Payroll Cost Corrections – “Retros” (Payroll Cost Transfers)

Directive Statement

This directive establishes the proper methods of completing and correcting payroll cost transfers, known as “Retros”.  A payroll cost transfer justification is prepared as part of the retroactive distribution process.

Reason for Directive

Salary cost transfers are performed through a retroactive (“Retro”) change to a payroll distribution, known in myUFL as the Payroll Department Budget Table.

Who must comply?

All UF departments.

Fringe Benefits

There is no need to include fringe when correcting earnings, as Fringe Retros automatically generate their own separate journal with an ID starting with “FPB”.  As a reminder, fringe benefits (FB) are charged to the Fringe Benefit Pool (FBP) —and not directly to the department’s ChartField(s).

Fringe benefit rates generally vary from fiscal year to fiscal year.  Therefore:

1. When a retro occurs on a prior year item, it will retro at the FB rate that is currently in place at the time the retro occurs – not at the FB rate it occurred when the original charge happened
2. The only way to fix this FB rate discrepancy is to do a Journal Entry Correction

Basic Retro

Departments should be able to make edits for the current year to the cost centers in their own department using the steps in the Create a Simple Retro toolkit – the main parts are detailed below:

1. Ensure there are adequate funds in the cost center to cover the payroll change
2. Navigate to the Department Budget Table (DBT):

Main Menu -> Human Resources -> Set Up HCM -> Product Related -> Commitment Accounting -> Budget Information -> Department Budget Table USA

3. In the DBT retrieve the entry requiring a Retro
4. Update the entry – if the dates used have passed, the “Retro notification window” will appear
5. Complete the Payroll Distribution-Retro Request Form if edits are:
   • Between departments within a college
   • For corrections to prior two fiscal years
6. Send the completed form to the College/VP level area staff to process, based on the College-VP Area Level Office Staff List.  The processor will include the form as an attachment on the Retro
   • Those on this list are authorized to sign in lieu of the Dean/Director/Department Head and as a backup only if Dean/Director/Department Head is not available

Please note the following:

• Once the fiscal year is closed, general revenue and non-grant funds cannot have those funds adjusted to affect the closed fiscal year
• All Retros will be processed in batches nightly except for payroll closing Fridays

Retros Involving Sponsored Projects

The Cost Transfers Involving Sponsored Projects Directives and Procedures provides detailed information about the requirements for a Retro involving a sponsored project.

For a Retro involving a sponsored project:

1. Grants authorization is required to process anything that deletes an expired project or if charges are moving to fund 201/209
2. Ensure that projects are active and not expired by verifying the Grant dates
3. If you are trying to process a Retro that involves an expired grant, you will get an error message about an expired project end-date – you will not be permitted to distribute beyond the end-date of the project
   • If so, you need to use another source of funds to distribute to beyond the project end-date because the DBT must be distributed through to the end of the fiscal year
4. Follow the steps in the Create a Complex Retro toolkit
   • If you use this method, you should be able to get an amount Retro’d to within cents
5. If the distribution doesn’t work, please see the instructions for Journal Entry Correction
   • For processing a journal on expired grants it is required that the prior year amount is less than $100
6. After updating the DBT, the Payroll Cost Transfer Information Form will appear
7. Complete the form and save to finalize the Retro
8. Complete the Payroll Distribution-Retro Request Form for grant-related Retros
9. Send the Payroll Cost Transfer Information Form and the Payroll Distribution-Retro Request Form if the retro involves moving funds to grant funds 201/209 to the processor
10. The processor will attach the forms to the Retro

Please note the following:

• All Retros will be processed in batches nightly except for payroll closing Fridays

Cross-College Retros

A cross-college retro is between two different colleges where the first 2 digits of the Dept ID are different.  In this case:

1. The employee’s home department will need to obtain signature authorization from the other college involved before submitting for processing
2. Complete the Payroll Distribution-Retro Request Form
3. Send the completed form to the College/VP level area staff to process, based on the College-VP Area Level Office Staff List.  The processor will include the form as an attachment on the Retro
   • Those on this list are authorized to sign in lieu of the Dean/Director/Department Head and as a backup only if Dean/Director/Department Head is not available

Please note the following:

• Once the fiscal year is closed, general revenue and non-grant funds cannot have those funds adjusted to affect the closed fiscal year
• All Retros will be processed in batches nightly except for payroll closing Fridays

Retro Reports

To view a Retro report:

1. Enterprise Analytics > Team Content > Human Resources Information > Pay Information > Current Pay Cycle > Prompted Cost Distribution Reports > Excel- or PDF-Payroll or Fellowship Earnings and Estimated Fringe Benefits by Person, or Payroll or Fellowship Earnings and Estimated Fringe Benefits by Cost Center by Person
2. Filter to your department
3. Run the report using the “run date” when the Retro occurred
   • O = The original charge
   • B = Backed out (when you are crediting back payroll wrongly charged, this would equal a negative amount)
   • R = Retro’d in (the payroll is charged back to the correct account)

Example – Correcting Certain Dollar Amount via a Retro

Assume the following information:

• The amount needing to be corrected is $735.83
• Employee’s current gross earnings are $1000.00 per pay period
• That is also the total costs to the department for that particular pay period (for the purposes of our example – in reality you can review the payroll cost distribution reports to verify the actual costs for the pay period)
• Currently, the employee’s FY18 distribution consists of:
  100% Combination Code 0012345, project 00033333, fund 209

Since the amount needing to be corrected is less than the amount of one pay period, you would Retro one pay period (as shown in below).  To do this, a date range of one pay period could be inserted into the DBT and used to make your correction.

Amount to correct of 735.83/1000 = 73.583%

NOTE: Multiplying 73.583% x 1000.00 total cost for the pay period, equals $735.83, which is the exact amount needing correcting.  In most cases, you can get to the exact amount of within a few cents. If the cents still needs corrected, then a journal entry would be done for the cents.

Keep in mind that this does not include fringe charges that will also be Retro’d at the same time.

Another option is to utilize the Payroll Calculator found in the UF HR Toolkit – Commitment Accounting.

Last Reviewed

Last reviewed on 06/28/2024

Resources

UF General Counsel – Cost Transfers Involving Sponsored Projects Directives and Procedures

UF HR – Fringe Benefit Rates History

Contracts & Grants – Payroll Cost Transfer Information Form

Payroll Calculator Simulation

Toolkits

UF HR Toolkit – Commitment Accounting

Contacts

Payroll Services: (352) 392-1231

payroll-services@ufl.edu

Contracts & Grants: (352) 392-1235

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