Adjust insurable earnings history

An employee's Insurable Earnings history must be correct to issue an accurate Record of Employment (ROE). You can make changes to Insurable Earnings history for hours and earnings in payrolls that are already processed.

This is most commonly done when:

  • You requested a payout of the vacation accumulator as Yes - Time Taken, and the vacation time begins in one pay period and ends in another.
  • You entered hours or earnings for a different pay period and forgot to allocate them to that pay period using the For which pay period? list.

The preceding situations require you to reallocate Insurable Earnings history for the employee, which involves moving hours and earnings from one pay period to another. In rare situations, you may be required to edit Insurable Earnings history for the employee, which involves changing the values for hours and earnings in a specified pay period. For example, you may have paid out vacation pay as time taken, but the employee stayed on the job and earned regular wages for that time period. You would have to decrease the insurable hours for that pay period.

If you adjust an employee's Insurable Earnings History, it does not directly affect an employee's pay, but it is important for generating a correct Record of Employment for the employee.

Note: QPIP History does not affect the employee’s Record of Employment form, but Powerpay provides it for information purposes.

Any pay period without hours and earnings signals a stoppage of work. This negatively affects the employee's Employment Insurance benefits.

If an employee ceases employment, the Insurable Earnings History determines:

  • whether an employee can receive EI
  • how much the employee will receive for EI payments
  • how long the employee will receive EI payments

Prerequisites

The employee’s Insurable Earnings History is created from hours and earnings entered from previous pay periods. The history is created from processed payrolls, not from the current payroll that you are working with. Powerpay takes the payroll information and creates the values that it displays on the Insurable Earnings Adjustments page.Closed From the Payroll menu, select ROE / Employee Status Change > Insurable Earnings Adjustments.

Note: If the selected employee's Province of Employment is Quebec, or if the employee has QPIP History, Powerpay presents additional options in the Action to be taken list to adjust QPIP History. EI and QPIP are two separate programs and they must be adjusted separately, one to adjust EI History and one to adjust QPIP History.

Use the Insurable Earnings Adjustments page.Closed From the Payroll menu, select ROE / Employee Status Change > Insurable Earnings Adjustments. to view or change an employee's Insurable Earnings History.

This page is often used in the following circumstances:

  • When a vacation payout was made on the Employee Timesheet page and an adjustment to the employee’s insurable hours and earnings is required.
  • When an employee has a status change involving a Record of Employment form, and the EI earnings or hours are incorrect.

For purposes of insurability, the Employee Timesheet page allows you to allocate hours and earnings to pay periods other than the current pay period. This minimizes the need to manually update an employee’s Insurable Earnings History. If any hours or earnings issued in the current pay period belong to a different pay period, use the For which pay period? field on the Employee Timesheet page to allocate these hours and earnings to the required pay period or periods.

Tasks

  1. Click the Pay Period menu and click the Enter button for the pay period you want to work with.

  2. Navigate to the Insurable Earnings Adjustments page.Closed From the Payroll menu, select ROE / Employee Status Change > Insurable Earnings Adjustments.
  3. Select an employee from the Employee List.
  4. Select an action from the Action to be taken list.
  5. Click Next. Powerpay displays fields relevant to the action you chose.
  6. Complete the fields on the page.
    • If reallocating information from one pay period to another, enter positive values.
    • If editing a specific pay period, enter positive or negative values as appropriate.
  7. (Quebec wages only) Repeat step 6 to adjust QPIP hours and earnings in addition to EI Insurable hours and earnings.
  8. Click Save.

Note: EI (and QPIP if applicable) History can be edited to over a year in the past, if those pay periods were processed using Powerpay. The exact number of previous pay periods potentially available is based on the payroll frequency.

Results

Any EI changes you make on this page are immediately included in the information provided on the ROE form, if an ROE is requested on the Status Change / ROE page.Closed From the Payroll menu, select ROE / Employee Status Change > Status Change / ROE.

Field Information

  • Reallocate - Reallocate insurable earnings and insurable hours from one pay period to another. The most common reason for reallocating earnings and hours is when you have paid an employee more than one pay period from within one pay period. The Employee Timesheet allows you to automatically allocate earnings and hours to different pay periods, but if you have forgotten to do that, you can correct the error here.

  • Edit - Edit insurable hours and insurable earnings for a specific pay period. Normally you do not need to edit insurable hours and insurable earnings. The most common reason for editing insurable hours is because a salaried employee has not been set up with the correct standard hours per pay period.

  • View - View employee EI and QPIP History for all available pay periods with insurable hours and earnings listed by pay period.

  • First Day Worked - The first day worked by the employee. This value is taken from the entry on the Compensation tab.Closed From the People menu, select People List > Compensation.

  • ROE First Day Worked - If available, this field displays the date the employee was rehired after an absence.

  • Last Day Worked - Displays the last day worked for the employee if the employee's present status is terminated. If the employee was terminated on a previous payroll run, the employee's Insurable Earnings History is view-only.

  • ROE Previously Issued - If a Record of Employment was previously generated, the date the ROE was produced displays.

  • Total Insurable Hours - Displays the total number of insurable hours that prints on the Record of Employment.

    Note: This value does not include insurable hours accumulated after the current pay period is processed.

  • Total Insurable Earnings - Displays the total insurable earnings that prints on the Record of Employment.

    Note: This value does not include insurable earnings accumulated after the current pay period is processed.

  • QPIP History (if applicable) - Displays the number of Total Insurable Hours and Total Insurable Earnings for information purposes. These hours have no impact on the employee's Record of Employment form.

  • Pay Period - Displays all available pay periods. The number of previous pay periods potentially available in Powerpay is based on your payroll frequency:

    • 60 for Weekly payrolls
    • 30 for Biweekly payrolls
    • 30 for Semi-monthly payrolls
    • 15 for Monthly payrolls
    • 1 yr. + 5 payrolls for any Other payroll

  • Insurable Hours - Displays the insurable hours for each available pay period.

  • Insurable Earnings - Displays the insurable earnings for each available pay period.

  • Edit Pay Period - This field appears when the action is editing insurable earnings history for a specific pay period.

    From the list, select the pay period for which to edit the employee's Insurable Earnings History. The list displays Pay Period Ending Dates and Pay Period Numbers for five future pay periods, the current pay period and all previous pay periods in the calendar year processed through Powerpay.

  • Move from which Pay Period? - This field appears when the action is reallocating insurable earnings history from one pay period to another.

    From the list, select the pay period FROM which to move the insurable hours and earnings. The list displays the Pay Period Ending Dates and Pay Period Numbers for five future pay periods, the current pay period and all previous pay periods in the calendar year processed through Powerpay.

  • Move to which Pay Period? - The field appears when the action is reallocating insurable earnings history from one pay period to another.

    From the list, select the pay period TO which to move the insurable hours and earnings. The list displays the Pay Period Ending Dates and Pay Period Numbers for five future pay periods, the current pay period and all previous pay periods in the calendar year processed through Powerpay.

  • Insurable Hours - Enter either a positive or negative value to adjust the Insurable Hours for the employee. Your entry adjusts, NOT replaces, the insurable hours recorded for this employee. After saving the page, any adjustment entered is reflected in the History section of this page.

  • Insurable Earnings - Enter either a positive or negative value to adjust the Insurable Earnings for the employee. Your entry adjusts, NOT replaces, the insurable earnings recorded for this employee. After saving the page, any adjustment entered is reflected in the History section of this page.