It is well known to SAP HR Time and Payroll experts that time wage types generated during time evaluation work as an integration point between time and payroll modules. These wage types (with number of hours) generated through time evaluation are sent to Payroll to valuate and calculate the dollar amount. These wage types can be generated either by settings made in table T510S or by using a custom rule (PCR/personnel calculation rule) that generates them directly in the ZL (internal table) cluster table.

People know that they can use table T510S for most scenarios, but may not know how to use all the available fields. Most users find them confusing and difficult to understand and will therefore go to the trouble of writing a PCR. What they don’t realize is that writing a PCR is more cumbersome, time consuming, and prone to error as users have to check all the conditions. Furthermore, PCRs are difficult to maintain when requirements change. Some PCRs can be lengthy, particularly if you want to check conditions.

It is easier to learn the fields for table T510S and use it instead of PCRs for most scenarios. However, note that for some complicated scenarios, you must use PCRs because of some limitations of table T510S. I describe one such scenario at the end of the article.

Configuring Table T510S

The standard table T510S is shown in Figure 1. Before going into the details of the configuration, let me discuss the different columns.

Figure 1

Table T510S

The first column in table T510S is the Time Wage Type Selection Rule group (TWS) in the Tm column (TmWT when expanded). Setting the groupings for the wage type generation is the first thing to do before configuring table T510S. The grouping for the TWS is specified in the first column. Use this TWS group to give the same group number for the employee subgroups that have the same set of wage types. That is, you can assign different grouping numbers to different employee subgroups, personnel areas, or personnel sub areas, based on business requirements.

Say a company has several personnel areas, personnel sub areas, and employee subgroups. Based on its business requirements (e.g., employees of only one particular personnel area should be paid for shift premium whereas others are not eligible) then you can set the TWS rule group in column 1 for these two personnel areas differently.

You can set these groupings using operation MODIF W in rule TMON in schema TM04 (Time Evaluation without clock times) and in the rule MODT in schema TM00 (Time Evaluation with clock times). Most often, companies use only one schema. Even if they use two schemas, one for a personnel area (per.area) and another for a different per.area, they still cannot use both schemas to evaluate the time of one employee (as both schemas won’t work simultaneously).

ZMON, the copy of the standard rule TMON, is shown in Figure 2. The nodes 1, 2, and 3 indicate Hourly, Salaried, and Salaried Non Exempt Employee groups. Standard SAP schemas and rules should never be modified (they often are modified by inexperienced consultants and users), particularly time schemas TM04 or TM00. Any modifications should be done to the copies of these schemas and rules.

Figure 2

ZMON rule used to set the groupings

In the ZMON rule in Figure 2, the TWS rule grouping is set as 01 (the value specified after MODIF W=) for hourly employees, 02 for salaried, and 10 for salaried non-exempt employees. If you want to generate a wage type for hourly employees, enter the wage type in T510S with the column 1 value of 01.

Let me give you another example. Take a scenario in which a wage type for a shift premium is generated for hourly employees in personnel area 1000 only. In this case you need to make changes to the ZMON rule. You need to give a new grouping to the hourly employees of per.area 1000. Say that grouping is 90. This grouping should be assigned to the per.area 1000 with the operation MODIF W=90 as shown in Figure 3. You create an entry in table T510S for shift premium wage type with the TWS rule grouping 90. Similarly you can modify the rule ZMON to assign groupings for different per.area, per.sub areas, employee groups, or employee subgroups.

Figure 3

Modified ZMON rule to set a different grouping for per.area 1000

In the second column of table T510S (DyGrpg in Figure 1), you can see the day grouping for the time wage type selection. Suppose a wage type Shift Premium for Sunday’s work is generated only on Sunday. You have to configure the table so that this wage type should be considered only on Sunday. Do this by assigning a different day grouping (e.g., 02) for Sunday and 01 for the other days through the function DAYMO in the time schema as shown in Figure 4.

Figure 4

Function DAYMO from the time schema TM00/TM04

The number under Par 1, 2, 3, and 4 indicates the day grouping (i.e., row 2 of the T510S table).

Par 1: Sets the day grouping for Mon-Saturday on a non-public holiday
Par 2: Sets the day grouping for Sunday on a non-public holiday
Par 3: Sets the day grouping for Mon-Saturday on a public holiday
Par 4: Sets the day grouping for Sunday on a public holiday .

The configuration for the Sunday premium is shown in Figure 5. Note that Day grouping is specified as 02 under the Par2 column in Figure 4, which is used for a Sunday on a non-Public holiday.

