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Earning Code Attributes

The A&M System’s master list of earning codes assigns and documents the values assigned to each earning code from the following taxonomy.

Earning Families

Each earning code is assigned to an earning family.  An earning family is a group of earning codes that have similar characteristics.  Following are the A&M System earning families:

1. Regular Pay

Regular pay is compensation for normal job duties and can be paid at an hourly rate or at a salaried monthly rate.

2. Overtime Pay

Overtime pay is compensation for normal job duties and for employees who are classified as non-exempt and paid hourly.

3. Allowances

Allowances are funds paid, one time or on regular intervals, for a specific purpose.  These are usually paid as part of a total compensation package and are disbursed to the employee through the payroll system.  These payments are not directly proportional to hours worked or an employee’s monthly percent effort.

Examples include:

  • Cell Phone Allowance
  • Housing Allowance
  • Relocation Allowance

Allowances are not tied to hours or effort and are not reported on FTE reports or included in Institutional Base Salary (IBS).

4. Emoluments

Emoluments are cash or non-cash gain from position or employment.  Emoluments are a taxable event to the employee and are therefore recorded in the payroll system.

The difference between allowances and emoluments within the A&M System are:

  • Allowances are paid/disbursed and taxed through the payroll system.
  • Emoluments are paid outside of the payroll system, but the payroll system is used to assess and collect taxes on the compensation.

5. County Funds

County funds are special emoluments that are used by the Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service to document and record payments to County Agents made by the Texas County.  Many county agents are paid some of their compensation directly by the counties.

The A&M System and Workday treat these as a special emoluments.  Special handling is in place on these emoluments since the Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service is responsible to pay retirement and insurance benefits on these emoluments.

6. One-time Merit Payments

One-time merit or lump sum merit payments are one-time payments made to employees to recognize employee performance or accomplishments.  Merit based salary/hourly rate increases applied to regular pay will be reported with regular pay.

7. Awards

Awards are one-time payments made to employees and not subject to the A&M System policy on merit payments.

8. Entitlements

Entitlements are compensation, paid to the employee, based on statutory requirements not directly tied to effort.  Currently, longevity is the sole entitlement used by the A&M System.

9. Lump Sum Payouts

Lump sum payouts are payments to employees based on some sort of accumulated benefit or unpaid compensation.  Examples include:

  • Lump sum vacation payouts
  • Payment of sick leave to diseased employee’s estate

10. Stipends

Stipends are a fixed sum of money paid periodically to cover expenses or in recognition of additional job duties.

11. Uplifts

Uplifts are increases to the employee’s regular rate of pay in recognition of special circumstances.  Examples include:

  • Shift differential
  • Expatriate work subject to different taxes
  • Hazard Duty Pay

12. Additional Pay

Additional Pay is compensation for services that are (at least) one of the following: temporary, beyond the scope of the employee’s position restriction, targeted to a specific job profile or position type, or related to a second position.

Object Codes

Earning codes map to FAMIS object codes.  Earning codes for regular pay, overtime, and one-time merit payments have a complex mapping based on items such as the employee’s faculty/non-faculty status and title.  Most other earning codes map to a single object code.

Workday FIT Withholding Rate

Earning codes in Workday impact the amount of Federal Income Tax withheld.  The possible values are:

  • Supplemental – 22%: – Federal income tax is withheld at the supplemental rate
  • W-4: Federal income tax is withheld at the employee’s W-4 rate
  • No FIT: No federal income tax is withheld

Workday Assess & Withhold Retirement

Earning codes may or may not be subject to retirement contributions.  For example, base pay is subject to retirement holdings, but employee relocation allowances are not.  Each earning code in Workday is configured as specified in this spreadsheet:  Possible values are:

  • Yes
  • No

TRS Creditable

Each earning code is marked Yes or No, as to whether the earnings must be reported to TRS.  This attribute is used during the A&M System integration to TRS TEAM.

See the following link for more information:  https://www.trs.texas.gov/Pages/re_creditable_compensation.aspx

Include on FTE Report

Each earning code is marked Yes or No, as to whether the pay and effort is reported on the State Auditor FTE report.  At this time, this data element is used exclusively in the enterprise data warehouse application.

Include for Time and Effort – IBS

Each earning code is marked Yes or No, as to whether the payroll expense is part of Institutional Base Pay (IBS) and sent to the Time and Effort system.  The definition of IBS follows:

IBS as defined by the A&M System:

Institutional Base Pay (IBS) is the total guaranteed annual compensation an Individual receives from a TAMUS institution or agency, whether the individual’s time is spent on research, teaching, patient care or other activities.

