The third major release of 2021 has arrived. This release contains an overhaul of functionality related to our Payroll, Time Tracking, HR, and Benefits platform.
Note: UZIO Mobile application will be updated by the end of the week (8/20)
Quick Links
- Makeup Pay/Minimum Wage Guarantee Setup
- Paid Time Off Details in Paystub
- Modifiable Regular Hours of Salaried Employees
- Enhancement in General Ledger Setup
- Tax Filing Reports
- Miscellaneous Payroll Improvements
UZIO Time Tracking and Time Off Enhancements
- Employees and Reporting Managers can now Manage Time Entries for Self and Direct Reports
- Time Tracking to show Paid Time Off and Holiday separately
- Multiple Leaves Allowed for the Same Day
- Document Sharing Between Interlinked Companies in UZIO
- Add Non-Employee Employer Users
- Display Future Effective Dates of Employee Job & Contact Details
- Ability to Hide 'Upload Document(s)' Feature on Employee Portal
UZIO Miscellaneous Enhancements
UZIO Payroll Enhancements
Makeup Pay/ Minimum Wage Guarantee Setup
Makeup pay or a minimum wage makeup guarantee is a feature used to ensure tipped or piecewise employees are meeting the minimum wage required by the locality the business is located in.
This feature is most common for tipped employees who have an hourly pay rate below mandated minimum wage. Employers need to ensure the employees tips combined with their hourly rate are at or above the mandated hourly minimum wage.
UZIO has made it easy for the employers to comply with the minimum wage regulations. Employers can now set up a minimum wage guarantee per employee and the UZIO system will ensure the employee meets that minimum, and will calculate any makeup amount needed to ensure the employee meets the minimum wage requirement.
Minimum wage guarantees can vary among localities. It is the employers responsibility to enter and ensure the minimum wage for the business location is accurate. For a quick resource that outlines some of the other pay requirements for your state, check out this DOL page. For further questions we recommend you reach out to a certified tax professional or HR professional regarding pay laws.
How to Setup
A new section, Minimum Wage Rate, has been added in the payroll tab under each employee to set up the applicable minimum wage rate for an employee.
If the taxable wages are found to be less than the Minimum Wage Rate then the system will automatically make up the difference. This difference will be displayed as an additional line item “Makeup Pay”.
Paid Time Off Details in Pay Stub
For employers who are currently using our Time Off and Payroll modules, their employees will now see the amount of leave they have accrued during the pay period and their current balances on each paystub.
A new section, Paid Time Off Details, has been added to the paystub to display accrued leave and leave balances for each PTO policy assigned.
- If your pay period ends prior to your check date the PTO balance displayed in the pay stub will be as of the pay period end date.
- If you pay period ends after your check date, the PTO balance displayed will be as of the check date.
The leave accrual and balance information is also available on the pay stubs available on the UZIO mobile app.
Modifiable Regular Hours of Salaried Employees
UZIO defaults 40 hours a week for salaried employees and determines the hourly rate using the default 40 hours. However, there are many instances where the standard number of working hours per week is different for a salaried employee, therefore resulting in an incorrect rate that appeared on the pay stub.
You can now update the number of working hours for a salaried employee.
How to Edit Salary Employees Hours
In the payroll tab for each salaried employee, navigate to the earnings section, and select the regular wage earning name. By default, the hours per pay are defaulted on the basis of 40 hours a week. Click on edit and you have the option of overriding the Hours Per Pay for the Regular Wage earning.
- The Rate Per Hour will get automatically calculated on the basis of Hours Per Pay entered and Amount Per Pay.
- This hourly rate is used for PTO, and overtime calculation.
For example, In the image above, Kate Harris is a salaried employee who is paid monthly (therefore 12 pay periods per year).
- Annual salary = $90,230
- Amount Per Pay = Annual Salary/12 (pay periods) = $7519.17
- This amount is fixed unless the annual salary is changed
- Default Weekly Hours = 40
- Default Hours Per Pay = Weekly Hours * 52 week/ 12 (pay periods) = 173.33
- Default Rate Per Hour = $7519.17 (Amount Per Pay)/173.33 Hours Per Pay = $43.38
- If the employer changes the Hours Per Pay to 100, the Rate will automatically change to $7519.17/100 = $75.19
- The changed rate will be used to calculate Kate’s regular, PTO and overtime wages.
Enhancement in General Ledger setup
UZIO general ledger setup allows employers to include contractor payments into their IIF file even if account code grouping is enabled for.
Changes in General Ledger – Add/Edit Account User Interface
- Contractor earning “1099 Box 7 (Nonemployee Compensation)” has been moved from earnings grid to Pay Type drop list.
- Two new pay types, Contractor Check Net Pay and Contractor Direct deposit Net Pay have been added.
