Manage employee pay

Actual compensation is included in Workforce Planning.

A pay entry records the protected compensation amount that applies to an employee or one of the employee’s assignments for a dated period.

Choose employee-level or assignment-specific scope and the pay type that match the employee’s pay information. FTE Tree uses both choices to calculate annual compensation, so an accurate amount with the wrong scope or pay type can still produce an incorrect result.

Before you begin

Compensation is protected information. Confirm the employee and assignment before opening or changing a record. Do not copy values into position notes, request reasons, or other areas with a broader audience.

Understand the employee timeline

Open Compensation > Employee pay and select an employee.

Use Search to find an employee by name or identifier, position, or department.

The employee page presents dated pay history. Each row identifies:

• what the pay entry applies to;
• effective date and optional end date;
• amount and pay type;
• Added through; and
• whether the record is scheduled, active, ended, or removed.

The effective date is the first day the record applies. The end date is the first day it no longer applies.

Select a pay amount to open that pay entry’s details. Use the Activity history clock in the top navigation to see who recorded a correction, when it was recorded, the earlier values, and the stated reason. The employee page focuses on what pay applied and when.

Choose employee or assignment scope

Choose All assignments when the pay entry should apply at the employee level. Select one assignment when the amount belongs only to that assignment.

For each active assignment, an assignment-specific record takes priority over the employee-level record on the same date. The two are alternatives for that assignment, not amounts to add together.

Example: one employee-level record

Morgan has a $75,000 annual salary and two assignments:

• 0.7000 FTE in Assignment A
• 0.3000 FTE in Assignment B

With one employee-level record:

Example: assignment-specific exception

Morgan’s Assignment B has a separate $90,000 annual salary.

Create a separate pay entry for an assignment only when it has its own pay arrangement. Unnecessary exceptions make the timeline harder to maintain.

Choose the pay type

The Pay type combines the amount’s time basis with how FTE applies. Choose the option that matches the approved source:

A contracted annual pay amount requires an assignment-specific record.

Example: hourly rate

The source rate is $28.50 per hour, annual hours per FTE are 2,080, and the assignment is 0.8000 FTE.

$28.50 × 2,080 × 0.8000 = $47,424

If annual hours are missing for the date, FTE Tree cannot calculate this assignment and creates a work item.

Example: annual salary

The annual salary is $64,000 and the assignment is 0.8000 FTE.

$64,000 × 0.8000 = $51,200

Example: contracted annual pay

The employee’s 0.8000 FTE assignment has a contracted total of $56,000 for the year.

Enter $56,000 and choose Contracted annual pay (not scaled by FTE). The starting annual cost is $56,000.

Do not choose Annual salary (scaled by FTE) for this example. That would calculate:

$56,000 × 0.8000 = $44,800

Add a compensation change

Before adding a record, confirm the source document or approved source system, employee, assignment, first applicable date, amount, and pay type.

Then:

1. Open Compensation > Employee pay.
2. Select the employee.
3. Select Add employee pay.
4. Enter the effective date.
5. Choose the assignment only when the amount belongs to that assignment.
6. Choose the pay type.
7. Enter the amount.
8. Enter an end date only when the first day the record no longer applies is already known.
9. Review all fields together and save.
10. Wait for actual compensation to refresh.
11. Review the employee timeline and verify an affected assignment result.

Use a new dated change when a valid amount changes later. Do not correct the earlier record merely because a later approved amount begins.

Example: scheduled increase

A $70,000 annual salary is valid through March 31. An approved $73,500 amount begins April 1.

Use End employee pay to give the earlier entry an April 1 end date, then add the $73,500 entry with April 1 as its effective date. The first pay entry ends when the second begins. Adding the new entry does not automatically end the earlier one.

Example: known fixed-term amount

An assignment-specific amount applies from May 15 through August 31. Enter May 15 as the effective date and September 1 as the end date.

The end date is exclusive. Entering August 31 would make August 31 the first day the record no longer applies.

Avoid overlapping periods

Employee-level compensation periods for the same employee cannot overlap each other. Assignment-specific periods for the same employee and assignment cannot overlap each other.

An employee-level record can exist during the same period as an assignment-specific record because the assignment-specific record has priority only for that assignment.

Example: adjacent periods

These periods do not overlap:

• January 1 through June 30, represented by an end date of July 1
• July 1 onward, represented by an effective date of July 1

If the form reports an overlap, review both effective and end dates before creating another row.

Understand Added through

Added through identifies how the record entered FTE Tree, such as:

• Manual
• Batch import

When an action is unavailable, confirm the record dates, who manages that compensation period, and your permission scope before escalating.

Correct, end, or remove a record

Open the record and choose the action that matches what happened:

Correct pay entry can change Applies to between all assignments and one of the same employee’s assignments. It cannot change the employee. If the entry belongs to the wrong employee, remove it and add a correct entry for the intended employee.

Every correction or removal requires a clear reason. Activity history keeps the earlier values while the employee page shows the corrected pay history.

Example: later business change

An employee’s valid rate changes from $32 to $34 per hour on October 1. Add a new dated compensation change beginning October 1.

