Tag: payroll seminar

  • Mike Timm of Integrated Consulting Group to present at HR Payroll Seminar

    Omaha, Nebraska – 08/29/2018 – Mike Timm of Integrated Consulting Group is proud to announce that he will be presenting at the upcoming SAPinsider HR Payroll Seminar to offer proven advice to attendees. The event takes place November 7-8 in Chicago and November 27-28 in Orlando. This year’s must-attend event is packed with lectures, demonstrations, and interactive discussions all led by top HR experts.

    HR Payroll Seminar, produced by SAPinsider, the only event for organizations running SAP payroll who are looking to achieve greater control over payroll-related costs and resources while evaluating or preparing their payroll transition to the cloud.

    View the full agenda as well as receive a special discount by visiting: www.hrpayrollseminar.com/MikeTimm

    Contact:
    James Butler
    Business Development
    Integrated Consulting Group LLC
    jim@integratedcg.com

    About Integrated Consulting Group
    ICG’s solutions are designed to help companies of all sizes and in a broad range of industries address a diverse scope of business needs. Our team has led implementation projects in a variety of industries including professional services, manufacturing, media, high-tech, natural resources, and construction.

    ICG professionals are experienced in all aspects of executing SAP HCM operational support. In addition to project planning and management, our services include project application design and execution. ICG’s expertise also includes process engineering and management, change management, support personnel coaching, and end-user training to minimize downtime and maximize productivity for SAP users.

    For more information, please visit www.IntegratedCG.com or call +1-866-417-0071.

    About SAPinsider
    SAPinsider, published by Wellesley Information Services, is the premier source of information on products, services, and strategic initiatives coming from SAP and its partners. More than 225,000 customers in 70 countries rely annually on education and training materials from Wellesley Information Services to optimize their investments in SAP solutions. Wellesley Information Services is the publisher of SAPinsider, and is the producer of SAPinsider conferences and seminars. For more information, visit www.SAPinsiderOnline.com.

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  • HR Connections – Mike Timm on Year-End Payroll

    Ken Murphy, SAPinsider: Hi this is Ken Murphy with SAPinsider, and welcome to another installment of HR Connections, an SAPinsider HR Connections – Mike Timm on Year-End Payroll series focusing on the current developments and trends in the HR space. Today, I’m pleased to welcome back Mike Timm, founder and Managing Partner of Integrated Consulting Group and an SAP certified consultant. Mike thanks for joining us today.

    Mike Timm, Integrated Consulting: Thanks for having me. The timing is really good since we’re getting close to year-end, there’s a few things to talk about related to that especially toward the Payroll piece of it. I’m looking forward to this.

    Ken: As you mentioned we’re getting toward the end of the year and that would be a great place to start is year-end Payroll in SAP. I’m hoping you can address the changes and concerns and what you’re advising companies to be on the lookout for as they prepare for year-end.

    Mike: There are three main areas I think people will find of interest. The first one is just regular HR support packs, and also the country legal changes (CLCs). My advice typically when I work with different companies, or like last year I did a seminar through SAPinsider where we talked a lot about payroll, and SAP generally toward the end of May, beginning of June will release an HR support pack that’s synchronization so it gets you all caught up. And then with that in place – you do that in the summer when it’s not very busy hopefully – and then in the fall, around October sometimes early November depending on the amount of legislation being passed that impacts payroll there’s usually a CLC and we want to put that in place to get all of the final last-minute type of year-end items in place. One of the things that happened this year was if you’re on the latest version of SAP HR, so if you’re on 6.08 SAP changed that a little they actually have the synchronization support pack that came out instead of a CLC so I know I was contacted by one colleague who was at the seminar we did last year and that was an issue for them because they were expecting a CLC and it ended up being a support pack. So there’s more testing and more thought that has to go into the process of putting it in, more impact to other areas. So that’s something to keep in mind.

    The second area is the Affordable Care Act, there are several notes that have been put out, and I think a lot of companies I’ve been talking to are trying to figure out how to get all of this in place, some have talked to third parties to ask about outsourcing bits and pieces of it, and even there the roadblocks I’ve been hearing is that everybody is kind of scrambling. Luckily, I think that SAP’s approach is really pretty good, they’re rolling out the functionality as fast as they can in a way that it will actually work so we’re not just dumping stuff out there. And there’s quite a few SAP notes related to that that I think will be very helpful for people to look into:

    The first one is the overall Affordable Care Act note which is 2167502. That’s a good place to start, it will give you an idea of what SAP’s roadmap is and what they’re planning and then it will also reference any new notes that come up over the next few months to enhance the functionality they’re putting out.