Figure 5

Configuration of T510S table for Sunday premium wage type generation

The third column o f the T510S table (No. in Figure 1) indicates the sequence number and the fourth column (Name of rule) indicates, as it says, the name of the rule. The name of the rule indicates the type of the wage type to be generated, such as regular pay, overtime, or holiday pay.

The fifth column (Wage Type) indicates the wage type to be generated and the sixth column (Wage Type Long Text) is automatically populated with the text of the wage type once the wage type is entered in column 5. Figure 6 shows the typical configuration of a T510S entry.

Figure 6

Table T510S entry showing all the fields available for the configuration

In the Valid processing types field, specify the valid processing types for the wage type to be generated. The processing type is used to differentiate the time pairs and is used significantly for the Time Wage Type selection. Processing types are assigned to the time entries (Attendances, Absences) using table T555Y. For example, processing type S is assigned for regular time, and M is for overtime.

To generate a wage type for regular time, specify processing type S in the Valid processing types section. Note that a limited number of processing types is available in the processing type table T510V. These processing types can be alphabetic (A-Z), numeric (0-9), and symbolic (for example, !, @, or $). Here are two examples to help you understand this part of the configuration.

In one public sector project I worked on, the company paid shift premium for regular work hours, overtime hours, and paid absences. Assume that processing types for regular work, overtime, and paid absences are S, M, and A respectively. The table entry for this scenario is configured as shown in Figure 7. You enter the processing S, M, and A under the Valid processing types section.

Figure 7

Configuration to generate shift premium for S,M and A processing types

Now consider this second scenario. If an employee gets a shift premium for on-call work (say the processing type is R) and for holiday (say the processing type is X) in addition to the processing types S, M, and A, then specify the processing types S, M, A, and R in the Valid processing types field as shown in Figure 8 with sequential number 019 (you can use either 019 or 020 — it makes no difference). As only four processing type slots are available for one entry, configure another entry with a different sequence number (020 here) as shown in Figure 9.

Figure 8

Configuration for sequence number 019

Figure 9

Additional configuration 020

Conditions Day Tab

In the Conditions Day tab (Figure 6), wage type selection conditions can be set based on the weekdays, holidays, valuation class for period work schedules, daily work schedule, class, and day types.

The Weekdays field is on the left under Conditions Day as shown in Figure 10. This field has weekdays from Monday through Sunday represented by numbers 1 through 7. Using this field, wage type generation can be restricted to a particular weekday based on business requirements.

Figure 10

Weekdays field numbers

For example, suppose a Sunday shift premium wage type is to be generated only on Sundays for any regular work, overtime, or holiday processing types. The configuration for this scenario is as shown in Figure 11. Only the number 7 is checked under the Weekdays field as that number represents Sunday.

Figure 11

Configuration to generate Sunday premium wage type

Public Holiday

As you can see in Figure 12, there are three fields for public holidays. PH pre.day corresponds to the previous day of the public holiday, PH cur.day is the public holiday, and PH sub.day is the day after the public holiday. The numbers 1 through 9 in the string b123456789 shown on each holiday box indicate holiday classes that are assigned to the holidays at the time of configuration, where b indicates a regular work day.

If an employee works on a holiday he should get holiday pay at 1.5 times of regular pay. The configuration of the table entry is shown in Figure 12. The wage type for holiday pay 1.5 times (here WT 1250) should already be available in the Payroll table 512W. Note that Day grouping is specified as 02 as previously discussed. If the public holiday is configured with the holiday class 1, holiday class 1 is checked in the PH cur.day box. Processing type for regular work is assumed as S and is specified in the Valid processing types section.

Figure 12

Configuration for Holiday pay for scenario 4

If an employee doesn’t work on a public holiday, he should get holiday pay for his scheduled hours only if he is scheduled to work on that day. Before doing the T510S table configuration, you need to configure a processing type for the holiday (call it X here) in the processing type table V_T510V. You should make sure that time pair on that day has the processing type X by setting up the table T555Y as shown in Figure 13. Here Personnel Subarea Grouping (PSG) for time recording is assumed as 01 (column 1) and the Time Type selection rule group is assumed as 02 (column 2). The processing type X is specified in the pair 2, which is used for absences.

Figure 13

Processing type X (Holiday) in pair 2 in the table T555Y

The T510S configuration for this scenario is shown in Figure 14.

