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Administrator Guide
Last Updated: 2026-09-18
Setup Considerations: Pay Accounting Reallocation

Setup Considerations: Pay Accounting Reallocation

You can use this topic to help make decisions when planning your configuration and use of Pay Accounting Reallocation. It explains:
  • Why to set it up.
  • How it fits into the rest of Workday.
  • Downstream impacts and cross-product interactions.
  • Security requirements and business process configurations.
  • Questions and limitations to consider before implementation.
Refer to detailed task instructions for full configuration details.

What It Is

Pay accounting reallocation enables you to reprocess accounting for a prior payroll period based on retroactive costing allocations that could cause updates to accounting when reprocessed. When you run pay accounting reallocation, Workday identifies completed Assign Costing Allocation events and processes them for reallocation.
Pay accounting reallocations provide an automated alternative to creating multiple payroll accounting adjustment entries to correct journal entries on completed payroll results.

Business Benefits

Pay accounting reallocation makes it easier to process multiple payroll accounting adjustments in order to correct accounting on completed payroll results.
Pay accounting reallocation also provides:
  • Make it easier to process multiple payroll results to correct accounting.
  • Identify completed costing allocation events that require accounting updates.
  • Support primary worktag balancing, optional worktag balancing, payroll intercompany accounting, and financial intercompany settlement.
  • Respect updated payroll costing configurations, including employer paid default costing, grant begin and grant end dates, and salary over the cap.
  • Include reallocation journals in payroll accounting reports.

Use Cases

  • Correct accounting on completed payroll results after a backdated assign costing allocation event.
  • Generate a subsequent pay accounting reallocation for the same payroll result from a costing allocation event at the same costing hierarchy level.
  • Reallocate accounting for salary over the cap for retroactive pay results.

Questions to Consider

Questions
Considerations
Do you use journal summarization?
When you complete pay accounting reallocations, Workday moves reallocation journals from
Created
 to
Posted
 status.
Pay accounting reallocations support journal summarization.
Do you use intercompany accounting?
Pay accounting reallocations support payroll intercompany accounting and financial intercompany settlement.

Recommendations

No impact.

Requirements

To use pay accounting reallocation, you must:
  • Select the
    Enable Payroll Accounting Reallocation
     check box on the
    Maintain Payroll Accounting Options
     task.
  • Configure the
    Process: Run Payroll Accounting Reallocation
     domain for the security groups that process pay accounting reallocation.
  • Complete payroll for the payroll results you want to reallocate.
To process gross-to-net retro results for salary over the cap, you must also select
Enable Reallocation of Retro Results for Salary Over the Cap
 on the
Maintain Payroll Accounting Options
 task.
Map the payroll accrual reallocation journal source to the payroll actual accrual reallocation journal entry source before you process reallocations.
To include fringe amounts when calculating payroll accounting reallocation, select the
Enable Fringe Actuals for Accounting Reallocation
 checkbox.

Limitations

You can't:
  • Reverse a payroll result that has an in-progress or completed pay accounting reallocation. Cancel in-progress reallocation results before you reverse the payroll result, assuming that the result hasn't been reconciled.
  • Reverse the
    Complete Pay Accounting Reallocation
     task.
  • Disable pay accounting reallocations if there are reallocation results in any status.
  • Disable
    Enable Reallocation of Retro Results for Salary Over the Cap
     if there are reallocation results in any status.
  • Update the
    No Pay Accounting Prior To
     date if there are reallocation results in any status.
  • Process pay accounting reallocations for payroll results with existing payroll accounting adjustments. Use a payroll accounting adjustment instead when a result already has an adjustment.
  • Run
    Cancel Pay Complete
     for a pay group detail with a worker that has a reallocation result in any status.
  • Close a ledger period when pay accounting reallocation journals are in created status.
  • Run
    Cancel Pay Accounting Reallocation
     without selecting a worker.