    On Sept. 10 there was a CLC released, and that one has a decent amount of functionality and there are also four additional notes that are going to be needed to provide updates to even that functionality. Three of those have been released, those are 2211233, 2211234, 2211235 – those are the first three, with the last of those released on Oct. 12. There is another one going to be released on Nov. 16 that everybody should keep an eye out for which will put some additional functionality in place and kind of tie up some of the loose ends, and I think SAP is actually going to have a demonstration of that if you want to take a look and demo it. That note is 2211236. According to what SAP has said so far that should be the end of the notes that they’re going to release unless there’s some type of issues, so you should have all the core functionality available to put in place at that point.

    And then the third area I think people will find interesting is the changing functionality that SAP is putting around the BSI module. We have three notes there that are of interest. The first one is SAP note 1836745, and that one interests me quite a bit because it’s new functionality that will allow us to prioritize additional withholdings that we put in infotype 210 with other deductions. In the past we weren’t able to do that. You put additional withholdings in and that was tax prioritization, and now we have to go in and say we want tax a higher priority or lower priority than other deductions, so that’s nice new functionality. Another one is SAP Note 2193769 and that one allows us to add a message telling us when we run payroll that BSI and SAP are out of synch and so we have the synchronization tool now for SAP and BSI to make sure all the updates are applied appropriately in their right systems, and this note will give us a message telling us we’re out of synch so that way we know something wasn’t applied right. It works great for when you do testing and things like that all the way through but then in production if you run a payroll simulation you can see if that message is out there or not because you know synchronization was supposed to take place over the weekend, and now you can feel comfortable that it actually happened. Or at least you’re not out of synch. And then the third note that everybody needs to pay attention to and this is more of a required one is SAP Note 2219445. The reason everyone needs to pay attention to this one is in March, 2016, SAP and BSI are going to drop support for their current RFC call, so that’s the communication method between your SAP and BSI systems, so you’re going to have to go to a new RFC method and so these things always take a little bit of time and we want to make sure our technical team understands what they need to do and get all that in place and get it well tested so we don’t have any hiccups when we come to March and April next year.

    Otherwise the year-end items seem so far where I’ve done the updates and things, seem like they’re going smoothly for most companies. The ACA and these BSI changes are probably the items that people are looking at the closest to see how it impacts them.

    Ken:  In addition are there any surprises you’re encountering that people should be aware of?

    Mike: So far I haven’t. We’ve applied the different support packs at some locations; at other locations do their CLC’s, I haven’t worked on a project or I’m not working with a client that is currently on 6.08 so I haven’t had to deal with that difference in methodology or difference in what needs to be applied. But based on the other systems, the updates have gone smoothly  we haven’t impacted existing functionality, everything seems to be working OK nothing has jumped out telling me that there’s some kind of code type issue where I’ve seen the same type of issue multiple places. So it’s actually gone very smoothly and I hope everybody else is kind of seeing that so they can focus on the Affordable Care Act notes because I know that is going to take a lot more time and effort than hopefully just the regular updates do.

    Ken: Mike, last time we spoke you focused a lot on the SAP Payroll Control Center because there had been some new functionality in the HR Renewal 2.0 feature pack 3 release – I’m curious since then how has this been received by customers you’re working with and maybe address the adoption curve since we last spoke?

    Mike: Actually the Payroll Control Center is gaining more and more interest. The more places, companies, and individuals I talk to the more I hear about how interested they are in the Payroll Control Center because of what SAP is marketing it as but also if they’ve seen a demo which has bene available at a few different events and also online by SAP, there’s a lot you can do with it, there’s a lot that SAP is delivering it’s not a shell if we go back to when it was originally announced it looked more like kind of a shell where we’re going to have to write a lot of our own custom ABAP code and reports behind the scenes. But SAP is actually delivering a lot of items that currently is in a checklist that I work with companies and we want to make sure all these different things are in order.

    One of the other areas a lot of folks are interested in is as we run the payroll process and we run into issues, if we have 20-25 employees that error out in payroll those can be divvied out by a payroll manager or an admin person and can be divvied out – so if five of them are garnishment related they’ll send it over to the person who handles garnishment. Or if we just need to spread the workload we can give it out to different people and then we can see a status update on where that fix is, or what needs to happen to get that person to run through successfully. And I think that was an area I haven’t spent a whole lot of time on myself looking at in the past and it wasn’t an area I had many questions on, but as I started looking into it and started talking to others about that functionality what really kind of struck was that we’d love to know where the issues are and where they’re going to be before we run payroll. And then get those pushed out to the right people.

