Entering New Hires during payroll processing

Hi. Currently we do not enter new hires while payroll is processing pay per their request, which is typically 2 1/2 to 3 days where none can get entered. However this is causing issues in getting new employees setup in time for orientation.

Does anyone have new hires entered during while payroll is running? If so have you experienced any issues with doing this while pay is running?

If you do not, can you share the reason why it is not being done. Any issues you are aware of that it may cause.

The Executives have requested we find a way to get the new hires set up so can be ready for day 1. If they can still be entered during these days it would help greatly with this issue.

Payroll is unable to tell us why we can't enter them, just they prefer we don't just in case it would do something. Unfortunately that is not enough of a reason to take to the Executives to tell them why we can't.

I understand not doing transfers or wage changes... however for new hires there would be no time records to process so not sure what it could affect during the processing. Any insight on this would be greatly appreciated..

Thanks

Syl

Find more posts tagged with

Infor Lawson Human Resources Group - Discussion

Comments

unknown

Hey Syl,

We do not enter New Hires and/or Rehires while Payroll is processing either. I don't think Infor would say there is a strict Prohibition against it, but I can understand payroll's concern. Payroll is running a number of update jobs and entering a new employee while one of those jobs are running could, in theory, foul something up in the system.

How are you entering your New Hires? We have a process automation, which takes a CSV file from our ATS system and loads the employee, including any information for PA26 - Review, PA22 - Certifications, PR13 - US Taxes, PA13 - Emergency Contact and PR14 - for Union Dues.

If the execs are worried about getting the employee in so they are ready on Day 1 IPA would be an ideal solution. Our New Hire Process (HR alone) was about 20 - 30 minutes. IPA brought that down to less than 1 minute.

unknown

We create the new hire records in Lawson up to 1 week prior to their scheduled start date. We use a 'pending hire' status code to ensure they are not picked up in any reports we run. Entering them early allows the info to flow to other systems so their access can be set up and ready to go on Day 1. On/after their hire date, we change their status to the show them as active and, if salaried, turn their auto time record on. We do not make these changes during the payroll cycle.

The only downside of this process has been instances where the hire date changes. We have processes in place to handle both moving the date to an earlier date and a later date. Neither process is difficult unless additional personnel actions have already been entered.

unknown

Hi Syl,

We run into this same issue here as well, where HR cannot enter any new hires until Payroll is done with their processing/reports.

Our work around has been to enter the new hire into PA31 (applicant) with all relevant information, then create a PA52.4 action to "hire the applicant"; run a PA100 in report mode so that we can pre-assign an employee number for other reasons (IT/System Access set-up). Once Payroll says their done with their reports, we then run the PA100 in update to bring them into the system as active.

There has to be another way to do this that is more efficient/streamlined. How do bigger agencies handle new hires? Or are they also hiring only during this "small window"?

Teresa

Sylvie Vincenti

We have an applicant file and a job requisition file that comes over from our ATS system. These get loaded into PA31 and PA42 and then the PA52.4 is used to create the HR11 record. All the other screens (PA26, PA22, etc) are manually entered once the HR11 record is created. I told recruitment they can do the PA52.4 non-immediate so the employee number is created (which is all IT needs to get the employee setup) however since they have to do the other parts manual and can't do them until the HR11 record is created they don't want to do them this way.

Sylvie Vincenti

Thank you. You process is the same I have suggested but recruitment said if they can't enter all the record they may forget to go back and do something. Are you able to enter the education and certificate on the PA31 also so it flows over? I may have to take another look at the applicant screens.

Sylvie Vincenti

We unfortunately get clearance the Friday before orientation at times and they still want them in that Monday orientation. I had suggested that everyone should be cleared and entered a week before but they don't want to have to wait another 2 weeks for the employee to start.

unknown

I understand. We have similar situations but are pretty flexible with start dates. As a healthcare organization many of our employees have to go through an assessment process before they can work with patients so if they have an opening on that schedule, we let the employee start providing their health screen and background check have cleared.

unknown

In theory I think you could add the certifications and education on the applicant record and they would kick over when the employee is officially onboarded, but we did not go that route.

