Wage type characteristics
Dates
Everyone knows how important dates are in SAP – wage types are no exception. You can hold different configuration for a wage type for specific date periods. Click on the > symbol to see whether there are more records for different date periods.
SAP confusingly calls the start date “Start Time” and the end date “Exit”.
Amount
Minimum and maximum values – you can specify minimum and maximum values for a wage type. This is useful to stop input errors at source. Having meaningful values set here can prevent errors at the input stage rather than having to find them in your payroll exception reports or even at a later stage.
The difficulty most customers find is that it is very hard to decide on what values to use for each instance. Our recommendation is to configure meaningful values for most of the wage types that are input manually. You might only prevent a few incorrect inputs of data, but it may well save your organisation a lot of money.
Add to total
Tick this indicator if you would like the value for this wage type to be included in the basic pay total for the employee.
Input combination
This controls what values are allowed at data entry – i.e. whether you have to enter an amount or you can enter either an amount or a number with units etc. There are 5 options for both amount and number and these are controlled separately for both. The help is very useful in these fields and won’t be repeated here.
Time Levelling and Time Sheet
Basic hours
Defines whether the wage type is a wage type for basic hours or a bonus wage type.
The indicator is used for time levelling.
Number / Unit
Time Unit / Measurement
This allows you to stipulate the hours, months, years, shares etc
If you have stipulated that the user is to enter units on the input combination, then you should choose one of the entries from the drop down.
Minimum and Maximum Number
This is the threshold value for minimum and maximum amount which can be entered for a wage type in the Basic payinfotype (0008).
If you create or change a wage type in the Basic pay infotype (0008), the system checks the minimum value of a wage type against the created or changed value. If the value entered in the infotype exceeds the defined minimum value for the wage type, the system issues the relevant information message.
Indirect Valuation
Indirect Evaluation Module
You can use the indirect evaluation module to output various default values for wage types on different infotypes. The most commonly used features are as follows:
TARIF: this method valuates according to the "collective agreement group and level" specifications you enter in the IMG. Wage types with TARIF will use the settings on the wage type and the values held in table T510 to populate the relevant value into the relevant infotype.
There are 4 different module variants for TARIF – A, B, C and D. See the SAP help for more assistance.
PRZNT: this is used where you have a wage type being a constant percentage of another wage type and wish this to be shown on the infotype. The wage type in question and the wage type that the percentage is based upon (base WT), are all held in table T539J.
ANSAL: this is used in table T539J for the wage types which you would like to be accumulated and shown as Annual Salary on screen 2010 on infotype 0008 – Basic Pay.
SUMME: very similar to the 'PRZNT' module except that the value of the wage type to be evaluated indirectly is always the entire basic pay. There are different module variants, which can be viewed in more detail in the SAP help.
CONST: Module for constant valuation of wage types according to table T510K (V_T510K view). The module variants are either blank, M or P.
Module Variant – there are different module variants based on the different methods chosen. Please look at the SAP help using the F1 key. There are too many to list on this page. The help is not very detailed in this area – but fortunately there are other helpful documents within SAP in other areas. The best thing is to just have a go. If you are still stuck, then there are the traditional SAP help sites on the Web.
Reduction Method – there are a few different options here. The help documentation is fairly clear about how each method can be used.
Rounding Type – this is either A, B, C or blank (no rounding type used). The help documentation is fairly useful.
Rounding Divisor – put in here whether you wish to round to the nearest 1 pence or cent or put it 100 if you wish to round to the nearest pound or dollar etc.
Rewritable – you tick this checkbox if you want to allow the users to be able to overwrite any of the number, units or amounts that have been defaulted by indirect evaluation. Don’t tick if you wish to stop the user from overwriting anything.
Permissibility of wage types
This functionality is really useful if you wish to exclude users from using any wage types for a particular set of employees. For example you may have pensioners in your organisation who could only ever have 2 particular wage types. Configure your system so that they are in a particular employee subgroup grouping or personnel subarea grouping.
Employee Subgroup groupings
This gives you the flexibility of allowing only certain groups of employee subgroups to be assigned certain wage types. The functionality used here means that you need to bear this in mind when determining what your employee subgroups are in your organisation.
Personnel Subarea groupings
This gives you the flexibility of allowing only certain groups of personnel subareas to be assigned certain wage types. The functionality used here means that you need to bear this in mind when determining what your personnel subareas are in your organisation.
For each wage type in the table holding the “permissibility of wage types” (T511), you will see options to enter values under ESG groupings and PSA groupings. The values start from 0 to 9 which means that you have 10 possible ESG and PSA groupings. The options are either blank (wage type not permissible), 1 (wage type is permissible) or 2 (wage type is permissible – with a warning being generated).
You need to have a 1 in both the ESG and PSA grouping for an employee’s grouping for the employee to be allowed to use that particular wage type.
Direct verses Indirect Evaluation
Wage type defaults
Wage type constants
Wage type constants can be held in various different tables.
Table T511K is used to hold payroll constants which are used during the processing of payroll. These won’t be seen on an employee’s record on the master data, but will get called during the payroll processing and used in the calculations.
Table T511P is also used to hold payroll constants used during payroll processing. Traditionally the difference related to T511K being used to hold amounts used as multipliers in payroll calculations and T511P was used for specific values brought in to the calculations. These days there is is not such a defined difference. Constants from T511P are called with the prefix P in payroll PCR's, those from T511K are called with the prefix K.
Table T539J is used in indirect evaluation in combination with the module chosen in the wage type characteristics held in table T511 for the wage type. Remember to check that you are using the same module in both tables – this will happen to you at some point.
Table T510J can be used for assigning a particular constant to a wage type. Using this table, the amount is not pulled into the employee’s record. The value gets called when you actually process payroll for the employee.
Table T510K can be used as well for wage types being assigned a constant where the indirect valuation in table T511 for the wage type is set to CONST.
Processing classes
Processing classes are used during payroll calculations. There are numerous processing classes and the principal ones should be known to you as a payroll consultant. Look at the SAP standard wage types starting with a letter to see which processing classes have been assigned in those wage types to get an idea of the most important ones.
The table which holds these items is V_512W_D.
Evaluation classes
Evaluation classes are used post-processing of payroll. Take a look at the SAP standard wage types to see the most important evaluation classes.
The table which holds these items is V_512W_D.
Cumulation classes
Cumulation classes are used in payroll processing. In simple terms they can be likened to buckets which amounts are added to. Each cumulation class corresponds to a specific technical wage type. The technical wage type is always a value of 100 more than the cumulation class.
The cumulation class 1 (total gross) gets processed during payroll as /101.
The cumulation class 11 (pensionable pay) gets processed during payroll as /111.
Creating new wage types
Remember that when creating a new wage type it is always better to copy an existing wage type which is very similar in characteristics to your new wage type. Using this method, will ensure that all the relevant table entries will get copied as well.
