Accrue Budgeted Personnel Costs Based on the Number of Days in a Month

Background

A Martus client wishes to calculate the budgeted amount for compensation costs based on the number of calendar or working days in each month.  

Let’s start by discussing how pay item amounts are tracked in Martus.  

• Each pay item on a position has a "starting rate". This is either the amount that is specifically entered for this pay item on this position, or the default rate for that pay item.  You see this displayed on a monthly basis on the Detail and Summary screens within Personnel Budgeting.  
• When a rate update is applied, it updates a range of months within Personnel Budgeting.  
• For your accrual, we're going to use Excel to calculate monthly rates in a more complicated way, then update each month with the appropriate amounts.  To do this, we’ll import a Pay Data File containing only the Pay Items Page, with the monthly amounts set for each pay item that is to be accrued on a monthly basis.   

Method

The approach is to complete the personnel budget within Martus, then prepare a scenario that contains accrued amounts and post that to the Martus budget. If updates are needed later, it is recommended that changes be made in the scenario that is in the normal format, then another accrued scenario be created for posting to the Martus budget. Remember, it is important to calculate the accrual as a final step, immediately before applying the allocation and importing into the Martus budget.  

Here’s a step-by-step breakdown:  

1. Copy the finished scenario (on the Scenarios page) to a name like "Scenario with Accrual" and set that to Current. Note: every step below relates to this new scenario!
2. Export a Pay Data file. Be sure to use the dropdown to Include Monthly Detail.  From this Pay Data File, delete all the pages except the Pay Items page. From the Pay Items page, delete all the lines that you are not going to accrue.  
3. Use the exported Excel to calculate the correct accrued amount for each month based on the number of working days. Paste that information into the appropriate months.  
4. Import the completed Pay Data File (Pay Items page only) back into the scenario.  
5. Use the Detail page and "recalculate" all of the percentage-based pay items (so they will be calculated on the basis of the updated monthly amounts.  
6. Apply your allocations as usual before posting to the Martus budget.