    From an adoption standpoint, there hasn’t been a lot of implementation that I’ve seen so far. That being said there are a lot of people saying next year because you have to be at a certain level of SAP to get to it and most of them will be getting there in 2016. And so I think once they have that in place they’ll start looking at the Payroll Control Center in a lot more depth or at least starting to play around with it in their test environments to see what they think. There are some technical aspects that have to go with it, with declusterization and some of those items. I wish it had been around 5-10 years ago I think it would have been really nice to have.

    Ken: Shifting gears a little Mike, I know I don’t have to tell you that SAP is all-in on the cloud. I’m curious how that relates for customers who have an on-premise payroll system and the integration points with SuccessFactors and moving to the cloud. What are you advising customers as far as how to handle that as it relates to the SAP roadmap?

    Mike: It’s a very interesting area and exactly how to approach it, every company is slightly different. Some are more comfortable moving things to the cloud and others I’m working with have no interest to go to the cloud or because they have government contracts and some of those things they’re still trying to figure out how that will work out for them to move to the cloud and what they have to be careful about. From the standpoint of where SAP is, they’ve drawn out the roadmap and by 2025 they want to have customers on the cloud and they will have some availability so you can keep running some functionality of SAP on-premise after that point, it’s not something their marketing is really using as a sales pitch because they want everybody to move over. I do think that the cloud has some benefits from the standpoint that you get updates and those types of things on a quarterly basis instead of a lot of times companies will update once a year with support packs and then a CLC like I was talking about earlier with year-end, so you don’t get all the new functionality coming through as often. We do have ways though with SAP and I think they’ve done a good job with this where you don’t have to pull out your existing on-premise installation. You can still continue to use that and then start to basically dip your toe, start getting an understanding of how SuccessFactors works. There’s a company here in town where I live, a utility district that has done a very good of this where they had on-premise and spent all the money putting it in and the way they work with their information is they want to keep it on-premise for the foreseeable future but they saw some of the benefits of SuccessFactors modules where they could pick and choose – compensation and talent management they picked up to go through SuccessFactors and then that all backs in and now that they’ve done that they’re kind of comfortable with how it works and what it requires and they’re looking at other modules. But I think from a payroll standpoint since that’s where I keep my eye closer –  I think that will be one of the last things if not the last thing that they move off down the road. I think they’ll move all the other functionality (first). So over the next few years pick up Employee Central and we’ll keep the on-premise payroll system and then we’ll eventually go over with that as well. But I think that SAP has done a very good job of allowing a hybrid method so that we can pick and choose to a fair degree of what we want to put in place and what we don’t, and then using the on-premise back-end system. I also know there’s a lot of functionality that depending on the company if they use time evaluation and time management to a great deal on-premise most of that doesn’t exist yet with SuccessFactors and I know they’re working on some of that to a degree but a lot of it SAP goes to a third-party and builds some of that in and people don’t want to do that quite yet. So there’s a lot of things to look at when you look at SuccessFactors, the front end is very neat compared to the aging SAP GUI but from a functionality standpoint you really have to pick and choose what area is going to benefit your company. And I think going slow is the way to do it. There’s still plenty of time before 2025 and we can slowly move bits and pieces over until we’re comfortable making that total jump.

    One of the other areas I’ve been hearing a little bit more about lately is SAP S/4HANA because there is not an upgrade path for the HR area to that and so folks see finance, production and everyone else wanting to move to S/4HANA – what does that mean for HR? And depending on how your SAP landscape is now if you’re one of the lucky ones where your HR system, payroll system resides on its own set of boxes and you’re currently using ALE you’re set you don’t have to change anything. Finance and everybody else can upgrade, you just have to point the ALE and the IDOCS to a different partner so it’s actually pretty simple. If you’re on the same system you’re going to have to go through the process of breaking it apart basically so everybody else can go up to S/4HANA and then you would retain that ECC 6.0 version of SAP that you’re running to continue doing HR and Payroll. It’s not terribly difficult but there are some technical things and SAP will be pretty good especially if you talk to them early on about helping you through that process because they want to start getting customers moved to S/4HANA as soon as possible so they can get some testimonials and things.

    Ken: Mike I appreciate your joining us today to share your insights.

    Mike: Thank you I appreciate it very much and I hope the SAP notes I threw out earlier will come in handy to some folks at least as a starting point to start looking at some things if they haven’t heard about the new functionality or changing functionality yet.

    Ken: Again this is Ken Murphy with SAPinsider, this is HR Connections and we’ve been chatting with Mike Timm, founder and managing partner of Integrated Consulting Group. Mike thanks again.

    Mike: Appreciate it.04

  • Streamline Year-End Payroll and Processes: Q&A with SAP Payroll Expert Mike Timm

    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!