Figure 14

Configuration of T510S table for Holiday pay-no work

One more important step is to include a line in the time schema as shown in Figure 15 with a function GWT (generate wage type), which generates the wage type based on the processing type specified under Par2 column. I discuss this line in more detail in the “Integration with Time Schema” section.

Figure 15

Function GWT to generate wage type based on specified processing type

Now, suppose an employee should get eight hours of pay regardless of his work schedule and whether or not he is at work. Let X be the processing type for an absence on a holiday and let S be the processing type for attendance. The configuration for this scenario is shown in Figure 16. Note that 8.00 hours is specified in the Fixed val. field under the Control section and the processing types X (for no-work on a holiday) and S (for the work on holiday) are specified in the Valid processing types field.

Figure 16

Configuration of table T510S for generation of holiday pay wage type with 8 hours

I have given examples involving holiday class 1 but other scenarios involve different holiday classes. Note that you can assign holiday classes 1-9 to the holidays when you configure public holidays. Usually it’s common practice to assign holiday class 1 for all the regular public holidays and holiday class 2 is for half-day holidays. Holiday classes 3-9 are assigned to the holidays based on the business requirements.

For example, if New Year’s Day is declared as a premium holiday an employee should get double pay if he works on this day. New Year’s Day should be configured with holiday class 3 and all other holidays with holiday class 1 as it should be paid differently. The T510S table entry for this scenario is shown in Figure 17. Note that holiday class 3 is checked and all others are left blank in the PH cur.day field.

Figure 17

Configuration of T510S table for the holiday pay at 2.0 times

To help you better understand the PH pre.day field, here is an example. Christmas Eve and Christmas are consecutive holidays, and an employee gets double pay on Christmas if he works regardless of his attendance on the eve (Figure 18). The system checks the holiday class of the previous day and if it is holiday class 1 (note that only holiday class 1 is checked under PH pre.day field), the system generates a wage type with the number of hours of processing type S. Similarly the PH sub.day field can be used based on business requirements.

Figure 18

Generation of holiday pay at 2.0 for scenario 7

The Val.class (valuation class allowed for period work schedule) field is used if the valuation class is assigned to the period work schedule (PWS) in the table V_551C_B.

Suppose the evening shift premium and night shift premium wage types are to be generated for evening and night shifts respectively. Then the valuation classes 2 and 3 are assigned in the above mentioned table V_551C_B to the evening and night shifts. Table T510S configuration for the evening shift is shown in Figure 19. Valuation class 2 is checked as it is assigned to the evening shift period work schedule. For the night shift premium, check valuation class 3.

Figure 19

Configuration to generate evening shift premium

The DWS (daily work schedule) class field can be used in the same way as the val.class field. To use this field, you assign the DWS class to the DWS while you are configuring the daily work schedule in table V_T550A. The DWS classes 2 and 3 can be assigned to the evening and night shift daily work schedules. T510S table entry configuration for the generation of the evening shift premium wage type is shown in Figure 20.

Figure 20

Configuration to generate the evening shift premium using the DWS class field

The Day type field is similar to PH cur.day field. Sometimes instead of the holiday class field you need to use day types for holiday pay. Day type 0 corresponds to a regular working day (work/paid) and 1 corresponds to a public holiday (Off/Paid), day type 2 refers to off day/unpaid, 3 is used for off/special day, and 4 through 9 are customer specific. These day types are defined in table V_T553T. Day types use only 0, 1, and 2.

Conditions Time

Here I show you how to use the start and end times of a time pair and minimum and maximum hour fields to generate wage types.

Start and End Times

If a wage type is time specific – for example, if a night shift premium wage type is to be generated for the work between 8:00 PM and 12:00 AM – this is used as shown in Figure 21. Assume that DWS class for the evening shift work schedule is configured as 3 in the table V_T550A. Under the DWS class, 3 should be checked.

Figure 21

Configuration for wage type generation from 20:00 hrs to 24:00 hrs

Minimum and Maximum Hours

These fields are used to specify the minimum number of hours with the specified processing type after which the wage type is generated. Max. field specifies the maximum number of hours in the wage type to be generated.

For example, if an employee works for 13 hours in a day, then he should get OT at 1.5 after 8 hours of work and OT at 2.0 (double time OT) after 12 hours of work:

• For 1-8 hours work he should get regular pay
• For 8-12 hours work he should get OT at 1.5
• For over 12 hours work he should get OT at 2

If 13 hours are recorded, then after the processing of the overtime rules in the schema, the TIP (time pair table) would have 5 hours with processing type M. In these 5 hours, 4 hours need to be paid as OT at 1.5 and the remaining 1 hour is paid as overtime at 2.0. The configuration needed for this scenario is shown in Figures 22 and 23. For the work over the 8 hours and less than 12 hours, as shown in Figure 22, the Max. hours are specified as 4.00 as after that employee is eligible to get overtime at 2.0.