Other institutions have a more in depth definition of IBS.  For example IBS defined by the University of Buffalo:

Institutional Base Salary (IBS) is the annual salary paid to an individual for performance of all professional obligations required by the individual’s primary UB appointment. These professional obligations may include research, teaching, administrative functions, and/or other service activities and are generally identified in the individual’s appointment or reappointment letter. Unless otherwise specified, the annual salary stated in the appointment or reappointment letter fully compensates the individual for all professional obligations required by his/her primary UB appointment. IBS excludes any income that an individual is permitted to earn outside of duties performed as part his/her primary UB appointment.

IBS is set prospectively either for an indefinite period or for a specified term. IBS may not be increased or decreased based on availability of salary support from sponsored agreements or other revenue sources.

FAMIS – Payroll History Compute Hours

If marked Yes, the integration with Workday that builds the FAMIS payroll history data set, will attempt to allocate hours worked to this earning code (if hours are available).

FAMIS – SGIP (GIP)

FAMIS uses this element to control the allocation of the employer group insurance premium (GIP) to the set of appropriate earning codes.  GIP is often referred to as SGIP – since it often funded by the State of Texas.  Typically, the GIP is charged to earning codes that are in the regular pay earning family.  By attaching GIP charges to these earning codes, it also ensures that GIP is allocated to accounts in proportion to the regular pay.

Possible values are:

  • Yes – This earning code (if present) will receive a proportional share of the GIP charge
  • No – This earning code will not receive a proportional share of the GIP charge

Note:  Special allocation rules are in place for the allocation of GIP in the summer months

FAMIS – Retirement

FAMIS uses this element to control the allocation of the retirement expenses (TRS or ORP) to the set of appropriate earning codes.

Possible values are:

  • Yes – This earning code (if present) will receive a proportional share of the employer retirement contribution
  • No – This earning code will not receive a proportional share of the employer retirement contribution

FAMIS – FICA

FAMIS uses this element to control the allocation of the FICA (OASI/OAHI) expenses to the set of appropriate earning codes.

Possible values are:

  • Yes – This earning code (if present) will receive a proportional share of FICA
  • No – This earning code will not receive a proportional share of FICA

FAMIS – FIT

FAMIS uses this element to control the allocation of the Federal Income Tax (FIT) to the set of appropriate earning codes.

Possible values are:

  • Yes – This earning code (if present) will receive a proportional share of FIT
  • No – This earning code will not receive a proportional share of FIT

Note:  Since FIT is an employee deduction, the allocation of FIT does not impact accounting

FAMIS – Unemployment Compensation Insurance (UCI)

A value of Yes indicates the integration with Workday that builds the FAMIS payroll history data, will attempt to allocate and assess UCI to this earning code.

FAMIS – Workers Compensation Insurance (WCI)

A value of Yes indicates the integration with Workday that builds the FAMIS payroll history data, will attempt to allocate and assess WCI to this earning code.

FAMIS – Emolument (EMOL)

A value of Yes indicates that special processing occurs.  The special processing is as follows:

  • The emolument will only be allocated FICA (OASI, OAHI) deductions
  • The emolument will be allocated FIT/SIT/LIT
    • Note: allocation of deductions does not really change accounting – it is for reporting only
  • The emolument will be assessed UCI and WCI
  • Covered earnings (for the above) will be set to the amount of the earning itself
  • The earning amount will be zeroed out (Gross Pay will be set to zero) – as the earning itself does not need to be expensed in accounting

A value of No indicates that regular benefit allocation processing occurs.

Note:  “regular benefit allocation processing” – does use other flags/attributes of the earning code.

FAMIS – Allowance

A value of Yes indicates that special processing occurs.  The special processing is as follows:

  • The allowance will only be allocated FICA (OASI, OAHI) deductions
  • The allowance will be allocated FIT/SIT/LIT
    • Note: Allocation of deductions does not really change accounting – it is for reporting only
  • The allowance will be assessed UCI and WCI
  • Covered earnings (for the above) will be set to the amount of the earning itself
  • The earning amount will be expensed in FAMIS

A value of No indicates that regular benefit allocation processing occurs.

Note:  “regular benefit allocation processing” – does use other flags/attributes of the earning code.

FAMIS – Task Payment

A value of Yes indicates that this earning code is considered a task payment.  Task Payment is a legacy reporting attribute only.

FAMIS – Longevity

A value of Yes indicates that this earning code should get an allocation of the longevity payment.

Group 100%

Group 100% is used for the assignment of source percent effort.

