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Administrator Guide
Last Updated: 2025-09-19
Set Up Payroll Accounting Options for Salary Over the Cap (USA)

Set Up Payroll Accounting Options for Salary Over the Cap (USA)

Add
Grant
 as a Primary or Additional Worktag Type on the
Payroll Costing Allocation
 section of the
Maintain Worktag Usage
 report.
Before you can allocate a worker's salary to an award or grant associated with a salary cap, you must configure payroll accounting options for Salary Over the Cap in your tenant. You can configure options related to:
  • Allocating earnings not in Salary Over the Cap pay component groups to override worktags.
  • Allocating over-the-cap amounts to additional grant worktags.
  • Calculating over-the-cap amounts based on academic pay.
  • Default costing options for retro amounts associated with Salary Over the Cap grants.
  • Including a worker's earnings in the Salary Over the Cap calculation when they have 0 weekly hours or 0% FTE.
You can configure retro pay amounts to charge either over or under a salary cap grant when you run retro payroll calculations, reducing the number of payroll accounting adjustments you need to run and improving the accuracy of your billing. You can configure retro lines specific to salary cap grants to cost fully over or under the cap for certain job families, job family groups, and job profiles.
  1. Access the
    Maintain Payroll Accounting Options
     task.
  2. On the
    Grants/Awards
     tab of the
    Maintain Payroll Accounting Options
     task, enable
    Salary Over the Cap - Enable
    .
  3. (Optional) Consider enabling these options:
    Option
    Description
    Salary Over the Cap - Allow Grant Worktag in Suballocations
    Enables you to allocate the over the cap portion of a worker's salary to grant worktags other than their parent grant.
    Salary Over the Cap - Use Academic Pay Annual Work Periods
    Calculates the salary-over-the-cap amount for a pay period using the number of work periods in the academic year.
    Select this check box when you use specialized configurations of academic pay that use both an:
    • Earning for the annual work period.
    • Offset earning for the accrual payment.
    Salary Over the Cap - Use Costing Overrides when Earning isn't in the Pay Component Group
    Enables you to allocate earnings not configured in a Salary Over the Cap pay component group to under the cap override worktags you've configured.
    Salary Over the Cap - Evaluate 0% FTE as 100%
    Evaluates a worker's scheduled weekly hours of 0 or 0% FTE as 100% to include their earnings in the Salary Over the Cap calculation.
  4. On the
    Retro Accounting
     tab, enable either:
    • Default Over Cap
       to cost retro amounts associated with a salary cap to the Salary Over the Cap suballocations for a worker.
    • Default Under Cap
       to cost retro amounts associated with a salary cap grant to the salary cap grant for that worker.
  5. (Optional) Add rows to the grid that you want to configure for retro line salary cap costing.
    When the job profile associated with a retro line matches the job profile you specify or belongs to the job family or job family group that you configure, the behavior you select in step 4 applies to the retro line.
Retroactive Costing to a Salary Cap Grant
You have a worker who is a full-time professor earning a salary associated with a grant subject to a salary cap: SOC Grant A.
  • They earn $72,000 as a base annual salary, and they’re on a monthly period schedule earning $6,000 per month.
  • SOC Grant A is subject to the award salary cap of $240,000 base annual salary, or $20,000 per month.
The worker is subject to these costing allocation rules:
Default
SOC Suballocation
Distribution Percent
SOC Grant A
Fund A
Cost Center A
100%
Fund B
Cost Center B
100%
The worker earns their normal monthly salary from January to June. In July, they receive an annual salary increase to $84,000, or $7,000 per month, which is retroactive to June. When you run the
Run Retro Pay Calculation
 task in July, Workday pulls in the salary increase for the worker as a retro event. After the next payroll calculation, the actuals journal reflects the retro differences and the costing configuration for lines with salary over the cap grants.
When you select the
Default Over Cap
 check box, Workday allocates the retroactive $1,000 to the suballocation of the worker, which is Fund B, Cost Center B for June, and the current $7,000 to SOC Grant A, Fund A, Cost Center A.
When you select the
Default Under Cap
 check box, Workday allocates the retroactive $1,000 and the current $7,000 to SOC Grant A, Fund A, Cost Center A for June:
When you configure a row in the table to have Professor as a Job Profile or select the Job Family to which the Professor job belongs, retro processing respects your choice to
Cost Fully Over Cap
 or
Cost Fully Under Cap
 for those selections rather than follow your default choice.