Personnel Budgeting - System Features

The PowerSchool ERP Personnel Budgeting System is an easy to use, interactive software package for projecting personnel expenditures as part of the annual budgeting process. This section discusses the system's primary features.

Features

Following is a partial listing of the features provided by the Personnel Budgeting System:

General Features

The Personnel Budgeting System, like other PowerSchool ERP applications, uses a single integrated database to ensure the integrity of your records.
Personnel Budgeting utilizes the same security system as other PowerSchool ERP software. The security system enables you to restrict access to specified menu options and records on a user-by-user basis.
Personnel Budgeting is specifically designed to interface with the Human Resources, Position Control, and Budget Preparation Systems. The connections between these systems ensure consistency while eliminating the need to enter redundant information.
Personnel Budgeting utilizes data verification tables extensively. By entering a code that references a table record, you can apply a significant amount of information to another record. Besides saving time, the use of tables ensures accuracy in the records you create.
The use of tables also allows you to change a large number of records by simply modifying the table record assigned to them.
Drop-down lists and help pages are provided for table-verified fields, so that you can quickly look up and select records from a table.
Personnel Budgeting enables you to access pages using folders, favorites, and keyboard shortcuts, depending on your preference.
The system also allows you to keep multiple pages displayed for entering, looking up, and maintaining records.

Budgeting Features

Data on salaries and fringe benefits can be loaded directly from Human Resources into Personnel Budgeting. This information provides the starting point for building your budget.
Personnel Budgeting uses a separate work file of tables, allowing you to import, enter, modify, and calculate pay-related data without affecting your current payroll activities.
You can develop and store multiple versions of your budget. These versions, known as iterations, enable you to apply different variables for comparing one version of your budget with another. They also protect your data should you need to redo a procedure or change certain variables.
Personnel Budgeting provides considerable flexibility by allowing you to apply salary increases to either individual employees or groups of employees.
You can "auto-step" employees who use salary schedules. Auto-stepping implements increases by moving employees to the next steps on their schedules.
Salaries for all nonscheduled employees in a job class can be changed by either changing the class's pay code or running Personnel Budgeting's Mass Increase Update option.
Individual increases can be entered as a percentage of current rates, flat amount, or combination of the two methods. In addition, the increases can be applied to both primary and secondary pay rates.
Besides fullyear increases, Personnel Budgeting supports COLA and merit increases on employees' anniversary dates. Up to two mid-year increases can be stored in a pay rate.
You can also enter increases for the current year that need to be taken into account in determining the budget year's staffing costs.
As in the Human Resources System, additional duties and special pays can be assigned to employees' primary rates. This allows you to calculate increases for employees who are taking on additional assignments that affect their gross salaries.
Anticipated changes in benefit rates can be applied by simply changing records in Personnel Budgeting's Benefit table. This reduces the need to create and assign new benefit records. Rates for FICA/Medicare and Workers' Comp can also be changed through respective tables.
The Salary and Fringe Calculation options use your proposed increases and other changes to project personnel costs for the new year. The calculations performed affect salaries and benefits, as well as FICA/Medicare and Workers' Comp.
When budgeted salary and benefit amounts are finalized, you can save the results in an interface file for applying your projections to Expenditure and Project Ledgers in the Budget Preparation System.
Calculated salary and benefit amounts carry over to the departmental budget request worksheets used in Budget Preparation.
Personnel Budgeting allows you to generate more than 20 reports. You can use these reports to review table information, document changes, verify results, identify errors, and compare different versions of your budget.
If you use Position Control, you can budget salaries and benefits for vacant positions.
If you anticipate filling certain positions but do not use Position Control, you can budget for positions by creating records for non-existing employees.
If you use Position Control, you can post the FTE (fulltime equivalency) values and accounting distributions generated in Personnel Budgeting to positions in Position Control.