Normally the date of hire is recorded in the SAP ERP HCM system as the start date of the hiring action in infotype 0000. However, you cannot always rely on the start date of the first action to retrieve the employee date of hire. For example, this date would not be accurate in the case of a company that started in 1975, but that did not implement its SAP system until 2010. In this example, the company decides that the data in its SAP system will be current from 2010 on, but what happens to employee data for those employees who were hired before the go-live date of January 1, 2010?

In this scenario, you cannot use the start date of the first record in infotype 0000 (actions) because infotype 0000 is being used to capture the go-live date, not the date of hire. Therefore, in this case, the employee date of hire is recorded in infotype 0041 (date specifications). Note that you can use infotype 0041 for other calculations (e.g., recording seniority and vacation entitlement, and some time management calculations).

In addition, since data entry is a manual process, there can be many instances of incorrect hiring dates being uploaded into the system. In some scenarios, the employee data is keyed in before the employee actually joins the organization (i.e., the PERNR — the personnel number for an employee — is created prior to the scheduled date of joining), but, for some reason, the employee postpones a joining date. This results in an incorrect hiring date in the system.

Whatever the reason, the incorrect hiring date information must be corrected as soon as it is identified because this can lead to many problems later on (e.g., excess payment for the initial pay period or incorrect vacation allotment calculations). If the hiring date is maintained in infotype 0041 (date specifications), then this is an easy fix. Simply go to transaction PA30 (maintain infotype 0041) and make the corrections.

However, if the start date of hiring data is maintained in infotype 0000 (actions), then you must consider other factors before correcting the hiring date. For example, in addition to correcting the start date of the hiring action in infotype 0000, the start dates for various other infotypes also need corrections. When you run a hiring action, many other infotypes (e.g., organizational assignment, personal data, address, planned working time, and basic pay) are also created. All these records take the start date from the start date of the hiring action record.

There are four scenarios for having an incorrect hiring date:

Scenario 1: The actual joining date is after the entered date in the hiring action, and payroll is not run for the employee

Scenario 2: The actual joining date is before the entered date in the hiring action, and payroll is not run for the employee

Scenario 3: The actual joining date is before the entered date in the hiring action, and payroll is run for the employee

Scenario 4: The actual joining date is after the entered date in the hiring action, and payroll is run for the employee

Scenarios 1 and 2: Rectifying Incorrect Start Dates Before Payroll Has Been Run

In both these scenarios, since the employee’s first payroll has not been run, correcting the employee hire date is easier (e.g., you don’t have to worry about payroll-related changes, such as making additional payments or recovering excess payment). The process to correct the hiring date is the same for both scenarios.

Transaction code PA41 helps you fix an incorrect hiring date. You can also access transaction code PA41 from the PA30 screen (Figure 1).

Figure 1

Execute transaction code PA41 from the PA30 screen

Executing transaction code PA41 from the SAP easy access screen results in the screen shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2

Starting screen for transaction code PA41 when not executed from the PA30 screen

Once the screen opens, the details for the employee are displayed (Figure 2). Enter the personnel number (PERNR, 1555 in my example) and click the Change info group icon or press F8 to execute the first action run for the employee, as shown in Figure 3.

Figure 3

The actions infotype with the hiring action, with an incorrect joining date

In this screen you need to correct the employee’s hire date. The Start date is January 7, 2011 (07.01.2011), which is incorrect and needs to be changed to January 8, 2011 (08.01.2011). Change the date in the first Start date field to the correct hiring date. Then press Enter to save the record.

The employee’s corrected hiring date is saved, and the system opens a new screen (Figure 4) that displays the list of all the infotypes available for the employee. Now you need to select all the other infotype records for which you want to change the start date so that the employee hiring date and the other infotype records’ start dates are in sync.

Figure 4

Display of various infotype records for which the start date can be changed

Once you select and execute the infotypes (to execute, click the green checkmark icon at the bottom of the screen), the system changes the start dates for all the selected infotype records for that employee. Before changing the infotype records start dates, the system once again confirms that the selected records’ start dates are to be changed (Figure 5).

Figure 5

System reconfirms the selected records to be changed

Click the Continue button and the system makes and confirms the changes (Figure 6).

Now I show how to correct two other incorrect hire date scenarios.

Scenario 3: Rectifying an Incorrect Start Date After Payroll Has Been Run

In scenario 3, the first payroll was run when there was an incorrect date of hire for the employee in the system. In this case, you cannot directly execute the PA41 transaction to make the correction. Also, in this scenario the actual hiring date is earlier than the incorrect hiring date in the system. Because payroll was run with an incorrect hiring date, the employee was not paid for the first few days worked. Therefore, the company owes the employee wages for the days worked between the incorrect and correct hiring dates.

In this example, the employee’s date of joining was entered as January 10, 2011; however, the true date of joining was January 3, 2011. When payroll was run for that pay period (January 2011), the employee was paid for the period from January 10 to January 30, 2011. So, the employee was not paid for seven of the days actually worked (January 3 to January 9). This means that, in addition to correcting the date of joining, the employee also must be paid for the days that were not paid in the earlier payroll run.  

To correct the hiring date, first you need to remove the date in the Accounted to field (Figure 7) in infotype 0003 (payroll status) and leave the field blank. Once the date is removed, then the remaining steps are the same as in scenarios 1 and 2.

Figure 7

Payroll status infotype (0003)

When the payroll for the next pay period is run (February 2011 in this example), there is a retroactive payroll run for the pay period January 2011, and the system pays back the days of missing salary for the January payroll period to the affected employee. Note that if you do not delete the date in the Accounted to field in the payroll status infotype (0003) and you directly execute transaction code PA41, you see the error shown in Figure 8.