Figure 22

Configuration to generate overtime at 1.5 from 8 to 12 hours of work

The configuration for the work between 12-13 hours is shown in Figure 23. The Minimum hours are specified as 4.00 as after 4 hours of overtime (here after 12 hours of work) work only this wage is to be generated.

Figure 23

Configuration to generate OT at 2.0 for the work after 12 hours

Integration with the Time Schema

So far I have discussed configuring the 510S table using all the available fields. Sometimes you might have to use a combination of these fields – for example, if you have to generate a holiday at 2.0 wage type for the work on a holiday that falls on a Sunday. In this case you need to check number 7 (Sunday) in the weekdays field and 1 in the PH cur.day.

It’s important to understand how the table is integrated with time schema and thus time evaluation. I have discussed setting the time wage type selection rule groups with the help of ZMON rule, which is explained at the beginning of this article in Figure 2. Another important step is to use the Generate Wage Type (GWT) function to evaluate the processing types that are used in the 510S table. This is essential because the table entry using a specific processing type does not process unless you specify that in the time schema under Select time wage type block, as shown in Figure 24.

Figure 24

Select time wage types block in the time schema

The processing type is specified in the parameter 2 (Par 2) and the internal table to which the wage type is to be added is specified in parameter 3 (Par 3). Overtime wage types are added to the internal table ZML and all other wage types are added to another internal table DZL.

The Process

In this section, I will show you how the table T510S entry is processed during the time evaluation run. This processing is done in Select time wage types block in the Time evaluation log as shown in the Figure 25.

Figure 25

Select time wage type block in the time evaluation log

The table configuration for overtime wage type generation is as shown in Figure 26. Here block 1 shows the Valid processing type as M. Block 2 shows that all the weekdays are checked and block 3 shows that only b under PH cur.day field is checked.

Figure 26

Configuration for overtime wage type generation with blocks 1, 2, and 3 marked

The system checks the processing types generated on that day in the TIP based on the time entries and table T555Y settings. The entry is shown in Figure 27. Here a time pair is formed for 0.75 hours with a processing type M.

Figure 27

The TIP entry formed during the time evaluation run with processing type M

For each processing type, all the conditions mentioned in the table entry are checked as shown in Figure 28. Block 1 shows how the processing type mentioned in the Block 1 of Figure 26 is verified with the processing type of the TIP entry in Figure 27. If those processing types are matched, the system displays a “Condition met” message. In block 2 in Figure 26, all the week days from 1 through 7 are checked (marked with X). Block 2 in Figure 28 shows how this is processed.

Number 5 under the Act heading indicates that the actual value of the weekday on the day of time evaluation is 5. In other words, that day is Friday and 1 through 7 under Target shows that 1-7 are marked with an X. Here the system checks whether the value in Act is the same as one of the values in the Target string. If it is the same, then the system shows a “Condition met” message and the next condition is checked. If it is not the same, then the system stops the processing and goes to the next entry in table T510S. Similarly Block 3 in Figures 26 and 28 can be analyzed for the Holiday curr.day field.

Figure 28

All the conditions mentioned in the T510S table entry have been checked

If all conditions are satisfied, the wage type is generated with the number of hours in the TIP entry as shown in Figure 28.

Figure 29

Wage type generated after all the conditions mentioned in the table T510S are satisfied

PCR vs. Table T510S

Wage types also can be generated for all the scenarios discussed above with the help of PCRs. However, for some more complicated scenarios, you cannot use the table.

For instance, Christmas Eve and Christmas are holidays in an organization and the employee is eligible for double pay for his work on Christmas day only if he works on Christmas Eve. In this scenario, you cannot check whether the employee is at work on Christmas Eve day using table T510S. You have to write a rule to check whether the employee is at work on Christmas Eve day. It is always advisable to decide carefully how to generate the wage types and use table T510S if you can use the fields discussed in this article to fulfill your business requirements.

Venkat Dasika

Venkat Dasika is a certified senior SAP HR consultant. He has been consulting in the SAP HR Time/Payroll modules for more than nine years in private- and public-sector implementations.

You may contact the author at vrsdasika@yahoo.com.

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