Monthly Payroll - Leave Reporting Questions and Answers

Yes, you must submit a leave report even if you did not take leave.  If this is the case you must enter a zero on at least one day of your leave report or your report will be in error status.

(1) Have departmental internal control processes in place that clearly state how leave should be requested, approved and submitted on the employee’s leave report (2) Make sure everyone understands that the employee’s part is simple and quick. (3) Encourage employees not to wait until the last minute; time can be entered (and SAVED) throughout the reporting period (16^th of the prior month thru the 15^th of the current month) and submitted for approval by the deadline of the 15th

Banner’s on-line leave reporting is a SELF-SERVICE feature and requires an individual’s confidential user id and password.

Questions should be directed to:

Payroll Services
payroll@apsu.edu
931-221-7398

As stated above, your current LR will always appear on the second day of each reporting period (17^th of the current month).  To access your previous LR simply use the drop-down box.  An employee’s drop down box will display the current month and the twelve previous months LRs if these were started by the employee.

Employees are strongly encouraged to enter their leave throughout the reporting period.  The last day to enter leave is the Submit By Date printed on the leave report, which is usually the 15^th (Note:  This date is subject to change in special situations such a Holidays).  Payroll will post announcements of any upcoming schedule changes.  Also, refer to the pay schedule on the HR website for any schedule changes

Yes, as long as all leave taken has been entered before submission.

There are several answers to this question. (1) the employee may have clicked “Time Sheet” instead of “Leave Report” on the Employee tab (2) there may be a problem with the employee’s position set-up (3) the position that has been established as the “official” approver is vacant (4) all of the various set-ups for an approver are not complete.

Approvers can approve Leave Reports in a “PENDING” Status.  Occasionally, a LR will fall into an “ERROR” Status because the employee attempted to submit their LR more than once. A LR in an “ERROR” status can still be approved by the approver.

In order to view LR’s for your department, at least one of your employees must have started their LR.

Use it to document, document, and document!  Examples include: (1) anytime you enter leave for an employee, you should always use Comments to document the fact you had to enter leave for your employee (2) if you returned the LR for correction, you could document what needs correction.  Always be sure to date and initial any comments you make and to let the employee know comments have been made on their records.  Otherwise, the employee does not know to look for comments.  When an employee is on FMLA, enter these hours in as a comment so they can be tracked by HR.

This leave report would be in an “In Progress” status therefore, the approver would not be able to access the report to make changes and/or approve the report.  The approver would have to contact Payroll Services (payroll@apsu.edu, x7398) to request that the employee’s leave report be changed to a “Pending” status so the approver can make the necessary adjustments and approve the LR.

This leave report would be in a “Not Started” status, therefore, the approver would not be able to access the report to make changes and/or approve the report.  The approver would have to contact payroll@apsu.edu to request that the employee’s leave report be changed to a “Pending” status so the approver can make the necessary adjustments and approve the LR.

Two common examples of when a LR should be returned to the employee for correction include: (1) the employee hits the “Submit for Approval” button before the end of the reporting period or before their leave was correctly entered, (2) the approver finds a mistake and there is time to send the LR back to the employee for correction and have it back by the Leave Reporting deadline of the 15^th of the month.  Approvers must let their employees know when a LR has been “Returned for Correction” because currently there is no automated notification by the system. 

Changes need to be made when an employee submits any hours in error, fails to enter hours, or enters hours on an incorrect day or leave type.  Approvers are strongly encouraged to return the leave report back to the employee for correction.  However, this can only be done if the Submit By Date has not passed and there is time for the employee to make the changes and return it to the approver before this date has passed.  If the approver must make changes, it is recommended that the approver use the “Comments” feature to document what changes were made, the reason changes were made and initial.  This will serve as a permanent record in case questions arise in the future (especially for State Audit.)

The approver should be aware that the employee took leave and remind the employee to complete their Leave Report.  If the deadline date has not passed, the Approver should enter leave for the employee and use the comments feature to document the entry.  In cases where the deadline has passed, employee and the approver will need to complete a payroll adjustment card so a manual entry can be made to their leave.  Manual entries should be the exception and not the rule.  Multiple manual entries for the same employee will be questioned.

If the employee is out for an extended period, the approver should contact HR and request that the leave report for that employee be started.  The approver should enter the leave and use the comments section to document that they entered leave for the employee, why they entered the leave and initial.  If for some reason the leave does not get entered and the deadline has passed, the approver will need to send an adjustment card to payroll for manual entry.  (Please contact payroll if you have questions how to handle this situation).  Manual entries should be the exception and not the rule.  Multiple manual entries for the same employee will be questioned.

Click on the employee’s name to see the type of leave and hours per day that were taken for that reporting period.

 

When an approver clicks on an error/warning message they may see the following:

“Warning Possible Insufficient Leave Balance”

• If the message is for Bereavement Leave, Jury Duty or Military Leave no action is necessary, simply approve the LR. 
•  If the message is for sick or annual leave, the approver should carefully review their employee’s leave balances to determine if their employee is in a Leave Without Pay status (LWOP).  Approver should contact Payroll Services (payroll@apsu.edu, x7398) when LWOP occurs. 

“Error: Submittal Not Allowed”

• If the employee attempted to submit their on-line report more than once it may end up in a status of ‘Error’.  This is probably due to the browser speed of submitting the report to the database and has been a rare occurrence.  The on-line report, however, can still be approved and the balance should update correctly.  (Note:  There have been some problems for those who use web browsers other than Internet Explorer, such as Fire Fox with this system.)

“Error: Approval Not Allowed”

• If the approver attempted to approve the LR more than once it may end up in a status of “Error”.  The Payroll Office will take the necessary action to correct the error. 

“Warning: No Hours Entered”

• If the employee submitted their on-line report without entering any hours, Banner will identify this as an error, because it only recognizes the number zero.  If 0.00 is correct, approve that employee and continue with the approvals.  The error will remain even after the approvals are completed but will not cause any processing problems. 

 

You can set up a proxy in Web Self Service via the Employee tab. Click on Employee, Leave Report, and Proxy Set Up found in the middle of the page to add a proxy. You can also contact Payroll or HR for proxy set up if the person you are looking for is not listed as an approver.

 If an approver needs to be changed, please contact Payroll Services (payroll@apsu.edu)

 A routing queue will need to be established so you can submit your leave report, please contact Payroll Services (payroll@apsu.edu)