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Administrator Guide
Last Updated: 2025-12-12
Create Initial Payroll Commitments (CAN, USA)

Create Initial Payroll Commitments (CAN, USA)

  • Create payroll commitment rules.
  • Select
    Create Commitments
     and
    Create Obligations
     on the
    Create Ledger
     task.
  • Configure the
    Create Initial Payroll Commitments
     business process and security policy in the Core Payroll functional area.
You can calculate initial payroll commitments once for each company at the beginning of the fiscal year.
You can't cancel or rescind the initial creation of the payroll commitments, but you can send it back to the person who created the event and submit to recalculate.
Workday continues to calculate commitments for frozen job requisitions.
  1. (Optional) Configure Workday to post commitments to your finance journals in a detailed, nonaggregated form.
    In the
    Commitments
     section on the
    Maintain Payroll Accounting Options
     task, select the
    Enable Journal Details
     check box.
    Security:
    Set Up: Tenant Setup - Payroll
     domain in the System functional area.
  2. Access the
    Create Initial Payroll Commitments
     task.
  3. (Optional) Select the
    Exclude Completed Payroll Periods
     check box to prevent Workday from creating commitments, obligations, and related fringe benefit data for previously completed payroll periods.
    You can use this option for midyear implementations so that you don't impact budget creation, budget checking, and annual commitment reporting. Workday recommends using the
    Create Position Budgets
     task to ensure that you accurately generate position budgets for payroll periods.
    Example: You complete a payroll run in June 2018, and then create initial payroll commitments in July 2018. You select the check box so your run doesn't include your June commitment data.
  4. Click
    Submit
     to launch the
    Create Initial Payroll Commitments
     business process.
The business process creates:
  • Initial payroll and fringe benefit commitments and obligations.
  • Detail data per pay period.
  • Consolidated journal and journal entry lines.
  • Consolidated journal and journal entry lines for each costing company, when you enable intercompany accounting.
When you run subsequent commitment adjustments using the
Create Payroll Commitment Adjustments
 task, you can view the journal details for these data sets:
  • Fringe Benefit Commitment Adjustment
  • Fringe Benefit Obligation Adjustment
  • Payroll Commitment Adjustment
  • Payroll Obligation Adjustment
You can also view multiple companies with their journal details, when you enable intercompany accounting.
Workday doesn’t calculate fringe commitments or obligations for any period with negative YTD earnings.
If the reviewer sends back the initial commitments, resubmit either
Calculate Payroll and Fringe Benefits Initial Commitments
 or
Fringe Benefits and Initial Commitments ONLY
 from the task in My Tasks.
Process payroll to liquidate commitments and obligations and to create fringe benefit actuals.