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Administrator Guide
Last Updated: 2026-01-09
Steps: Set Up Payroll Costing Suballocation and Effort Certification for Salary Over the Cap

Steps: Set Up Payroll Costing Suballocation and Effort Certification for Salary Over the Cap

When there's a salary cap on the award line, and the worker's salary is over the cap, you can set up the worker's salary over the cap to be attributed to suballocation worktags that are different from the payroll costing allocation worktags. You can only set up salary over the cap suballocation when:
  • There's a salary cap on the award line associated with the grant.
  • The payroll period you're processing is within the effective award line dates.
  • The salary cap is effective for the entire award line date range, or there's no award line dates.
To certify efforts for salary over the cap, you can set up your effort certification type to group the efforts by effort grants in the effort certification report.
  1. To enable you to later:
    • Configure the Effort Certification Type to group efforts by effort grant for workers with over-the-cap salaries: Select the
      Effort Certification Dimension
       taggable, and add the
      Salary Over the Cap Basis
       worktag type.
    • Add a grant worktag on a worker's pay costing allocation: Select the
      Payroll Costing Allocation
       taggable, and add the
      Grant
       worktag type.
  2. Configure your tenant to support salary over the cap accounting and salary over the cap suballocation.
    Access the
    Maintain Payroll Accounting Options
     task and select these options on the
    Grants/Awards
     tab:
    • Salary Over the Cap - Enable
    • Salary Over the Cap - Allow Grant Worktag in Suballocations
    See Set Up Payroll Accounting Options for Salary Over the Cap (USA).
    Security:
    Set Up: Tenant Setup - Payroll
     domain in the System functional area.
  3. View the award to ensure that the award line associated with the effort has an
    Award Line Salary Cap
    , and that the award line date range falls entirely within the salary cap effective dates, or there's no award line dates.
    For information on setting a salary cap on the award line, see Create Awards.
    For information on creating or maintaining salary caps, see Create Salary Caps (USA).
  4. In the
    Costing Allocation Details
     grid, for the:
    1. Worktags
       column, select the grant that you want to associate with the effort.
    2. Salary Over the Cap
       column, click the bubble to select the worktags and distributions for the over-the-cap suballocation. The suballocation worktags can be
      Grant
       or other types of worktags. If you don't see a bubble, verify that the payroll period falls within the award line dates, and that the award line dates fall within the salary cap effective dates.
    For more information on salary over the cap suballocation, see Concept: Salary Over Cap Costing (USA).
  5. For certifying efforts associated with salary over the cap, you can configure the effort certification type to group efforts by effort grants and display effort grants for salaries over the cap as the
    Salary Over The Cap Basis
     worktags in the effort certification report by:
    • Selecting the
      Use Full Worktags
       check box.
    • Setting
      Group By
       field to
      Salary Over The Cap Basis
      .
When you next process the worker's payroll, Workday attributes the salary amount up to the cap to the effort grant, and the salary amount over the cap to the suballocation worktags. When you certify the worker's effort, the effort certification report displays the effort grant as the grant worktag on the worker's main payroll costing allocation, even for salary over the cap.
You want to attribute a worker's salary under the salary cap to a sponsored grant
NIH Grant
, and salary over the cap to a cost-share grant
Cost-Share Grant
. On the worker's payroll costing allocation, you add
NIH Grant
 as the main costing allocation worktag, and
Cost-Share Grant
 as the salary over the cap suballocation grant. When you certify effort for the worker, the effort certification report displays these worktags on the:
  • Summary
     tab:
    • For salary over the cap:
      • Salary Over The Cap Basis
        :
        NIH Grant
      • Grant
        :
        Cost-Share Grant
    • For salary under the cap:
      • Grant
        :
        NIH Grant
  • Details
     tab:
    • For salary over the cap:
      • Salary Over The Cap Basis
         payroll worktag:
        NIH Grant
         (also the
        Effort Grant
        )
      • Grant
         costing worktag:
        Cost-Share Grant
    • For salary under the cap:
      • Grant
         costing worktag:
        NIH Grant
         (also the
        Effort Grant
        )
      • No
        Salary Over The Cap
         payroll worktag.