Example: entry error

The October 1 rate was entered as $43 but the approved source says $34. Use Correct pay entry and explain that the digits were transposed.

Example: valid record stops

An assignment-specific allowance was valid, but the agreement ends June 30. Use End employee pay with July 1 as the end date.

Example: wrong employee

A pay entry was recorded for Taylor but belongs to Avery. Use Remove incorrect pay entry for Taylor, then add the correct entry for Avery. A correction cannot change its employee.

The employee cannot be changed during correction. The assignment can be corrected only to another assignment belonging to the same employee, or changed between one assignment and All assignments, when that is the recorded error.

Verify the calculated result

After the current result is ready:

1. Open the employee timeline and confirm the entry that covers the date.
2. Confirm the employee, assignment, and assignment FTE in position control.
3. Confirm whether the source is employee-level or assignment-specific.
4. Confirm the amount, pay type, and annual hours when required.
5. Calculate the expected base annual cost independently.
6. Review the rules and scopes listed under Applied adjustments.
7. Run an Actual Compensation Snapshot for the same date.
8. Confirm the position’s assigned FTE, compensation status, and final annualized compensation.

The snapshot is position-level. If several employees are assigned to the same position, its amount is the combined available assignment result. Check each employee’s pay and adjustments to understand their share of the total. A report row may include more than one employee.

Example: complete check

The employee has a $30 hourly rate, 2,080 annual hours per FTE, and 0.7500 assignment FTE. A 5% pay-rate adjustment applies.

Base annual cost:

$30 × 2,080 × 0.7500 = $46,800

Adjusted hourly rate:

$30 × 1.05 = $31.50

Final annual cost:

$31.50 × 2,080 × 0.7500 = $49,140

The adjustment impact is $2,340.

If the base does not match, review the pay entry, pay type, annual hours, assignment, and assignment FTE. If the base matches but the final amount differs, review Apply actual compensation adjustments.

Work through multi-assignment examples

Example: the same hourly rate on two assignments

Riley has one employee-level hourly rate of $24 and two assignments. Annual hours per FTE are 2,080.

The employee-level entry is selected separately for each assignment. FTE Tree does not multiply the rate by the employee’s total FTE first and then allocate the result afterward.

Example: salary plus contracted assignment

Sam has an employee-level annual salary of $60,000 and two 0.5000 FTE assignments. The second assignment has a separate contracted annual total of $40,000.

Assignment A uses the employee-level entry and contributes $60,000 × 0.5000 = $30,000. Assignment B uses the assignment-specific contracted entry and contributes $40,000 without another FTE multiplication. The combined starting result is $70,000.

Example: a gap between valid periods

One annual salary ends October 1, and the next valid salary begins October 15. The assignment is active throughout the month.

The first entry does not apply beginning October 1, and the second does not apply until October 15. A snapshot dated October 8 therefore has missing compensation for that assignment. Do not extend either period unless the approved source says it covers the gap.

Maintain pay through a batch import

Use the employee compensation import when many authorized pay entries must be created or updated together. Imports use the same employee, assignment, date, overlap, pay-basis, amount-meaning, and compensation-ownership rules as the page forms.

For a Create import, each row identifies the employee, optional assignment, effective date, optional end date, amount, basis, and amount meaning. For an Update import, use the current pay-entry ID and choose correct, end, or remove with a reason. Include each current pay-entry ID only once in an update file.

The import template represents basis and amount meaning separately. Confirm that their combination means hourly rate, annual salary scaled by FTE, or contracted annual pay before applying the file. Do not guess from the numeric amount alone.

Imports are organization-wide and require all-department compensation management plus batch-import access. Validate the file, review every issue and preview, apply it once, and then inspect representative employee timelines and a new dated snapshot. See Import and export overview for the complete review sequence.

Understand allowed and unsupported amounts

A pay entry stores a nonnegative amount. Use an adjustment rule for a reduction, withholding-like planning effect, or other policy that changes a calculated result; do not enter a negative pay amount to imitate that policy.

Zero is accepted only when zero is the approved source value. Never use zero as a placeholder for unknown compensation. Missing information should remain missing so Issues and the report status continue to identify it accurately.

The amount is an annualized calculation input, not a payroll transaction. Employee pay does not record hours worked in a pay period, overtime earnings, deductions, taxes, take-home pay, or year-to-date payment history.

Common mistakes

Multiplying a contracted total by FTE again

Use Contracted annual pay (not scaled by FTE) when the entered annual number is already the assignment total.

Creating a duplicate instead of fixing dates

Open the existing record. Correct an entry error, end a valid period, or add a later non-overlapping change.

Selecting the wrong assignment

An assignment-specific record affects only that assignment and overrides the employee-level record there. Use Correct pay entry to select the intended assignment for the same employee, then confirm the assignment label and dates.

Using a compensation record for a temporary policy

Use an adjustment when the source amount remains valid and a separate policy should be visible, such as a shift premium or fixed stipend.

Entering a placeholder to clear work

Never enter zero, 2,080, or any other common value without an approved source. A cleared item with an invented input produces an apparently complete but incorrect result.