  • Optimizing Payroll in SAP: Day 3

    Here’s a view of the sessions Mike Timm will be presenting tomorrow, Day 3 of Optimizing Payroll in SAP.

    Optimizing-Payroll-in-SAP_logo

     

     

     

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

    Mike Timm, Integrated Consulting Group

    This session tackles some of the most common payroll challenges and provides essential information every payroll professional can use to overcome them and streamline payroll processes and operations. Attendees will explore common payroll issues and come away with expert tips to more efficiently troubleshoot and resolve payroll errors when they occur, including lessons to:

    • Troubleshoot process models and properly reactivate them after an error, including whether and how to use enabling SAP tools
    • Manage common challenges associated with mergers and acquisitions (M&A) and get tips to accelerate the acceptance of a new payroll system
    • Overcome technical complexities associated with setting up and customizing schemas and rules
    • Leverage CATS and the time schema to more easily process complex time rules and avoid time-related discrepancies
    • Assess potential payroll data issues by running Tax Reporter in simulation mode and analyzing the error log
    • Identify the object master data, configuration, or systemic issue causing the payroll error, and determine the best approach for resolution

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    photo credit: Wellesley Information Services, LLC via payrollseminar.wispubs.com

  • Optimizing Payroll in SAP: Day 2

    Here’s a view of the sessions Mike Timm will be presenting tomorrow, Day 2 of Optimizing Payroll in SAP.

    Optimizing-Payroll-in-SAP_logo

     

     

     

    This session provides configuration best practices, 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 come away with:
      • The best ways to optimize data flows and troubleshoot common errors
      • Payroll interface design techniques that help drive streamlined integration
      • Tips to reverse postings between payroll and accounting and set up a company transfer clearing account, and post taxes by tax authority
      • Configuration best practices to streamline third-party payment processing
    • Understand what’s required to process benefits in conjunction with payroll in SAP ERP HCM, including insight into:
      • Configuration and integration guidelines, including an overview of benefits wage types
      • Infotype dates and payroll schema for determining deduction start, end, and proration
      • How to handle health plans, insurance plans, and savings plans
      • Where payroll and benefits functionalities overlap in SAP ERP HCM

     

    Mike Timm, Integrated Consulting Group

    This session examines information and 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 this session, you will:

    • Master tax configuration in SAP ERP HCM, including key tax models, types, and combinations
    • Obtain lessons to avoid potentially costly pitfalls associated with wage types and tax models, such as tweaking the existing model for deferred compensation
    • 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
    • Get expert recommendations for managing and tracking BSI Tax Update Bulletin (TUBs), including how often you should install them and how to identify TUBs gaps
    • Examine the steps required to update to and properly leverage BSI TaxFactory 10.0, including an overview of new and enhanced functions in the latest version

     

    Mike Timm, Integrated Consulting Group

    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:

    • Get guidelines to reconcile claims from a user, functional, and technical perspective, including the impact of IRS regulations related to claim processing and the different taxing rules that apply
    • Learn how to configure wage types to support claims forgiveness, repayment, and deduction recovery, including tips for dealing with claims that continue from one year to another
    • Understand how to manage the impact of overpayment recovery on taxes
    • Avoid common pitfalls associated with posting retroactive calculations and month-end accruals and learn how to automate month-end accruals and cost center overwrites
    • Get lessons to ensure the accuracy of garnishment configuration and administration, including tips to manage effective dates of garnishments and reports to track and monitor their activity

     

    All speakers

    In this no-holds-barred panel discussion, you set the agenda! Bring your most pressing questions around payroll, time, taxes, and more and get candid answers, recommendations, and advice from all three expert speakers based on their own experiences with clients. Don’t miss this unique opportunity to get your most critical questions answered by some of the world’s foremost authorities in SAP payroll.

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    photo credit: Wellesley Information Services, LLC via payrollseminar.wispubs.com

  • Optimizing Payroll in SAP: Day 1

    Here’s a view of the session Mike Timm will be presenting tomorrow, Day 1 of Optimizing Payroll in SAP.