Are your applicants the same number as your employee? If so, then you could send the applicant number over to IT so they can start the process of entering the employee into the system.

Another thought is you could have IPA trigger and load the applicant into the system and then run a Lawson Query to see if there are open system generated payments in the system. If the query finds payments then a branch node could be activated to have the process wait for x amount of hours to see if payroll has completed processing. If there are other files that need to be processed you could push the file to another directory via FTP and keep appending to it until Payroll has completed processing.

Sylvie Vincenti

Hi.. Our applicant numbers are different then our employee numbers. I will research the applicant screens more and if they can put all the info in on the applicant screen then we can tell them they have to do then non-immediate to create the employee number. They didn't want to have to remember to go back and enter the other screens. Sounds like this may be our best option at this point.

2011-10-27_CH-Stammtisch_2.pdf

unknown

We do not stop entering new hires. I was surprised by this when I came to the organization over 6 years ago. I don't hear of any issues this causes, so I suspect it works without issue.

jarkiewicz-eva

Hi Syl

We enter New Hires in advance of start date for 99% of our hires and are able to do this any day of the pay cycle even while payroll is running as the hires we are loading aren't for the pay period they are processing. We have had no issues. Note that this is only for external (new) hires and not transfers etc of existing employees.

For the existing employees we not only can not process changes to their record while payroll is processing (Tues night to Thurs morning every other week) but also can not enter changes for the current pay period until payroll is finished for the prior pay period. This has been a pain point for our downstream systems as they do not receive the info on the new position/department the employee may have moved to until they have been in the role for at least 4 days.

Eva

Sylvie Vincenti

Thank you. Good to know someone is entering them with no issues.

Sylvie Vincenti

Thank you Eva.. This is exactly what I told Payroll. I can understand why we can't make changes to current employees during payroll processing (transfers, wages, etc) but a new hire would not have any time records being processed so could not understand how it would hurt. The only difference is we process 2 different pay cycles on the same pay run so there could be an employee who's hire date could be in the pay cycle they are processing for, but there would be no time records for these employees.

If other organizations are doing it and have had no issues I have something to go back to them. Even if we can't for those who start date would be in the pay cycle being paid.. The majority are not in the pay cycle and would be a big help. Do you enter your new hires with PA52.4?

For existing employees I had our IT area create a table where we enter transfers that will be starting during payroll processing days and IT gets notification of who gets entered in there so they can change their security in time for their first day in the new position. And then the actual transfer is done after pay closes.

Sylvie Vincenti

Do you use the PA52.4? Are all your new hires for a start date outside they pay cycle you are running pay for?

unknown

We do use PA52.4 and we do use dates within or even prior to the current cycle. We are moving to an automated feed from a onboarding program and expect that too will create new records during the payroll cycle.

0712131256598360.doc

Sylvie Vincenti

Thank you.. I will go back to payroll and see if this will ease their worries about allowing us to enter new hires while payroll is processing. I think part of the issue is also when they checked with Lawson, they were told by Lawson they would not recommend entering while pay is processing, but can not tell them any specific reasons why... it was just stated to be safe. So they are hesitate to allow us to try it.

chip-bennett

Entering new hires should not be an issue with payroll processing. What can be is any other PA that could impact payroll processing. We restrict HR actions during payroll processing to prevent changes being made to employees being processed. If we could be guranteed that HR would limit actions to new hires only, that would be fine. However, the reality is this is unlikely to happen as HR doesn't process new hires as a seperate action and mixes all PA's together. It's simply too difficult to manage sorting them out and restricting processing to only a select few.

jarkiewicz-eva

Hi Syl

We have 5 companies we process, ours and 4 medical groups.

For ours, we actually have an upload routine that was written for us by our IT team so we can upload from our ATS as we have 100-130 hires every two weeks.

For the medical groups, we manually key the hires (lower volume). New Hires we key directly to HR11 while for rehires we use PA52.1. These tend to turn in their information late so are keyed during the pay period they started in rather than in advance. We keep trying to move them to the "in advance" of start but so far have not had much luck in that.

Hope this helps.

Eva

Copyright © 2025 Infor. All rights reserved.