  • A value of No indicates that this earning code will stand alone with no grouping done in the percent effort calculation and therefore will always get 100% of whatever benefits/deductions are associated with the earning code.
  • A value of Yes groups earning codes together for dispersing benefits and deductions.
  • All value of Incremental was added after several payrolls were run after Workday HCM went live. A new grouping was needed to combine some earning codes together for the proper distribution of their associated benefits/deductions, but not have them as part of regular pay.
  • All other values will be grouped together with their like values when computing percent effort (i.e. values of Yes and Incremental).

Pay Type

FAMIS will assign this pay type to the Payroll History record.  Pay Type is a legacy value used in BPP.  Use of Pay Type for reporting should be discouraged.  The earning code itself should drive reporting.  However, the value is assigned to facilitate backwards compatibility.

Possible values assigned to Pay Type in the Pay History file are:

  • B: Normal Budgeted Monthly (FAMIS automatically converts to H if hourly biweekly)
  • D: Death Benefits
  • E: Adjustment or Correction Entry
  • F: Work Study
  • H: Normal Hourly Biweekly
  • I: Monthly supplemental Pay
  • J: On-Demand Payment – Monthly Payroll
  • K: On-Demand Payment – Biweekly Payroll
  • P: Biweekly Supplemental Pay
  • Q: Biweekly Supplemental Pay
  • U: Emolument
  • V: Vacation Lump Sum Payout

Note:  FAMIS Screen 730 does not currently allow for a value of H.  For all earning codes with a Pay Type of B, during the pay history generation process FAMIS will automatically change the Pay Type from B to H for biweekly payroll cycles.

Include in FTE Base Pay

A value of Yes indicates that this earning code should be added to base pay (RPH, RPS) for the current FTE salary and FTE monthly salary calculation.

Note:  This was used to calculate FTE monthly Salary Rate – which becomes the denominator in the FTE calculation, but it is not used anymore.

Allowance Encumber

A value of Yes indicates that this earning code does utilize allowance encumbering in FAMIS.

HRIS Pay Transaction Type

Earning codes map earnings to HRIS payroll transaction types.  The following HRIS transaction types are allowed:

  • LS: Lump Sum Payment – A lump sum payment of accumulated annual leave upon employee termination, or a lump sum payment for half of accumulated sick leave or for 336 hours, whichever is less, upon the death of an employee.
  • OP: Overtime Payment – Payment for hours worked in addition to regular work hours for an employee who is subject to the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA).
  • RP: Regular Payment – Payment for regular work hours.
  • SP: Supplemental Payment – Payment of an amount that was not included in the regular monthly payroll, a one-time payment for work performed in addition to an employee’s regular job, or a one-time merit payment (1XM entitlement).
  • TP: Task/Temporary Payment – Payment for non-reportable employees, college work study and student status employees.

Note:  HRIS permits other Pay Transaction types, but only the above types are used with earning codes

HRIS Entitlement Code:

Earning codes map earnings to HRIS payroll entitlement codes.  The following HRIS entitlement codes are allowed:

  • 1XM: One-time merit award
  • ALP: Annual Leave Pay
  • AWD: Award Pay
  • BSY: Base Salary
  • CAR: Car Allowance
  • CLO: Clothing Allowance
  • CRT: Certification/Advanced Degree Pay
  • CSS: Cost of Living Salary Supplement
  • CTP: Compensatory Time Pay
  • ENR: Enrichment
  • EXP: Expense Allowance
  • EXM: Emergency One Time Merit Award
  • HAZ: Hazardous Duty Pay
  • HLY: Hourly (Temporary Hourly only)
  • HOU: Housing Allowance (Including Utilities)
  • LDP: Location Differential Pay
  • LOG: Longevity Pay
  • MLS: Meals
  • MSC: Miscellaneous Entitlement
  • OCP: On Call Pay
  • OTP: Overtime Pay
  • PRB: Performance Bonus
  • SCH: Scholarship Allowance
  • SDP: Specialty Differential Pay
  • SEV: Severance Pay
  • SHD: Shift Hours Differential Pay
  • SLP: Sick Leave Pay
  • SPA: Augmentation/Special Augmentation
  • SRB: Retention Bonus
  • SSP: Student Status Payments (College Work Study/Student Status only)
  • STI: Stipend/Extra Duty Pay
  • SUP: Salary Supplementation
  • TOP: Teaching Overload

HRIS Payroll Type:

Earning codes map earnings to HRIS payroll types.  The following HRIS payroll types are allowed:

  • BIW: Biweekly – Regular
  • MON: Monthly – Regular
  • LUM: Lump-Sum Payments
  • OTP: Overtime Payments
  • SUP: Supplemental