Payroll Run - Administrator Process
Overview
The following should act as a guide for the standard process to create and check a payroll run from an administrator perspective to extract the gross payments due in a payroll period.
An automated scheme level workflow can be triggered in line with the payroll cut-off date to trigger the administrator to initiate the payroll run.
How to process a Payroll Run
Access Payroll Runs under the Administration section on the left-hand side. Select the appropriate scheme and click “Add Another”, if this is the first payroll run on the Scheme this will be “Add New”, adjust the end date if required to cover the appropriate period.
Once the run status shows as ready you can click into the run and view the data on screen and if necessary, downloading data and reviewing this further.
There are two main stages to this for admin.
Admin Locked – this is where admin review the changes to ensure they are happy these have all been captured and the data in the Mantle run reflects the members and gross payments/arrears required for the period.
Admin Committed – a second member of the admin team confirms this check has taken place and commits the payroll run on Mantle.
This is the administration two step approval process to reflect the peer review stage.
Before locking the payroll, an administrator should click on the ‘Click here to view the changes to pension payments, once off payments or changes to personal details for this payroll run’ and review the entries as well as any warnings or errors listed on the payroll main screen. Certain warnings or errors must be corrected before the payroll can run i.e. missing bank account details.
This contains 6 sections;
New Recurring/Arrears Pension Payments – any new additions to the payroll including the regular payment amount and any arrears for that period.
Reinstated Recurring Payments – any suspended payments which are due to re-commence.
Changes to Recurring Payments – adjustment to regular amount; most likely to apply when a pension increase, or rectification has been applied.
Pension Payments Ceased – will reflect any cessations/suspensions or deaths.
Once Off Payments – any non-recurring payments.
Third Party Payee Payments – any payments being made to a third party.
Changes to Personal Details – split between basic, contact, payee, and payroll details.
Any entries can be clicked on and viewed in more detail or to view the member record to check any information. All data is derived straight from the admin inputs/updates to member records.
If any adjustments are required these can be made and then the Re-run Individual Member from the original screen can be selected to refresh the results for that person without having to re-run the full report.
Additionally, an administrator should use the summary on the main screen to carry out a high-level reconciliation of the amounts expected.
By taking the previous month gross total and accounting for the expected movements (joiners/deaths etc) an administrator should be able to reconcile the revised gross amount under payments.
Although there are certain warnings and errors which must be resolved to allow the report to run these should be reviewed each month to ensure they are all resolved. In addition, any members flagged as on hold should be reviewed to ensure that the status has been updated as part of the relevant casework, namely, any member who has been put on hold pending receipt of the death certificate is then taken off hold once the death event is processed to ensure the date of death is fed through to payroll to allow the record to be fully closed.
Reports
As highlighted above an administrator can access a range of reports from any payroll run. These can be extracted in excel through the Download icon is the top right-hand of the page (the cloud icon). The main reports likely to be used are;
All Payments – lists all the members being paid on that run and what the payment represents i.e. recurring payment, one off payment, trivial commutation, etc.
ADMIN gross payment reconciliation – this report is useful where there are changes to the recurring payments in bulk i.e. pension increases as it breaks down per member how each tranche of pension has increased.
APG Reports – these reports will be used by payroll for processing however can be downloaded and viewed by an administrator.
Payroll Processing
Where the payroll functionality is fully set up on Mantle, the Payroll Team will then process the next three stages.
Payroll Locked – Payroll will click on this to indicate that they are working on the payroll and effectively lock the system for any opportunity to amend the payroll run.
Confirmed – Payroll have run the relevant reports, checks, and have prepared the run for payment.
Payroll Sign Off – Payroll have completed their checks, concluded the run and submitted for payment. At this stage payslips will be processed per scheme requirements.
Payroll will also upload any documents to the related documents section which the Administration team will have visibility of.
At this stage the process is concluded, and the Administration team will be able to run the next period when required.
Where payroll is ran externally it is possible for the Administration team to be given permissions to complete the three payroll stages outlined above.