Tenant Setup

You can use the
Maintain Payroll Accounting Options
 task to:
  • Enable pay accounting reallocation.s
  • Configure a
    No Pay Accounting Reallocation Prior To
     date.
  • Enable reallocation of retro results for salary over the cap.
  • Configure
    No Retro Reallocation Prior To
     to exclude gross-to-net retro reallocations for payroll results with a period end date prior to the date you configure.
  • Configure
    Maximum Months Allowed For Retro Reallocation
     to define how far back Workday looks for gross-to-net retro reallocation processing. This setting works with
    No Retro Reallocation Prior To
    .
  • Include fringe amounts when calculating payroll accounting reallocation.
You can add the payroll accrual reallocation journal source to account posting rules on the
View Account Posting Rules
 report. The payroll journal source dimension is respected when evaluating account posting rules to determine the ledger account for reallocation lines.

Security

Configure the
Process: Run Payroll Accounting Reallocation
 domain in the Core Payroll functional area to enable users to run, complete, and cancel pay accounting reallocation. This domain secures these tasks:
  • Run Pay Accounting Reallocation
  • Cancel Pay Accounting Reallocation
  • Complete Pay Accounting Reallocation
Pay accounting reallocation processing supports these security groups:
  • Unconstrained groups.
  • Roles - Company / Company Hierarchy.
  • Roles - Pay Group.
  • Roles - Supervisory.
  • Roles - Cost Center / Cost Center Hierarchy.
  • Roles - Custom Organization / Custom Organization Hierarchy.
Role-based constrained security limits which workers and pay results users can select and view in pay accounting reallocation jobs and in
Process Monitor
.

Business Processes

No impact.

Reporting

Reports
Considerations
Excluded Pay Results from Pay Accounting Reallocation
Identify payroll results excluded from pay accounting reallocation because of an existing payroll accounting adjustment. Use this report to determine whether to rescind the adjustment and reallocate or to use a payroll accounting adjustment instead.
Process Monitor
Monitor pay accounting reallocation jobs and verify job completion and errors.
  • View Payroll Result
  • Payroll Accounting By Company/Period
  • Payroll Accounting By Period/Pay Group
Review pay accounting reallocation journals on the
Other Accounting
 tab of a payroll result.
Include payroll accrual reallocation as a journal source to analyze reallocation accounting. Select the
Exclude Reversal Journal Lines
 check box to generate reports without reversal journal line results.
Pay Accounting Reallocation by Status
Review pay accounting reallocations by worker and status when retro pay and pay accounting reallocation overlap.

Integrations

Web Services
Considerations
  • Get Payroll Accounting Options
  • Put Payroll Accounting Options
  • Enables you to retrieve payroll accounting configurations.
  • Enables you to add or update payroll accounting configurations.
  • Get Journal Source Mappings to Operational Transactions
  • Put Journal Source Mappings to Operational Transactions
Configure journal source mappings for pay accounting reallocation journal sources.
  • Get Account Posting Rule Set
  • Put Account Posting Rule Set
Use the payroll accrual reallocation journal source in the
Account Posting Rule Condition Value Reference
 field.

Connections and Touchpoints

Features
Considerations
Assign Costing Allocation
Completed costing allocation events are the primary trigger for pay accounting reallocation. You can't rescind an event used in a reallocation result until you cancel open reallocations.
Payroll Accounting Adjustments
Workday doesn't process payroll results with existing payroll accounting adjustments in a pay accounting reallocation run. Use the excluded pay results report to identify results that need a different correction path.
Retroactive Payroll
Gross-to-net retro results with salary over the cap grants can require pay accounting reallocation when retro processing completes. Configure retro reallocation settings on the
Maintain Payroll Accounting Options
 task.
Payroll Accounting
Reallocation journals use the payroll accrual reallocation journal source and respect account posting rules, worktag balancing, and intercompany accounting configured for payroll actuals.
Ledger Period Close
Workday restricts ledger period close when pay accounting reallocation journals are in created status. Complete or cancel open reallocations before closing periods.
Payroll Result Reversal
You can't reverse a payroll result with an in-progress or completed pay accounting reallocation. Cancel in-progress reallocations before reversing the result.
Workday offers a Touchpoints Kit with resources to help you understand configuration relationships in your tenant. Learn more about the Workday Touchpoints Kit on Workday Community.