- For the accounts mapped to any of the three contractor specific pay types, the system ignores the file grouping and account code grouping.
Tax Filing Reports
Employers will now be able to access company quarterly tax-filing returns filed by UZIO on their behalf. 'Tax Filing Report' section has been introduced as a new tab on the payroll dashboard. Starting Q3'2021, you will see all tax filing documents UZIO has filed on behalf of a company. Generally, these reports will be available at the end of the month following the quarter-end date.
Payroll service providers who use the UZIO platform to process payrolls for their clients, will now have access to generate ACH files for their payroll clients.
Changes in Broker Payroll Dashboard
- Two new tabs “Generate ACH” and “Generate Files” have been added in the broker payroll dashboard.
- Generate ACH tab will have all the payrolls, across clients, listed for which ACH file needs to be generated.
- Broker users will be able to select one or more payrolls and generate a consolidated ACH file for the selected payrolls.
- The generated ACH file will be available for download in the Generate Files tab for download.
Miscellaneous Payroll Improvements
Taxes Withheld Report – The report is enhanced to better display gross taxable wages
Check Stubs and Check Payment Details Report – These reports are enhanced to have records default sorted by the last name, first name, middle initial, the suffix of employees followed by employee codes.
Employee name with "Suffix" across the payroll module - Sometimes there can be a couple of family members with the same name in the company. To identify them in the Payroll module we have started displaying suffixes to employee names. The format to display employee name in payroll module is <last name>, <first name> <middle initial> <suffix>
Eg. Smith, Robert M Jr.
Overtime and Double Overtime Earnings - The system is updated to automatically add Overtime and Double Overtime earning codes for any new clients with the Regular wages. The existing clients who didn’t have created the OT or DOT codes before will see these earning codes added by the system in the company-level earning.
UZIO Time Tracking Enhancements
Employees and Reporting Managers Manage Time Entries for Self and Direct Reports
UZIO has added an additional setting and functionality for employers to grant the ability for reporting managers and employees to be able to edit their own time entries.
- Reporting managers and employees can add, edit, or delete unapproved
This is an optional setting that can be enabled by employers.
Time Tracking to show Paid Time Off and Holiday Separately
The Time Tracking overview page will have Time off and Holiday Hours in separate columns
- Time Off- all approved paid time off during the pay period.
- Holiday- all paid holidays during the pay period.
Multiple Leaves Allowed for the Same Day
The Time Off module has been enhanced to allow employees to enter leaves from the same or multiple policies towards the same day.
UZIO HRIS Enhancements
Document Sharing Between Interlinked Companies in UZIO
When uploading a new document to the Employee Documents module, if there are multiple companies linked together via EIN, the new document can be shared across some or all groups. This allows employers to efficiently configure employee documents across multiple groups at one time. Existing documents can also be edited and shared to other linked groups.
Add Non-Employee Employer Users
UZIO now supports adding non-employees as employer users. This enables employers to add their CPAs, Accountants, and any other contractors or vendor users to assist with managing their group. After you have added a non-employee user, a “Non-Employee” label will appear on the Manage Users page next to the user.
Display Future Effective Dates of Employee Job & Contact Details
The employee profile displays all current information. A new label will now appear next to fields that have a future effective date so administrators can quickly see if new information will be effective in the future.
Salary will be effective September 1st, 2021
Home Address will be effective September 1st, 2021
Ability to Hide 'Upload Document(s)' Feature on Employee Portal
Employers can now disable the ‘Upload Document(s)' feature on My Documents for all employees. This can be done from the Settings tab of the employer portal.
UZIO Benefits Enhancements
Shared Contribution for Disability Products
Previously, the UZIO platform only supported disability plans that were 100% employer paid or 100% employee paid. Now, when a voluntary disability plan is added to a benefit package, an employer contribution can be entered so that the cost is split between the employer and employee. While creating the benefits package, a new page will appear called Life and Disability Contribution for the broker to enter the employer contribution.
Note: In a future release, this contribution functionality will be added for other products like Critical Illness, Cancer insurance, Voluntary life, Voluntary AD&D, etc.
Employer Share Setup
If employers share the cost of these benefits, the total per paycheck deduction of vol. STD and vol. LTD is divided between employee and employer as per the contribution setting.
Employee Enrollment Experience
UZIO Miscellaneous Enhancements
System Processing Times Displayed in User’s Time Zone
Processing time stamps in the UZIO portal will now display as per the end user’s time zone. This is dependent on the time zone of the browser being used by the end user.
For example, the document signed date, time off accrual date, report generated timestamp, and other sections will appear per the user’s browser date and time.
UZIO Privacy Policy Update
We have made updates to our privacy policy. Click here to read the full policy.