAP Certified consultant. Mike, thanks for joining us today.

Mike Timm, Integrated Consulting Group: Ken, thank you, I appreciate it.

Ken: So as we head into October, we’re catching up with you at a pretty busy time, you’re one of the featured speakers at the upcoming SAPinsider Optimize Payroll in SAP seminar, which is kicking off October 6 in Philadelphia, and you’ll also be taking part in a live Q&A with SAPinsider on November 5, with questions from readers about end-of-year payroll. So, a lot of things on the horizon.

Mike: Yeah, that’s right. I’m really looking forward to all of it; I think the seminars that are coming up, starting in Philadelphia and then Chicago and Las Vegas this fall will be very helpful, lots of information from the speakers that are going to be giving out very helpful stuff. The Q&A I’m looking forward to, because I know by November 5 we should all be looking at the year-end support pack and some other items that we need to put in place for our tax reporting going into January, 2015.

Ken: So, let’s start with the payroll seminars, you’re going to be leading and moderating several sessions, one of which is focusing on the process and technical questions concerning integrating SAP Payroll with financial accounting and controlling. Can you address some of the key process alignment considerations, when integrating SAP Payroll with FICO?

Mike: Payroll and FICO, there’s some very tight integration there. If you’re new to SAP, or if you’ve been working with it and you’re going to be implementing payroll, you’ll find that there’s a lot of dependencies there that finance has to set up or costing has to set up to make sure that those are available and open for payroll to use and to process properly and without errors. I find that a lot of times this integration is very new to folks, the discussions that need to be had and the deep understanding on both sides of what’s going on, what wage types are in SAP, which they actually mean, what they’re used for, and how that’s going to flow over to finance can sometimes be a little bit difficult to grasp. We do always want to make sure that both groups are involved, that there’s a good line of communication between the two, and that we can make sure that our end products, so on payroll, we send that data over to finance, we want to make sure finance knows what the data is and what it’s, what it should be used for.

We also have some other areas like accounts payable, which a lot of times is underutilized or not utilized by companies that I think would be very beneficial, it’s very powerful, very flexible, and the configuration isn’t all that difficult, and with the third-party remittance, that would allow us to take deductions, to United Way or something similar, and pass that over to accounts payable, and then get it paid out very easily. Things like garnishments and deductions for benefits and those types of things are also included in accounts payable, and allows for a lot of auditing and a very streamlined process when we put it in place.

And then the other, the third area I guess that doesn’t get utilized probably as much as it should is month-end accrual, with SAP, there are several settings that you can put in SAP that would allow you to automatically create a month-end accrual, and it can be based on estimates or actual, and a lot of times that’s not fully understood, and a scenario that I think would be very helpful to most companies.

Ken: Circle back to the accounts payable and third-party remittance, why is that under-utilized, and maybe you could just touch on one or two of the key benefits for organizations that do decide to use that functionality?

Mike: Yeah, the third-party remittance I think isn’t always fully understood, what exactly is happening there and how that can be used to help streamline or automate the process to go over to accounts payable. I think one of the other things too, especially if you’re, if a company is coming from a non-SAP payroll and the accounts payable systems, that integration was never in place, and so payroll always had their paper forms or their electronic extracts that they would go through, they would audit those, and then they would send that over to accounts payable using either paper forms or interfaces, and I think that once the integration is understood and seeing how it can work, and it can be a very simple thing to put in place overall, compared to a lot of areas in the payroll area, module area. And that understanding of how that works, and hey, now when we push the button we’re going to create a posting document and that posting document would get sent over to third-party rents or accounts payable, there are steps in there where you can stop the process and audit it at that point in time so, before payroll sends anything over to accounts payable, they can still look at it and audit it, accounts payable can look at it and then say ok, we’re good, we can release it. Or you can automate that so it just goes right on over to accounts payable and works really well.

Ken: Of course, you’ll also be focusing on end-of-year payroll in your live Q&A with us, which again is on November 5, since we’re now already—hard to believe—turning the calendar into October here, but I’m just wondering what changes or concerns are you advising companies to pay attention to as they head into year-end?

Mike: Well the, there’s a couple things that are good to look out for, and hopefully most companies if they haven’t started are starting very soon to look at their year-end process, what they need to put in place, what types of activities need to occur, such as clearing of claims, those types of items, that need to happen and have a schedule for the remainder of the year and then also into January when they need to start generating their tax forms.

One of the big changes that is coming through is that BSI 9 will no longer be supported after November 30 of this year. So all the companies need to move over to BSI 10, and that process, I’ve worked with a couple companies through it now, has not been without its bumps, and so it’s one of those things where you don’t want to wait until the last minute, you have a lot of different areas involved with your Basis team, maybe technical team, depending on how—landscaping team, depending on how you have all this set up. And so you want to get an early start on that to allow everyone to go through the GUI, or the front-end that BSI uses to interact with updating things like unemployment, insurance rates, or any overrides that you’re doing, and BSI has changed and it’s no longer a Windows install, it’s Web-based, which is a lot nicer, especially if you’re not using a Windows machine but you still have to get used to it and understand how it changes, their functionality has changed slightly, I know on some of the testing tools it’s not quite as, or it took me a few times to get it quite right, it’s not the way it’s been since BSI 5 or 6, when I started, all the way to BSI 9. So that’s the big thing I think, is with BSI, needing to change over to version 10.

The other area for year-end 2014 is going to be, make sure that you’ve gone out to the SAP Support Portal, looked at the newsletter, are following through the year-end reference materials, there’s a lot of information out there and guidelines on hey, here are some of the activities you should be doing, make sure you get the schedule, there’s also the support package and the legal change pack schedule sitting out there, and so, depending on how companies want to update their systems, they might want to do a support pack up through June or July of this year, and then just do legal change packs based on countries, that way there’s less impact to the rest of HR. And so that schedule is sitting out there and should be followed.

