Payroll Procedures

I. INTRODUCTION: OVERVIEW OF THE PAYROLL SYSTEM

The University's Human Resource (HR) Banner System supports HR administration including employment, compensation and employment records and benefits. Basic functions of the HR System include position control, time reporting, benefits & deductions and labor distributions.

The Finance Department System supports payroll processing, including the collection of employees' time/overtime sheets, setting up and ensuring accurate additions & deductions to payroll, calculation of gross income and net pay, validation of earnings, and the calculation of overtime based on University policy, preparation of paychecks and direct deposit notices and posting payroll journals to the ledger.

The system distributes payroll expenses based on labor charges from the Time Reporting System for Part Time employees, and in the case of monthly employees, from labor information assigned to the employee's position and job record.

The Payroll System maintains all detailed payroll, fringe benefit, and personnel information. From a payroll perspective, the system's primary objective is to ensure prompt, accurate payments to all University employees. There are four different payrolls to accommodate the various types of employees.

The system performs all gross-to-net calculations, including computation of the tax withholdings for all US employees, and most of the cost calculations for fringe benefits.

II. GENERAL GUIDELINES ON PROCESSING ON PROCESSING OF PAYMENTS TO EMPLOYEES:-

* All payments to employees would under normal circumstances be paid through the month’s payroll.
* All full time employees' salaries are directly deposited into their accounts with either the Sharjah Islamic Bank or HSBC Bank. Employees are, therefore, required to open an account with either the Sharjah Islamic Bank or HSBC Bank for direct deposit of monthly salaries. There is no minimum balance required to be maintained by full time employees in their accounts with either of these two banks if they have direct deposit instructions for their monthly salary..
* Part-time employees/New employees(for the initial month) are paid through checks which can be collected from the Finance Coordinator in Room M246 on payday.
* If there are specific requests for processing of payments between two payrolls, they will be processed on a case-by-case basis depending upon the circumstances and urgency.
* In case of urgent payments, the level of urgency will be determined by the date the check is required to be issued, which should be indicated by HR on the document to be processed.
* The time period for a check to be processed by the payroll office is 4 working days for non-US employees, and 5 working days for US employees from the date it is received by the payroll office.
* Employees will be informed by the Finance Coordinator upon the payment being ready for collection. Under no circumstances will the employee contact the payroll office for payments due to them.

III RESPONSIBILITIES

Payroll Office Functions in Direct Co-Ordination with HR
* Scheduling, monitoring & auditing System Schedules and jobs related to Payroll.
* Planning of payroll cycle for 12 month period and communication of pay-dates to all employees for the year.
* Processing the twelve month employee payroll.
* Calculating & paying all Fringe Benefits.
* With holding correct taxes & applicable deductions.
* Preparing Direct Deposit Statements & Paychecks.
* Issuing Pay Slips to employees.
* Reviewing and posting of all payroll transactions to G/L.
* Liaising with the tax services provider –Forwarding copies of W4’s, 673’s and other forms and related employee information for tax computation purposes.
* Maintaining the US Bank Account for tax remittances.
* Online payment of all US Taxes to IRS.
* Reconciliation of US Taxes, Insurance Accruals, Indemnity accruals & advances to employees to the University’s General ledger system.
* Providing assistance to the budget office in terms of information for the preparation & maintenance of the personnel budget.
* Attending to employee & departmental payroll queries.