Overview: Organization Suspense Accounts for Labor

On this page:

Organization Suspense Accounts Defined
Reasons Why Payroll Earnings Post to Organization Suspense Accounts
Identifying, Clearing and Preventing Future Postings
Frequently Asked Questions
Questions

Policy Notes: Organization Suspense Accounts (OSA)

Organization Suspense Accounts Defined

Organization Suspense Accounts (OSA) are holding accounts, set up for every department to account for payroll transaction errors.

Each department is mapped to a single OSA
Every time a new Organization is created, the department must supply a PTA to be used for the OSA.
All payroll transactions posted to the OSA reflect the 51610 expenditure type and are burdened at the highest rate
An employee's suspense transactions are charged to the OSA associated with the department (Org) on the employee assignment (job) in PeopleSoft.
Departments are required to clear Organization Suspense Accounts in a timely manner (optimal time would be every time payroll is run.)
Distribution Adjustments are entered in Oracle Financials to clear OSA balances.
All balances remaining in the OSA are cleared quarterly by the Systems and Reporting Operations team.

Reasons Why Payroll Earnings Post to Organization Suspense Accounts

A Labor Schedule does not exist for an employee that should have one. This excludes students in the GFS systems and employees submitting timesheets.
Labor Schedule lines total less than 100%. The remaining earnings are booked to the suspense account.
The PTA listed on Labor Schedule was not valid when payroll was run.
The PTA assigned in Axess Timecard / Payroll / GFS was not valid.

To prevent and proactively manage Organization Suspense Accounts, review and follow recommended Labor Distribution Best Practices.

Identifying, Clearing and Preventing Future Postings

Identify Transactions

Department Labor Schedulers receive proactive email notifications for the current pay period, informing them of any Labor Schedule lines that are invalid for employees within their authority. Correcting these invalid Labor Schedule lines before the end of the pay period will prevent expenditures from posting to the department Org Suspense Account. Email notifications are sent twice a month, on the 12th and 27th of each month. The notification includes the employee name, assignment, project, task, award, labor schedule line %, start date, end date, and explanation of why the lines are invalid. When there are multiple Labor Schedulers per department, the email notifications will be sent to each individual in the department with the Labor Scheduler responsibility.

Use the Payroll and Labor Management (PLM) Dashboard in OBI to review all transactions that have posted to the department Organization Suspense Account. See How To: Clear Organization Suspense Accounts for step-by-step instructions. Based on the transaction detail, you can process the Labor Distribution Adjustment to clear the balance accordingly.

Note: When reviewing the earnings in the Oracle Labor Adjustment module, clear all transactions posted to the suspense expenditure type 51610 (including SOV and VCR entries).

Clear Transactions

The Organization Suspense Accounts (OSA) policy includes a "sweep" process to periodically move suspense transactions to the clearing account provided by the department and a $25 fee for each payroll line that is not timely cleared from an OSA will be charged to this account. This includes Salary on Vacation (SOV) and Vacation Credit (VCR) entries.

To clear a transaction, determine what PTA(s) the transaction should have posted to. If you have access to the Oracle Labor Distribution module, enter a distribution adjustment(s). See How To: Clear Organization Suspense Accounts. If you do not have access to the Oracle Labor Distribution Module, notify the appropriate person to enter the distribution adjustment(s). To find a LD Adjuster in your school / department, see Who Can Create a Labor Distribution Adjustment.

Prevent Future Postings

Following are some of the most common actions a user may take to prevent future payroll transaction errors:

Modify the employee's labor schedule. See How To: Create / Update Labor Schedule.
Modify GFS, PeopleSoft record, or Axess Timecard
Ensure that the PTA(s) on paper timesheets are legible and that the timesheet contains the employee's assignment number

Frequently Asked Questions

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Why do PTAs become invalid?

Changes made to the PTA setup after the transaction was entered but prior to approval may cause the PTA to become invalid and the transaction to be rejected. This may include changes to:

Close Date - Last date Award will accept transactions (regardless of expenditure item date).
End Date - The last expenditure item date the system will allow an expense to be entered on the PTA.
Example:

An Award has an End Date of 31-DEC-14 and a Close Date of 31-MAR-15

A distribution adjustment is entered and approved on 01-MAR-15 for payroll earnings reflecting the 15-DEC-14 (the expenditure item date) pay period. The adjustment will be processed and posted because the adjustment was entered before the close date (31-MAR-15) and the date the expense was incurred (15-DEC-14) was before the End Date.
Changes on the P, T and/or A status - If the status is At Risk, On Hold, or Closed, then charges cannot be posted.
Installment Not Activated - Central office has not enabled Award to receive expenses.

Why do some employees have a 31-AUG-1X End Date on their Labor Schedule line(s)?

End Dates on Labor Schedule lines for employees funded by non-sponsored projects – and where the end date is not populated with a prior date – are automatically populated with the end date of the current fiscal year.
End Dates on Labor Schedule lines will be used to create Salary Encumbrances (Commitments) and therefore must be populated (if the End Date field is not populated Salary Encumbrances processes will not complete in a timely manner).
Students in Labor Schedule classes are instructed to input the last day of the fiscal year (31-AUG-201X). Central Office staff is responsible for rolling dates forward (for non-sponsored PTAs).

Do the Vacation Entries need to be moved out of Organization Suspense Accounts?

All transactions must be moved from the OSA, including offsetting Salary on Vacation (SOV) and Vacation Credit (VCR) entries.
- SOV is the Salary an employee received while on Vacation.
- VCR is the credit received from the central account for the employee's Vacation used.
Although VCR and SOV are offsetting entries:

Moving the entries ensures the total pay an employee received is accurately reflected on the appropriate PTA(s).
Allows the user to see the total effect of the vacation accrual policy on an account.

Why does my OSA have a negative balance?

Questions?

If you have questions, please submit a HelpSU ticket.

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