And then SAP also will, has a section for important notes, so as things come up, as support packs or the country legal change packs need tweaking themselves, SAP will be releasing SAP Notes, and those Notes will be put out there under this important section and so they’re very visible, you can easily see what’s needed, what’s going on, what the schedule is, if there’s any type of legislation that comes in towards year-end that might impact us, SAP is putting that out there and giving estimates on when things might be available, or when things should be available from them, so we can schedule our activities to make sure we get those put in in a timely manner, but at the same time we’ve gone through the testing process, we’ve, our Basis team understands that these things are coming through, other areas that might be impacted as well.

Ken: And Mike, you also focus separately on streamlining payroll processes in your payroll sessions, can you share a tip or two with us today that you’ll be sharing at the seminar?

Mike:  There’s actually a couple to streamline, the payroll process, as anyone that’s been running it—can be, it’s a very manual process, and there’s several steps, and in those steps you have break points where you want to go do things so you might run payroll and then we want to audit payroll, once we’re done, make a few adjustments to some employees, we re-run payroll and we go in and we post to accounting and we run third-party remittance and interfaces in these types of things and to do all that, you know, everybody, or typically everybody will have their business process script and be able to follow that through. One way to help automate that is to use process models, so for our regular payroll, we can actually tell, like kick off payroll, we can go in and start that process model, we have a lot of employees, might be something we do late in the evening and then it runs overnight, and then we can have it stop. And so the process model stops, that allows us to go in and do our audits, once everyone’s happy with the audits and the adjustments that are made, we can start the process model back up, and so it will actually take care of all the steps along the line.

And one of the other things with the process that’s nice is we can run things in simulation mode or production mode, so we can run a simulation payroll after, or I’m sorry, a simulation posting to accounting, or a simulation third-party remittance, after our payroll is done so we can go in and audit that, and then we can say ok, this looks good, now let’s go ahead and do the production run. And so that helps automate, there are still some places in there where you can step through and put break points and help your process.

The second area that I think is very useful, especially if we don’t want to use process models, is using a custom area menu, and custom area menus are something that’s done through configuration, you can use custom area menus to call programs, so the same programs that you use, so there’s no customization from a program standpoint. And it would, you can outline exactly here, step-by-step, here’s where we go, you can give it different descriptions so you can say step one, step two, step three, in there and that makes it very, very simple for an end user to go through and they no longer have to go through the SAP menus.

One of the other nice things with their menus is if you create a custom transaction code, so for payroll, we don’t use the standard transaction code, we use a custom one, we can tell it to call a specific variant. And so the area menu, we’d go in the area menu, we’d see the line we want or the transaction we want, we hit on that, and then it would open up like rp-calc, which is in the payroll program, and it would have a specific variant that we want to use. And then the user doesn’t even have to go in and select variants or incorrectly select one, and you can set this up to be done you know, across and even outside of payroll, but I found it very useful, especially if you had situations where you have high turnover in your payroll department, or you just need the consistency, the employees or the users that you have, you don’t want to have to go through and think about which transaction is which, which variant it is, and so those can be very helpful.

Ken: Well, we’ll look forward to what I’m sure will be an educational seminar coming up next week; again, the SAPinsider Optimize Payroll in SAP seminar will be on October 6 in Philadelphia. We’ve been speaking with Mike Timm, the founder and managing partner of Integrate Consulting Group and an SAP Certified consultant. And for our listeners, make sure to get your questions in for Mike with questions about year-end payroll for our live Q&A with SAPinsider, which is going to be on November 5. Mike, thank you for your time today.

Mike: Ken, thank you, I really appreciate the opportunity.

During the month of September, we talked a lot about getting the most out of your seminar experience. This week, we will talk about how to use social media during a seminar and how it can improve your seminar experience.

For starters, social media has become a great way to share the notes you take during presentations. If you don’t have a twitter set up yet, take some time before attending the seminar to do so. Familiarize yourself with the site so that you are comfortable using it before the seminar begins.

Still on the fence about social media? Let’s take a look at why it’s so important for your seminar experience. Social media is also a good way to:

Participate. Did you like a particular comment that a presenter made? Tweet it. Maybe you took a picture with someone of interest: tweet that too. Share what you think of a particular speaker, the venue, the schedule, or a discussion panel. Did someone tweet out a tip that you’d never thought of? Retweet it.

Network. There isn’t a better way to find like-minded people who can help you learn about different topics that will better your understanding and therefore, your business. You will make connections, and even if the new friends you make live hundreds of miles away, you can still see what they are talking about and keep track of trends.

Ask questions. Some seminars don’t have Q&A sessions after a presentation, so many questions that attendees want to ask go unanswered. Most seminars have hashtags so that attendees can tweet their questions; this way, speakers, other attendees, and experts can weigh in on your questions.

Get the most out of your seminar. As much as you can try to plan out your seminar, as to who you will see present or what topics you want to learn about, chances are there will be multiple presentations at the same time that peak your interest. With social media, you can share your notes on a presentation and also see what others are saying about presentations you are unable to attend. You pick up information from sessions you couldn’t attend, and see what sparked discussions.

Remember, on October 6-8 a seminar will be held in Philadelphia for optimizing payroll in SAP. Keep up with us before, during, and after the seminar by following us on twitter: @MikeTimmSAP and @SAPinsiderHR. Also, search for the hashtag “payrollseminar” to see what others are saying about the seminar.

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photo credit: Ed Yourdon via photopin cc