Figure 8

Error in transaction code PA41 if Accounted to field is not cleared

Scenario 4: Rectifying an Incorrect Start Date After Payroll Has Been Run and Recovering Overpayment

In scenario 4, the actual hiring date is after the incorrect hiring date that was entered in the system, and the first payroll has been run. In this scenario, an employee is hired on January 1, 2011. Subsequently the January payroll is run and the salary for the January pay period is paid to the employee. It is not until later that it is discovered that the employee’s actual date of joining was January 10, 2011, and not January 1, 2011. Unlike the other scenarios, you not only have to correct the date of joining, but also recover the extra salary paid to the employee for the period from January 1 to January 9 (nine days).

Since there is a recovery from the employee, you have to keep the old incorrect date in the system until the recovery is complete, or else the system cannot calculate the correct amount to recover from the employee. To make the correction in this scenario, change the employment status to withdrawn (employee status 0) in the actions infotype for the period when the employee was not with company and was incorrectly paid. In this example, the employee status is marked as withdrawn for the period from January 1, 2011, to January 9, 2011. When the payroll is run in the next period, there is a retroactive payroll run and the overage amount paid for the period January 1 to January 9 is recovered.

To achieve this, you need to create two more actions: correct hire date and activate hire date. (Note that you can name these actions anything you want, but these are the names I use in my example.)

Using the new correct hire date action, change the employment status for this employee to withdrawn. This way, when this action is run, it replaces the original hiring action (active) to withdrawn, and the employment status is now marked as withdrawn.

This action cannot be executed directly from transaction code PA40. Instead, the existing hiring action has to be copied from transaction code PA30. Then, when the actions infotype is displayed in change mode, select Correct Hire Date from the Action Type drop-down menu and execute the transaction. To do this, first go to transaction code PA30, select the actions infotype, and click the copy icon (Figure 9).

Figure 9

Copy the actions infotype from transaction PA30

Once you click the copy icon, the actions infotype opens for editing with the details of the last record (the hiring action), but with the incorrect hiring date (Figure 10).

Figure 10

Actions infotype opened for editing with the incorrect hiring action details

In the Action Type field, select the correct hire date action (ZA Hiring) from the drop-down menu, then select Reason for Action (01), and click the Execute info group icon (Figure 10). Once executed, the correct hire date action is run and the employment status is changed to 0 Withdrawn (Figure 11).

Figure 11

Execute correct hire date action to change Employment status to 0 Withdrawn

Save the new infotype status by clicking the save icon (highlighted in Figure 11). Once the infotype is saved, it overwrites the original record with the new information. Note that while running the correct hire date action, the start date should not be changed (e.g., in my example, the start date remains the same — 01.01.2011).

In Figure 12, you see the actions infotype overview before the correct hire date action is run. In this screen, the Start Date (01.01.2011) is incorrect; the correct hire date should be 10.01.2011.

Figure 12

Record in hire date actions infotype with incorrect Start Date (01.01.2011)

After running the correct hire date action, the employee status is updated correctly and results in the screen in Figure 13.

Figure 13

Actions infotype record after correct hire date action is run (with the employee status circled)

In Figure 13, the correct hire date action has overwritten the previous record. The Start Date remains the same (01.01.2011), but the employment status is changed from 3 (active) to 0 (withdrawn).

The next step is to run the activate hire date action. You can run this action from the transaction code PA40 screen. Through this action, you change the employment status to active and execute it with the correct hiring date. After you run this action, the employee action infotype overview looks like Figure 14.

Figure 14

Employee actions infotype overview after the activate hire date action is run with the correct date of hire

There are two records in the actions infotype in Figure 14: one for the correct entry date (Start Date) and one for the incorrect entry date. In the first record, with the employee’s correct hiring date, the employee status is listed as 3, for active. The second record corresponds to the period of time that the employee was not employed by the company but was paid. The status for the employee for this period is listed as 0 (withdrawn).

Now when the payroll is run for the next pay period (February 2011), there is a retroactive payroll run for January, and the system recovers the amount for that period (January 1 to January 9, 2011) because during that period, the employment status for the employee is listed as withdrawn.

Configuration for Personnel Actions

Except for the two following configuration steps, all the other steps for configuring these actions are the same as the configuration for any other action type.

The first difference is when these actions (correct hire date and activate hire date) are configured (Figure 15), there is no need to include any other infotypes in the infogroup (e.g., when these actions are run, apart from changing infotype 0000 [actions], there is no need to modify any other infotypes).

Figure 15

Infogroup for the activate hire date action (no other infotypes are required in this infogroup

Follow menu path Personnel Administration > Customizing Procedures > Actions > Define infogroups. The action screen configuration appears as in Figure 16.

Figure 16

Configuration of the action screen

Follow menu path Personnel Administration > Customizing Procedures > Actions > Set up personnel actions. In this screen, for action type BC (Correct Hire Date), which is run first, the employment status is 0, because when this action is run the employee’s employment status is changed from active to withdrawn. The Function character is 1, because this is the initial action for the employee. This action overwrites the existing initial hiring action, and the employment status is changed from active to withdrawn. Any action that is configured as an initial action (i.e., the first action that is executed for an employee) should have 1 as the Function code (for the first action) created in infotype 0000.

Note that before payroll is run for the second pay period, ensure that the time evaluation is run again for the first period. Also, it is better to modify some of the infotypes manually — for example, when you correct the employee’s absence quotas with the correct start date.

Vamsi Mohan

Vamsi Mohan works as an SAP ERP HCM consultant. He has been working in SAP ERP HCM for the past seven years in various assignments. Vamsi has rich experience in time management, payroll, LSO, ESS, and has been part of many implementations. Prior to joining Accenture, he was associated with TCS, IBM, and Dell. Vamsi has a master’s degree in business administration.

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