Oracle Payroll Interview Questions

The main purpose of the payroll run is to calculate

employee pay correctly at regular intervals. In addition
you can perform other payroll processes to ensure
accuracy and provide flexibility for your organization. For
example, you can roll back a payroll run when you want
to carry out a test run without keeping any record of it
having taken place. You can also run a Retro Pay process
when you want to make retrospective adjustments to
allow for backdated pay awards.

What are the mandatory fields while creating Payroll?

Payroll Name, Period Type and Start Date

Define Elements

Elements are the building blocks for earnings, deductions

etc. of a Payroll.

Salary Basis

Salary basis is the duration on which the salary is

reckoned. It is a rule to administer pay.

Define – Quick Pay & Batch Processing

When calculating pay, we can use either

- Quick Pay Process, which is for one employee or

- Batch Process for all employees together

What is Retro Pay, Advance Pay & Absence Pay

- Retro Pay – Payment for any previous cycle in the

current payroll run
- Advance Pay – Payment for any future cycle/advance in
the current payroll run
- Absence Pay – Payment for leaves like sick leave,
maternity leave, annual leave and other statutory leaves
Define Batch Element Entry

This is an open interface specially designed for elements.

With BEE we can quickly incorporate mass updates in any
specific elements.

What are Reversal and Retry?

Reversal can be used to correct run results for one

assignment after post-run actions have already occurred.
Retry is for correcting mistakes after a payroll process
finishes.

Which elements you link openly in Payroll?

Worker’s Compensation and Vertex (Vertex is a third

party software to calculate US Canadian taxes) using
Quantum files. (It is part of Vertex software which will
be updated as and when the tax and legal rules are
changed by the US/Canadian Government. So we keep
getting the Vertex patches to bring Quantum files with
the up to date tax rules and conditions)

What is Consolidation Set, Element Set & Assignment

Set?

Consolidation Set: A grouping of payroll runs within the

same time period for which one can schedule reporting,
costing, and post-run processing.

Element Set: Grouping of all individual elements into

one set.

Suppose you want to define a special type of payment

and make this available only to employees who work at a
particular location. In Oracle HRMS you use a
compensation element to represent the payment. You
define the business rule as a link between the element
and the specific location. Then when you assign
employees to the location, they automatically become
eligible for the payment.
Assignment Set: Grouping of assignments for retro pay is
generally referred to as Assignment Set.

What are Fast Formulas?

Fast formulas are pseudo codes used in the payroll for

validating the entry values, assignment sets and element
sets.

Post Payroll Process

Three concurrent processes will run in the Post-Payroll

process, viz.

1. Pre-payment Process
2. Costing Process &
3. Transfer to GL Process

What do you mean by Garnishments?

Third Party payments is also known as Wage

Attachments, Wage Garnishments and Court orders in
different localizations. 3rd party payments are
deductions from earnings incurred by Court debts or
fines. For example, payment of maintenance, child
support or other legally incurred obligations.

What is BACS, NACHA?

BACS: Banks Automated Clearing System. This is the UK

system for making direct deposit payments to employees.

NACHA: National Automated Clearing House Association.

This is the US system for making direct deposit payments
to employees.

Does Oracle Payroll enable you to run part payrolls?

Yes, Oracle Payroll enables you to run part payrolls. This

is useful in each of the following circumstances where
you do not want to process a payroll for the entire
organization.

Calculating Pay for an Individual Employee

If an employee leaves the company before the end of a
payroll period, you will need to calculate the individual
pay entitlement. You may also want to calculate
individual pay to check the details for an employee
before starting a payroll run for all employees.

Can you verify that a payroll run has completed

successfully?

On completion of a payroll run you will need to verify

that the run completed successfully. You can display run
messages and view latest balances and assignment level
results. You may also need to have relevant information
grouped by topic in report format so that you can review
the outcome of processing.

Can you make adjustments after a payroll run has

completed?

Oracle Payroll enables you to make each of the following

types of adjustment when a payroll run has completed.
- Addition of late entries that were not included in the
initial run
- Corrections to details that were wrongly entered in the
initial run
- Retrospective distribution of current payments to the
period in which they were earned

When you have made these corrections and modifications

you can then run the payroll again. However, you do not
need to rerun the entire payroll. Oracle Payroll will only
reprocess those items that were incorrect in the initial
run.

Can you produce payment and costing information

from a completed payroll run?

Oracle Payroll enables you to use the results of a payroll

run to allocate payments to your employees, and to
provide costing information.

Ensuring that Employees are paid by the Correct

Payment Method

When a payroll run has completed you need to pay each

employee according to the payment methods that you
have specified. You may also need to override the
predefined payment methods where employees are
receiving special payments such as bonuses, which may
not be paid by the usual methods of payment.

Ensuring that Costing Information can be provided

On completion of a payroll run you may need to

distribute the associated costs across particular cost
centres. Oracle supports this using the Cost Analysis
module.

