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Administrator Guide
Last Updated: 2025-09-19
Concept: Allocate Net Pay Liability Based on Earning Proration

Concept: Allocate Net Pay Liability Based on Earning Proration

The Allocate Net Pay Liability Based on Earning Proration feature allows you to generate multiple actuals journal lines for the net pay liability (credit) that align with the distribution of earnings paid to the worker.
This provides the ability to better track and manage the liability associated with payroll net pay and eliminates the need to process post-payroll journal entries to reclassify accounting.
The Allocate Net Pay Liability Based on Earning Proration feature supports:
  • Intercompany Accounting
  • Journal Summarization
  • Multi-position Workers
  • Multiple Currency on Single Company Results
  • Retroactive Pay Results
  • Worktag Balancing

Actuals Journals

With
Allocate Net Pay Liability Based on Earning Proration
enabled, you can create multiple journal lines for net pay based on the distribution of earnings.
If you use Worktag Balancing, the net pay, earnings, employee, and employer deductions journal lines (debits and credits) are subject to balancing. The system uses the primary worktag dimension from the Worktag Balancing rule and the optional balancing dimension from the worker's Default Organizational Assignments to create intercompany and/or interworktag payables and receivables journal lines.
Any small rounding differences that occur when calculating net pay journal lines will be added to the largest net pay amount. If there are multiple net pay journal lines that are the same and the largest, the difference will be added to the worktag set based on ascending order.
Workday enters a journal line per prorated earning when you process:
  • Payments with earnings proration.
  • Manual payments with earnings proration, including negative manual payments.
If there are Adds to Gross (ATG) and Net Pay Only (NPO) earnings on both regular or manual payments, Workday only prorates the net pay journal lines associated with the ATG pay components. NPO pay components display on a separate journal line.
Example
An employee has a gross pay of $1000, their proration of earnings is a 30/70 split, and they have a $100 Employee Deduction. For simplicity, in this example no other deductions apply this pay result.
With this set up, their payroll actuals looks like:
Pay Component
Debit
Credit
Worktags
Earning- Base Pay
300
Fund 1, Cost Center 1
Earning- Base Pay
700
Fund 2, Cost Center 2
Employee Deduction
100
Fund 0, Cost Center 0
Net Pay
900
With
Allocate Net Pay Liability Based on Earning Proration
enabled, their payroll actuals would separate the net pay into two separate lines, resulting in payroll actuals that look like:
Pay Component
Debit
Credit
Worktags
Earning - Base Pay
300
Fund 1, Cost Center 1
Earning - Base Pay
700
Fund 2, Cost Center 2
Employee Deduction
100
Fund 0, Cost Center 0
Net Pay
270
Fund 1, Cost Center 1
Net Pay
630
Fund 2, Cost Center 2

Payments Journals

When Allocate Net Pay Liability Based on Earnings Proration is enabled, multiple net pay liability lines (credits) are created based on the distribution of earnings on the actuals journal. The net pay liability lines (debits) on the Payroll Payment Journals follow the splits from the actuals journals to relieve the liability accounts.
The Payroll Payments Journals will continue to follow the configuration of your cash balancing rule. Workday will still generate any necessary intercompany and/or interworktag payable and receivable journal lines to balance at the bank account level.
Note:
Ensure you test all the way through settling payroll and intercompany settlements. You can expect an increase in the time to complete or cancel settlements, especially if your company uses intercompany accounting or worktag balancing.

Exclude Negative Results Lines

With
Allocate Net Pay Liability - Exclude Negative Result Lines
enabled, you allow the exclusion of negative earning result lines from the proration calculation and you can eliminate or correct improper prorated distributions.
When you have negative earning lines that decrease the payroll gross, the earnings-based distribution percentages are impacted and this could cause the resulting net pay split amounts to be artificially inflated.
If all earnings on the pay result are negative and excluded, the system uses the worktags from the worker's Default Organizational Assignments to create the journal lines.
Example
An employee has a gross pay of $200, including some negative earnings, and they have a $100 Employee Deduction. For simplicity, in this example no other deductions apply this pay result.
With this set up, their payroll actuals looks like:
Pay Component
Debit
Credit
Worktags
Earning - Base Pay
300
Fund 1, Cost Center 1
Earning - Base Pay
700
Fund 2, Cost Center 2
Earning - Bonus
-800
Fund 3, Cost Center 3
Employee Deduction
100
Fund 0, Cost Center 0
Net Pay
100
Payroll actuals without
Exclude Negative Results
would produce a costing proration of:
Earning
Amount
Worktags
Math
Proration
Base Pay
300
Fund 1, Cost Center 1
(300/200)*100= 1.5
150%
Base Pay
700
Fund 2, Cost Center 2
(700/200)*100= 3.5
350%
Bonus
-800
Fund 3, Cost Center 3
(-800/200)*100= -4
-400%
Total
200
Payroll actuals without
Exclude Negative Results
enabled would produce:
Pay Component
Debit
Credit
Worktags
Earning - Base Pay
300
Fund 1, Cost Center 1
Earning - Base Pay
700
Fund 2, Cost Center 3
Earning - Bonus
-800
Fund 3, Cost Center 3
Employee Deduction
100
Fund 0, Cost Center 0
Net Pay
150
Fund 1, Cost Center 1
Net Pay
350
Fund 2, Cost Center 2
Net Pay
-400
Fund 3, Cost Center 3
Payroll actuals with
Exclude Negative Results
would produce a costing proration of:
Earning
Amount
Worktags
Math
Proration
Base Pay
300
Fund 1, Cost Center 1
(300/1000)*100= 0.3
30%
Base Pay
700
Fund 2, Cost Center 2
(700/1000)*100= 0.7
70%
Total
1000
Payroll Actuals with
Exclude Negative Results
enabled would produce:
Pay Component
Debit
Credit
Worktags
Earning - Base Pay
300
Fund 1, Cost Center 1
Earning - Base Pay
700
Fund 2, Cost Center 2
Earning - Bonus
-800
Fund 3, Cost Center 3
Employee Deduction
100
Fund 0, Cost Center 0
Net Pay
30
Fund 1, Cost Center 1
Net Pay
80
Fund 2, Cost Center 2