Have you ever wanted to have more control over issuing payments for very small amounts in your SAP Payroll system? Maybe you don’t want to print paychecks for such small amounts, but instead store up the net payable amount until it reaches a certain level — for example, you may only want to issue payments that exceed $1.00 in net pay. If so, standard SAP Payroll can support this business process.

Although the default configuration from SAP does not implement this process, it can be supported with some minimal additional configuration. I will explain how to configure your system to only distribute the net pay when it exceeds a certain minimum amount and then show you an example of this in action.

Configure Minimum Net Pay

You can use three basic steps for configuring minimum net payroll payments in SAP Payroll. First, decide the minimum amount of net pay that you want as a threshold. Next, map two wage types to the SAP General Ledger account that stores the net payable amount. Finally, map these two wage types to the paystub so that employees can see their net pay that falls under the minimum amount.

Maintain the value for constant GRUEB in view V_T511P to set the minimum net pay amount (Figure 1). This constant is only specific to the country-version of the payroll, so you can have different minimum amounts per country. However, with the standard functionality you cannot have different minimum net payment amounts for each type of employee, personnel area, payroll area, and so on.

In my example, I set the minimum net pay amount for the US payroll to $1.00. This means that the system does not issue a payment until the employee’s net pay amount is $1.00 or more. (Note that one exception to this is when an employee is terminated, any remaining net pay that is payable — even if it is below the minimum — is automatically paid out on the next payroll.)

Figure 1

Set constant GRUEB in view V_T511P

Although you only need to map two wage types (/565 and /566) to SAP General Ledger accounts for this to work, it helps to understand some other related wage types. Table 1 describes each of the important wage types in this process.

Without the minimum net pay process, wage types /560 and /559 are almost always the same amount, but the distinction between them is important. If you currently map /560 to a SAP General Ledger account or the paystub, you should switch to /559 for this process before implementing the minimum net pay functionality. Note that if you continue mapping wage type /560 to a SAP General Ledger account or the paystub, you see incorrect results after implementing the minimum net pay process. This is because /560 is only the amount that is due to be paid to the employee (not what was actually paid).

Since you are storing payable amounts in wage types /565 and /566, you have to map them to a SAP General Ledger account for the payroll to balance. Figure 2 shows how these wage types are mapped to SAP General Ledger accounts via transaction PC00_M99_DKON.

The symbolic accounts and SAP General Ledger accounts used are unique to each company and must be coordinated with the accounting department. Your company might use AAType F instead of FC, which is typically used for certain public sector accounting practices. It is important to make sure that the value field (column V in Figure 2) is set to - for /565 and + for /566. This ensures that the system books the difference between the two wage types to the SAP General Ledger account, which is required for correct accounting and for the payroll to balance. This is the same approach taken for mapping the claims wage types /561 and /563 to the SAP General Ledger.

Figure 2

Mapping wage types to SAP General Ledger accounts

Finally, map wage types /565 and /566 to the paystub. Work with your payroll department to determine how they want to display this payable amount on the pay stub and what it will be called. In my example, the minimum net pay is mapped to the deductions window of the paystub. When you create a minimum net pay amount, it shows up as a post-tax deduction called Minimum Net Pay. When the minimum net pay is paid out, it then appears as a negative deduction in the same window. To accomplish this, use form editor transaction PE51 to create Cumulation IDs labeled Minimum Net Pay and then map them to the deductions window, as shown in Figure 3.

Figure 3

Configure the paystub via transaction PE51

Next, map cumulation ID MNNT as the current amount and MNNY as the YTD amount in the deductions window. The line type (P Typ) and column types (CTy.) are the same as those used for the other deductions, but your form might have different values. Take a look at how the other deductions are handled and use that as a guideline.

Minimum Net Pay in Action

Now that you have completed the configuration, you can test it and see how it works. Create a test employee being paid $1.00 per pay period and run a payroll for that employee. Figure 4 shows the result of period 01/2009, with a portion of the paystub showing Minimum Net Pay and Wage Type Reporter for the wage types that make up the gross to net. The employee was paid $1.00 and had taxes of $0.10, leaving the employee a net pay of $0.90. Because this is under the minimum, it is stored in wage type /565. On the paystub, you can see that $0.90 of the net pay for this pay period was under the limit, for a YTD total of $0.90.

Figure 4

Payroll results for minimum net pay

For period 02/2009, the employee received no pay at all, so the $0.90 of net pay from period 01/2009 is carried over via wage type /566 (Figure 5). On the paystub, there’s no current amount for Minimum Net Pay, but you can see $0.90 is still waiting to be paid under YTD.

Figure 5

Payroll results for 02/2009 showing no change in pay

Finally, in period 03/2009 the employee is again paid $1.00 and the cumulative net pay is now over the minimum threshold. Figure 6 shows the paystub and selected wage types that the system generates when the minimum net pay is paid to the employee. On the paystub, you can see a negative amount for Minimum Net Pay in the current period and negative deductions added instead of reduced. Also, there is nothing under YTD, so no more net pay is available to give out in future periods. You can see the wage type details behind the paystub on the Wage Type Reporter screen.

Figure 6

Payroll for period 03/2009 showing payout of minimum net pay

Steve Bogner

Steve Bogner is a managing partner at Insight Consulting Partners and has been working with SAP HR since 1993. He has consulted for various public, private, domestic, and global companies on their SAP HR/Payroll implementations; presented at the SAP user's group ASUG; and been featured on the Sky Radio Network program regarding SAP HR.

Steve will be presenting at the upcoming HR Payroll Seminar November 7-8 in Chicago and November 27-28 in Orlando. For information on the event, click here.

You may contact the author at sbogner@insightcp.com.

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