Subtracting the number of one wagetype from another when calling a PCR with PRT

[khigby]

For full compliance with the Alabama Overtime Exemption, we have a need to subtract the number of one wagetype from another, then recalculating the amount before adding it to the /PPE wagetype.

For some background, we calculate OT differently from the state of Alabama:

• Alabama considers OT to be actual hours worked > 40
• We take vacation, holiday, sick pay into account, so if an employee took a day off (i.e. 8hrs), they would begin being paid overtime after 32 actual hours worked.

However, only the amounts in excess of 40 actual hours worked are exempt from tax. We have accounted for this by taking into account our OT-protecting wagetypes, but are having difficulty configuring this for the overtime shift premium wagetypes, which have many different rates.

The rule we'd like to configure is fairly straightforward. For example, if the employee had 10.5hrs of shift premium (let's call it SHFP) at a rate of $1.50/hr, but they had taken 8 hours of vacation (VACP), only 2.5hrs of the SHFP wagetype would be exempt.

So we configured the following rule:

...
⨽ SHFP
  ⨽ ELIMI K
  ⨽ NUMS  VACP
  ⨽ MULTI RNA
  ⨽ ADDWTE/PPE

Expecting that it:
⨽ Ignores cost accounting
⨽ Subtracts the number amount in VACP from SHFP
⨽ Multiplies the new number by the rate of SHFP, storing the result in the amount field
⨽ Adds this to the /PPE wagetype, since it is the exempt amount of shift premium

However, the second step (NUMS  VACP) does not seem to be working.

If I hard-code the value (NUMS8) it works as intended, but it doesn't appear to be able to access the number in the wagetype. I have confirmed that the wagetype exists on the RT and has the amount expected. If we don't do ELIMI K, it adds another /PPE entry (with a different PC205 assignment) that contains the correct amount. But we need it to add it to the existing /PPE record.

How can I get this to work?

[alicia_robinson]

Hello - I'm curious if you had an issue with overtime that retros from the prior year but paid in current year? We have OT hours coming from December 2023, but not being paid until January 2024 and this is not being picked up as an exclusion. We also tried running payroll for period 1 of 2025 and it also does not consider OT hours from December 2024. We added the OSS notes and put our OT wage type in the rule suggested by the notes. It works for all periods in current year - it's just ignoring that retro amount.

[khigby · Accepted solution]

The solution was to change "NUMS  VACP" to "NUMSR VACP", and to move it above the "ELIMI K" line.

I have no idea why it's necessary to explicitly tell NUMS to use the RT - the value was in both the IT and the OT, so I'm not sure where NUMS refers to by default, but telling it to look at RT solved the issue.

I did try "NUMS  VACP" above the "ELIMI K" line, and it did not work either.