New Field Brings Changes to the Employee EFT Screen

The 2016 Q2 update for Sage HRMS 2015 and 2016 introduced a Prenote Status field to the EFT screen in Employee Payroll. For many who installed the Q2 update, this new field went unnoticed as existing direct deposit accounts were automatically set to the Approved status when the update was installed. For others, it was apparent that something had changed when they found the Calculation Type field to be blank on every direct deposit setup. Yikes! Fortunately, the data remained intact and displayed correctly in the EFT screen following some setup changes in the custom reports folders. So what is the purpose of the new field and how does it work?

HRMS allows employers to generate a prenote file with zero-dollar transactions to verify employees’ bank account information. With the addition of the Prenote Status field, employers can mark employee direct deposit accounts with the status of the prenote process to help avoid sending actual payroll data before the account information and setup have been verified. The field has four status options:

• Not Sent – No prenote has been sent.
• Pending – A prenote has been sent and you are awaiting a response from the bank.
• Approved – A prenote was sent, and the bank approved it. You can make direct deposits to the bank account.
• Declined – A prenote was sent, but the bank declined it. Verify the account information and send another prenote file.

HRMS will not generate a direct deposit for any bank accounts having a prenote status other than Approved. Rather, employees will be paid by live check for amounts set to be deposited to accounts with a prenote status of Not Sent, Pending, or Declined. The status of a bank account is not automatically changed to Approved when the bank approves a prenote file. After all, HRMS has no way to know when a prenote is approved unless you tell it by manually changing the status to approved. However, there are times that the status of an account can be changed to Not Sent or Pending automatically, which has caught a few employers by surprise. There are few things the payroll department likes less than a surprise during payroll week. Employers can avoid the surprise by noting the following:

• When a new bank account is added to an employee’s EFT screen, the prenote status defaults to Not Sent.
• The prenote status of an existing bank account will change to Not Sent if you change the Transaction Code, Receiving DFI ID, or Account Number for the bank.
• The prenote status of a bank account will change to Pending if you generate a pre-notification file for the bank through the Create EFT File process.
  

Now that I have given you all of this information about the Prenote Status field, I would be remiss if I did not tell you that you can set an account’s status to Approved at any time. HRMS does not require employers to take advantage of the prenote status codes provided. Should you decide to set an account’s status to Approved when you add or update account information, HRMS will display a warning message prior to saving the change in status. You can select “Yes” to confirm your status selection.

Although it came onto the scene with a somewhat bumpy start, the Prenote Status field can be helpful to employers who incorporate the prenote file into their regular routine or to those who have thought about doing so. If you have questions about this new field or about special considerations for installing the 2016 Q2 update, let us know by emailing CS3 Support at support@cs3technology.com or by submitting a support request here.