Timesheet Importing in PayChoice
May 1, 2009
If your company uses a time clock, or you collect employees’ time in Excel spreadsheets, there is a way to load that data into the PayChoice system without rekeying it. PayChoice ONLINE offers an import feature that will eliminate the time wasted on duplicate entry and decrease the amount of possible data entry errors.
Payroll data can be imported via two types of file formats: the comma delimited (CSV) and the text file (TXT). Both of these files can be converted from Excel and most time clock systems that export files will be able to create one of these formats. These imports also offer the use of temporary department/labor overrides, rate changes, creating a second check and allow both positive and negative imports.
In order for the files to import, they need to follow a specific layout and use the same codes as the payroll system for earnings, deductions and departments/labor codes. You can find the file specifications in the ONLINE system under Payroll | Import Data and your processor can help you determine which file format would work best for your situation as well as what codes you should be using.
PayChoice has the ability to work with many types of time clock systems. Schenck will work with your current time clock system provider to get the file specifications needed for the import to work. If you do not have a time clock and are looking for one, we can refer you to a representative from Heartland Business Solutions to obtain a Galaxy time system.
Moving the time file into the payroll system is as easy as saving the file to your computer: login to the ONLINE payroll system, browse for the file and click a button. Any information imported from the file will add to anything you have already keyed into the pay grid. It will not override what you have keyed. You do have to pay the salary amounts before you import the file, so there is no risk of you losing that information. Once the import is complete, you are able to continue to make changes in the pay grid.
One nice characteristic of using the import feature is that if there are any errors in the uploaded file, the system will give you an error message indicating what the specific error is, including the line number. Until this error is corrected, that file will not be uploaded. This allows you to fix the errors in the file as a whole and not have to go through the file line by line if some information imports, and some errors out.
If you have imported the file and you discover that you have selected the wrong file or have the wrong information in the file, your payroll processor can remove the data in the pay grid and allow you to start over or import the correct file. The one downfall to this is that if you have keyed other information into the pay grid, it will be deleted when the import is removed.
There are times when it is easier to collect and/or key employee hours into an Excel sheet. Consider using the import feature rather than rekeying the hours into the pay grid to save yourself time.