    Optimizing-Payroll-in-SAP_logo

     The 10 most critical factors that impact the accuracy and efficiency of SAP payroll

    When it comes to configuring, processing, and administering payroll, small details can have big ramifications. This session delves into the most critical business, strategy, and technical topics every payroll professional must weigh carefully in order to avoid unnecessary costs and maximize efficiency. By attending this session, attendees will:

    • Examine the role and impact of:
      1. Data integrity
      2. Integration
      3. Configuration and customization
      4. HRSP and legal changes
      5. Unit and parallel testing
      6. Time management
      7. Tax reporting and auditing
      8. Troubleshooting
      9. Year-end processing
      10. Overpayments and claims
    • Gain insight into the time, effort, and cost associated with each item, its impact on overall ROI, and where it falls within the overall payroll process

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    photo credit: Wellesley Information Services, LLC via payrollseminar.wispubs.com

  • How Social Media Can Enhance Your Seminar Experience

    smartphoneDuring 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

  • Optimizing Payroll in SAP

    Optimizing-Payroll-in-SAP_logo

    We are pleased to announce our participation in SAPinsider’s Optimizing Payroll in SAP, the preeminent seminar for HR, payroll, and time specialists seeking to derive maximum value and efficiency from existing SAP® ERP HCM payroll systems.

    SAPinsider and ICG are bringing this brand new event to these three cities:

    Philadelphia, October 6-8
    Chicago, November 17-19
    Las Vegas, December 8-10

    Optimizing Payroll in SAP provides proven techniques guaranteed to drive significant results. The expert speakers will draw from a combined 50+ years of experience working with leading SAP customers, and detail the strategies and best practices that have been most effective at:

    • Achieving greater control over payroll-related costs
    • Reducing the complexity of FI/CO integration
    • Ensuring accurate and timely processing of year-end payroll
    • Streamlining global payroll administration
    • Centralizing and automating payroll and time entries
    • Streamlining annual system maintenance
    • Increasing the consistency and accuracy of payroll runs
    • Ensuring compliance with tax regulations and report requirements

    Join us in one of these cities for process-improving methodologies and time-saving tips that can be put to immediate use back at the office.

  • SAPinsider and ICG announce the brand new seminar, Optimizing Payroll in SAP

    Omaha, Nebraska – August 13, 2014 – SAPinsider and ICG announced the launching of Optimizing Payroll in SAP, the preeminent seminar for HR, payroll, and time specialists seeking to derive maximum value and efficiency from existing SAP® ERP HCM payroll systems.

    We are bringing this brand new event to these three cities this fall:

    Philadelphia, October 6-8, 2014
    Chicago, November 17-19, 2014
    Las Vegas, December 8-10, 2014

    Optimizing Payroll in SAP provides proven techniques guaranteed to drive significant results. The expert speakers will draw from a combined 50+ years of experience working with leading SAP customers, and detail the strategies and best practices to help you:

    • Achieve greater control over payroll-related costs and resources
    • Ensure compliance with tax regulations and audit requirements
    • Reduce the complexity of FI/CO integration
    • Avoid the challenges of global payroll
    • Master time management and its integration with payroll
    • Manage claims, garnishments, and month-end accruals with ease
    • Process year-end payroll accurately and on time
    • Streamline annual maintenance with tips for managing HRSPs and CLCs

    Join SAPinsider and ICG in one of the cities for process-improving methodologies and time-saving tips that can be put to immediate use back at the office. You can get full details on the agenda by visiting www.payrollseminar.com or by calling +1-781-751-8700.

    Contact:
    Jonathan Kent
    Vice President of Marketing
    Wellesley Information Services, publisher of SAPinsider
    Jon.Kent@wispubs.com

    About SAPinsider
    SAPinsider, published by Wellesley Information Services, is the premier source of information on products, services, and strategic initiatives coming from SAP and its partners. More than 250,000 customers in 70 countries rely annually on education and training materials from Wellesley Information Services to optimize their investments in SAP solutions. Wellesley Information Services is the publisher of SAPinsider, insiderPROFILES, and the SAPexperts knowledgebases, and is the producer of SAPinsider conferences and seminars. For more information, visit www.SAPinsiderOnline.com.

    SAP is a registered trademark of SAP SE in Germany and several other countries. Wellesley Information Services is not affiliated with SAP SE or any of the SAP SE group of companies.

    SAP and other SAP products and services mentioned herein as well as their respective logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of SAP SE (or an SAP affiliate company) in Germany and other countries.

    All other product and service names mentioned are the trademarks of their respective companies.

    About ICG
    ICG’s solutions are designed to help companies of all sizes and in a broad range of industries address a diverse scope of business needs. Our team has led implementation projects in a variety of industries including professional services, manufacturing, media, high-tech, natural resources, and construction service sector.

    Our team of professionals is experienced in all aspects of executing SAP HCM operational support. In addition to project planning and management, our services include project application design and execution. ICG’s expertise also includes process engineering and management, change management, support personnel coaching, and end-user training to minimize downtime and maximize productivity for SAP users.

    For more information, please visit www.IntegratedCG.com or call +1-866-417-0071.