Can you run payroll processes and reports multi-

lingually?

Payroll processes and reports are always submitted and

always run in the local language only. This means that US
and UK payroll reports can only be run in English.
Can you verify that payments have been made?

Yes. Oracle Payroll is fully integrated with Oracle Cash

Management. This enables you to use Oracle Cash
Management to verify that payments have been cashed.
Reconciliation can be applied to payroll checks (cheques)
and third party checks. You can identify which checks
have been cleared and the date on which they were
cleared. You can also view a reconciliation report which
shows if voided checks appear to have been cashed.
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS
---------------------
1) Where do you terminate an employee in the
application?

Navigate to US HR or US HRMS Manager (or equivalent)

> People > Enter and
Maintain > Others > End Employment.
2) How do you terminate an employee?
On Terminate screen, select Actual Process Date and/or
Final Process Date
and click on Terminate button. Optionally, enter 'Leaving
Reason,' 'Notified,'
'Projected,' 'Last Standard Proces' values.

3) What API's are available for termination?

Hr_ex_employee_api (File name: peexeapi.pkb)

This file contains three (3) procedures.....
hr_ex_employee_api.actual_termination_emp
hr_ex_employee_api.update_term_details_emp
hr_ex_employee_api.final_process_emp
Note: The API's have to be called in that order.

4) How do you rehire a terminated employee?

Ensure the Final Process Date field is populated on

Terminate screen. Navigate
back to People form and change person type of Ex-
employee to Employee from list
of values.

5) How do you perform a reverse termination?

On Terminate screen, datetrack to termination date and

select Reverse
Termination button.

6) How do you populate the Leaving Reason list of

values on Termination form?

This is controlled by Lookup Type 'LEAV_REAS.' Add any

number of records to
this lookup. Navigation: US HRMS Manager > Other
Definitions > Application
Utilities Lookups
7) What is the significance of the fields in the
Termination Dates zone on Termination form?

i.e. Notified, Projected, Actual, Last Standard Process,

Final Process.
Notification Date:

This is for information only and is optional.

Projected Date:

This is for information only and is optional.

Actual Date:

This corresponds to the actual date the employee left the

organization.
When you DateTrack after this date the People form will
show the person as an
Ex-Employee. This is required.
Last Standard Process Date:

Where Oracle Payroll is used this will be the date after

which no further
payroll processing can occur. This is optional and can be
left blank.
Element entries defined against the employee would be
end dated with this
date rather than the actual date if they were defined with
the standard rule
of Last Standard Process.

Final Process Date:

This will represent the last date for late payments for
Oracle Payroll users.
An example would be where certain elements were paid in
arrears - such
as commission. Element entries defined against the
employee would be end dated
with this date rather than the actual date if they were
defined with the
standard rule of Final Close.

8) How do you terminate in a shared HR installation?

In shared HR installations, you'll navigate to the shared
People form (PERWSEMP).
Query employee and populate End Date field.

Note: The navigation varies based on financial application

you are using. For example:

Responsibility Navigation
-------------------------
PO Super User GUI Setup/Personnel/Employees
PA Projects Costing Super User GUI Setup/Human
Resources/Employees
AP Manager GUI Employees/Enter Employees
9) How do you change the end date (termination date)
in a shared HR installation?

This example uses Projects responsibility:

A. Select the Responsibility Project Billing Super User or

Costing Super User.

B. Navigate: Setup -> Human Resources -> Employees

C. Query the employee.

D. Clear the End Date field.

E. Save.

F. Enter the new end-date.

G. Save.
10) R11.5 - Why does terminating an employee
produce error APP-BEN-92108?
You must define a default monthly payroll for each
business group you maintain.
Benefit assignments are linked to the default monthly
payroll in order to
calculate premiums for continuing benefits such as
COBRA. (Oracle Development
recommends defining a Monthly payroll as default at the
GRE level.)

The monthly default payroll does not need to be unique. If

a monthly payroll is
already set up for your business group, you may choose to
use that payroll as a
default, rather than setting up a new one.

To assign a default payroll for Benefits:

3.1. (N)Work Structures -> Organization -> Description.
3.2. Query the Organization.
3.3. Under Organization Classifications -> Business Group
click on the
Others button.
3.4. Choose Benefits Defaults Enter the Monthly payroll
you will use for
the default for Benefits.

11) How do you terminate in Self Service Human

Resources?

Manager Self-Service > Termination (US) > Select

employee > terminate

12) How do you pay terminated employees in Oracle

Payroll?
Ensure the terminated employee has an assignment
status related to 'Process'
payrolls. You can confirm which statuses you have set
under Work Structures >
Status. Element entries on the terminated employee
should be non-recurring
elements.

13) What happens to element entries upon

termination?

All element entries are end-dated.