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Administrator Guide
Last Updated: 2025-03-14
Set Up Retro Costing for Payroll Accounting

Set Up Retro Costing for Payroll Accounting

Security:
Set Up: Payroll (Calculations - Payroll Specific)
 domain in the Core Payroll functional area.
You can automatically update retro result lines to reflect the costing rules, budget date, and payroll attributes of a retro pay period instead of the current period.
You can select earnings to exclude from retro costing when you want to keep the costing as the current period.
You can configure retro pay amounts to charge either over or under a salary cap grant when you run retro payroll calculations, reducing the number of payroll accounting adjustments you need to run and improving the accuracy of your billing. You can configure retro lines specific to salary cap grants to cost fully over or under the cap for certain job families, job family groups, and job profiles.
  1. Access the
    Maintain Payroll Accounting Options
     task.
  2. Select the
    Enable Retroactive Costing
     check box.
  3. (Optional) From the
    Earnings to Exclude from Retro Costing
     prompt, select 1 or more earnings to exclude from the calculation.
  4. (Optional) For Payroll for the U.S., in the
    Configuration for Retro Lines with Salary Cap Grant
     section, select:
    • Default Over Cap
       to cost retro amounts associated with a salary cap grant to the Salary Over the Cap suballocations of a worker.
    • Default Under Cap
       to cost retro amounts associated with a salary cap grant to the salary cap grant of that worker.
  5. For Payroll for the U.S.,  add rows to the grid that you want to configure for retro line salary cap costing.
    When the job profile associated with a retro line matches the job profile you specify or belongs to the job family or job family group that you configure, the behavior you select in step 4 applies to the retro line.
When you run the
Run Retro Pay Calculation
 task, Workday pulls in all incomplete retro events. When you complete the next pay calculation, Workday automatically updates retro result lines to reflect your costing rules.
Retroactive Costing
In July, a worker receives a bonus pay of 1,000 that is retroactive to January. Their cost center in January was CC100. In March, they moved to a different department and their cost center changed to CC500. When you select the
Enable Retroactive Costing
 check box and run a retro pay calculation for the bonus pay, Workday applies the costing from the retro pay period instead of the current period, which is July. Their bonus is charged to cost center CC100.
Retro Costing to Salary Cap Grant (USA)
You have a worker who is a full-time professor earning a salary associated with a grant subject to a salary cap: SOC Grant A.
  • They earn $72,000 as a base annual salary, and they’re on a monthly period schedule earning $6,000 per month.
  • SOC Grant A is subject to the award salary cap of $240,000 base annual salary, or $20,000 per month.
The worker is subject to these costing allocation rules:
Default
SOC Suballocation
Distribution Percent
SOC Grant A
Fund A
Cost Center A
100%
Fund B
Cost Center B
100%
The worker earns their normal monthly salary from January to June. In July, they receive an annual salary increase to $84,000, or $7,000 per month, which is retroactive to June. When you run the
Run Retro Pay Calculation
 task in July, Workday pulls in the salary increase for the worker as a retro event. After the next payroll calculation, the actuals journal reflects the retro differences and the costing configuration for lines with salary over the cap grants.
When you select the
Default Over Cap
 check box, Workday allocates the retroactive $1,000 to the suballocation of the worker, which is Fund B, Cost Center B for June, and the current $7,000 to SOC Grant A, Fund A, Cost Center A.
When you select the
Default Under Cap
 check box, Workday allocates the retroactive $1,000 and the current $7,000 to SOC Grant A, Fund A, Cost Center A for June:
When you configure a row in the table to have Professor as a Job Profile or select the Job Family to which the Professor job belongs, retro processing respects your choice to
Cost Fully Over Cap
 or
Cost Fully Under Cap
 for those selections rather than follow your default choice.