FAQ: Rounding and Precision in Compensation Review Calculations

How does Workday round bonus amounts?: Workday:
Calculates and stores all amounts with precision up to 12 decimal places.
Applies the rounding rule, if configured on the bonus plan, to both the total bonus and the nondiscretionary targets and amounts.
Applies currency precision rounding up to 6 decimal places.

Workday doesn't update amounts due to changes in scorecard results or compensation plans while the compensation review is in progress, except:
When you run the
Recalculate Pool and Awards
task.
During processing of participation rule sets that use the
Update Employee to Latest Data
option.
During the Manage Bonus Funding
step of the Initiate Compensation Review Process
, Workday updates amounts based on the company funding scorecard.
When you access the
Compensation Review Recalculate Bonus Targets
task. Workday updates nondiscretionary award amounts, but not discretionary amounts.
When you remove and add back employees using the
Maintain Compensation Review Process Employee Participation
report.

To display how Workday calculated a bonus, access the
View Bonus Calculation
report.
Why don’t amounts displayed in Workday match calculations made outside of Workday?: Workday calculates and stores numbers internally at a precision of up to 12 decimal places. Spreadsheet applications limit the number of decimal places in a single cell.

Workday displays values in the user interface and on reports at a lower precision, usually 4 or 2 decimal places. Doing so saves space and improves performance. When displaying values in the user interface and on reports, Workday truncates the decimal values without changing the persisted amount and doesn't perform rounding. Example: Workday stores 92.123498765432 but displays 92.1234 without changing the stored value.

When creating pools for compensation reviews, Workday uses individual employee targets if configured, or calculates an individual percentage share of the total pool at a precision up to 6 decimal places. Workday then stores each employee’s pool contribution at a precision of up to 12 decimal places.

Example:
An employee has a current base pay of 29,237.90.
You enter a merit amount increase of 1,023.40 (2 decimal places).
Workday calculates the percentage increase and stores the value at a precision up to 12 decimal places: (1,023.40 / 29,237.90) * 100 = 3.500251386043.
Workday truncates the value to 4 decimal places for display on the user interface and on reports to 3.5002.

Verifying the calculation with less precision results in a difference of 0.02 (rounded to currency precision):
Using value displayed: (3.5002 / 100) * 29,237.90 = 1,023.38.
Using value persisted: (3.500251386043 / 100) * 29,237.90 = 1,023.40.