Payroll Elements and Element Links

Payroll Elements and Element Links

Please find an article on Oracle Payroll that explains Elements and Element Links.  I will try to keep this explanation as simple as possible. Why do we need Oracle Payroll? We need a Payroll software primarily to calculate net salary for the employees, and also for regulatory & reporting reasons. Oracle Payroll also helps an Organization manage the costing of their Employees. Why do we need elements and element links in Oracle Payroll? Let me take an example to explain this. Say a pseudo company named "XX Passi Inc" employs only two type of people:- 1. Manager Grade 2. Clerk Grade Let’s say this company has a policy that only Manager Grade people must be paid Bonus. How is Oracle Payroll going to work this out? For simplicity, think of an element being a record that is attached to employee assignment. Alternately, think of Element being a variable that  is stored in database table[or rather is an array of variables]. In Oracle Payroll we will define an element named Bonus. This element will be attached to all the people that have grade of “Manager”. Against each manager, an amount will be captured in this element record. See the screenshots at bottom of article Right, so bonus amount will be entered against each employee, in their element entry record? Correct, however our design demands that only Managers can be assigned Bonus element. How can we restrict eligibility of bonus element just for Managers, so that Clerks do not ever get paid the bonus even accidentally? In Oracle Payroll we have something called as Element Link. Using Element Link, we make an Element eligible to a person or to a group of  people. In this case, we will create an element link for bonus Element :- linking that to grade "Manager". Given that we do not link bonus element to Clerk grade, it will not be possible to create a bonus element entry for a clerk. Hmmm, by using element links we can apply a filter who can be assigned an element? Absolutely, and you have various filtration criteria at your disposal. For example, element link can  be created against organization or a payroll(monthly or weekly) etc. Beyond filtration, you can assign default costing information too and also validations against the entered values. Does this imply that a Manager can not receive bonus, unless an element link exists to make Manager grade eligible for Bonus? Correct. But please note that usage of grades is just one of the many ways by which a group of people can be made eligible for element. But for simplicity, we stuck to the manager theory in this article. Lets do the same example with numbers. Anil Passi -- Manager John -- Clerk Suzy -- Manager Linda -- Clerk Anil will get a bonus of $100, whereas Suzy will get $50 bonus. John and Linda will not be eligible for Bonus element, hence can’t be paid bonus. Element Classification Screen Define a Bonus element, of type Earning. Scroll the input value window to see the below fields where input value validations can be entered. Create an element link as below. You can now go to person record, and then assignment screen and click on Element/Entry button, to enter Bonus Amount of        $100 against Anil Do we have Elements that can hold the Tax figures? Indeed, Tax related elements are Classified as Deductions. Coming to classification, we use Classification to group similar   Elements together. Do we create all the Elements from Scratch? You do at times, but the elements driven by Legislation are delivered pre-installed by Oracle. For example in UK, National Insurance elements come pre-installed. Can we capture just one value against each Element? Wrong, you can capture upto 15 values[via Element Entry] per Oracle Payroll Element. When the payroll engine runs, does Oracle calculate the first calculates the Deductions and then Earnings? You can assign Priority to Element Classifications. If priority of Earning is say 1 and Priority of say Deduction classification is 2, then Earnings will be calculated first, and then deductions will be applied latter by the Payroll engine.