The fourth release for 2022 is here. The Payroll, Time Tracking, and HR functionality has been overhauled in this release.
Note: On the UZIO Mobile App, Time Tracking and Time Off have also been updated. By September 25th, 2022, UZIO Mobile app will have a new version available for employees to download.
If you’d like to read about our last major releases from 2022, click here.
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UZIO Payroll New Features and Enhancements
- Gross-up Net Pay
- Electronic W2 Consent from Employees
- W3 Reconciliation Report
- Payroll Allocation Report
- Paystub Report
- Earnings Grid Enhancements
- Employee Deduction Setup Enhancements
UZIO Time Tracking New Features and Enhancements
- Add Time Entry by Duration
- Time Tracking System - UI Enhancements
- Time Tracking System - Enhancements to Ease Restrictions
UZIO HRIS New Features and Enhancements
- UZIO Integration with ZOHO Recruit
- Manage Employees Time Off Request
- Setting to Control Negative PTO Balance
- Other company users can use Custom Report Templates
UZIO Payroll New Feature and Enhancements
Gross-up Net Pay
There are times when you know the "NET" pay to give an employee but don't know how much the "GROSS" pay needs to be. Gross-up Net is a new feature added into UZIO payroll that calculates gross pay from net pay. Using this feature, you can start with the net pay you wish to give an employee. The system calculates the gross pay after considering all applicable taxes and deductions. The gross up feature is available when you run the Special Payroll in UZIO and need to click on the “Gross Up Net” icon on the Special Payroll grid.
To learn more about this feature and how to use it, click here
Electronic W2 Consent from Employees
A paper copy of an employee's W-2 is sent to you to distribute to an employee, and an electronic copy will be available to view and download by an employee through UZIO's self-service portal. According to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), W-2s must be distributed on paper by employers unless employees consent to receive them electronically.
UZIO has added a way for employees to record their consent in the form of a preferred delivery method for W2. Employees must record their preference by the end of December to receive W2's accordingly.
Only electronic W-2s will be issued until the employee withdraws his or her consent or until their employment ends. Employees can withdraw consent at any time by changing the delivery method in UZIO to "Paper and Electronic Delivery".
Employers are not authorized by the UZIO system to give consent on behalf of their employees. Employees who only require electronic delivery of the W2 must update their preference through the employee portal.
Note: In the next product update by the end of November'22, UZIO will add another feature that will allow you to see the W-2 preference settings for each employee. You would be able to download in excel.
W3 Reconciliation Report
W-3 Reconciliation Report provides a preview of the information that will appear on the IRS Form W-3 that UZIO files for your company after the end of the calendar year. This report is available to download when you have one payroll processed and has one or more employees’ income and wages reported for the calendar year. Generally, this report will be used by employers at the year end to verify the correctness of income and other details of the employees. However, UZIO enables you to access this report anytime of the year. Every time you download this report it should give you the latest year to date information for all the employees paid by the date.
It can be downloaded by clicking on "Payroll Documents", which was previously known as "Tax Filing Report" and then clicking on W-3 Reconciliation Report.
Payroll Allocation Report Enhancements
The payroll information can be accessed through a payroll allocation report using various allocation criteria, such as by department, by state, by workers compensation code and by employee. Currently, when a payroll allocation report is generated by an employee, it shows all payrolls within a given pay date range consolidated. Therefore, this created problems for employers when they had to generate detailed earnings reports for each pay period required by employees to submit with loan applications. Additionally, when there is a workers' compensation claim, employers have to generate detailed earnings reports for employees and this report was not fulfilling the employer needs.
Based on the customers feedback, the following enhancements are made in this report:
- The existing "By Employee" as Payroll Allocation Criteria will now be referred to as "By Employee - Summary". Within the range of dates selected, it will continue to display the consolidated figures for all pay periods.
- "By Employee - Detail" is a newly available choice in the Payroll Allocation Criteria. All pay periods information will be listed separately for each employee within the selected date range.
Furthermore, when you use the payroll allocation criteria By Employee - Summary or By Employee - Detail, you can now run the payroll allocation report by selecting if you need to run the report for just one employee, one or more employees or all employees.
Paystub Report
Previously, clients couldn't download paystubs for all employees at once. Each employee's pay stub had to be downloaded from their profile when needed. A new feature of UZIO allows you to download consolidated pay stub reports for each pay run. You can generate a single PDF for all employees’ or you can download separate pay stubs for all employees in a zip file. Once payroll has been approved, click on the Actions option of the payroll, and select Download Paystubs to download the report.
Note: This feature is only available for Employers. Pay stubs for employees will continue to be available for download on pay date.
Earning Grid Enhancements
In response to the customer feedback, UZIO has added labels to actions icons on payroll's earnings grid to make them self-explanatory and more visible to the payroll administrators.
Employee Deduction Setup Enhancement
It is now easier and more convenient for employers to set limits on employee deductions. The user is asked whether they wish to apply a lump sum, annual deduction limit, or no limit at all. Additional inputs are taken depending on the user's selection.
Annual deduction Limit is the maximum amount that can be withheld from an employee in a calendar year. The deduction will not be made again until the start of the next calendar year once this amount is withheld from the employee. For example, Every biweekly pay period, $500 is to be withheld from the employee's paycheck for his retirement plan. However, the employee is not willing to contribute more than $5,500 per year. In this case, the annual limit will be set at $5,500 by the employer. After every bi-weekly payroll, the Annual Balance Remaining to be deducted will update, and the deduction will stop once the balance reaches 0 (after 11 bi-weekly payrolls). For the remaining 15 bi-weekly pay periods in the year, no deductions will be made. At the beginning of the next calendar year, the system will start deducting $500 every biweekly pay period again.
Lumpsum Amount refers to the total amount owed by the employee. Once this amount is withheld from the employee, the system stops the deduction.
As an example, if an employee takes an advance salary loan of $10,000, the employer will enter $10,000 in the Total Lumpsum Amount Owed field. As soon as the balance remaining reaches 0, the deduction will stop.
UZIO Time Tracking New Features and Enhancements
Add Time Entry by Duration
The Time Tracking module now allows both administrators and employees to record time by duration. Earlier, there was only one method to record the time i.e. Clock in / out. With the addition of this new feature, users can record a time directly by specifying how many hours an individual has worked without having to provide clock in/out details. Time can be entered using durations for current, past, and future dates; however, through clock in/out, only past, and current dates can be entered. By using this feature, clients/employees will be able to record the time in advance for the days in order to process the payroll on time.
Time Tracking System - UI Enhancements
In order to provide an enhanced user experience, the Time Tracking system's Web user interface has been redesigned to enable easy access to manage the time entries. This enhanced view provides a detailed view of time entries and payroll hours on one page which previously was split into different pages. The notes captured against time entries are available upfront for viewing. Furthermore, if you have the UZIO Time Off module subscription, you will be able to record the PTO while using the Time Tracking system. PTO added from anywhere will show up both in Time Tracking and under Time Off systems.
Time Tracking System - Enhancements to ease restrictions
UZIO time tracking has been simplified even further. We improved this module to remove some unnecessary restrictions to make it more efficient to use.
- Previously, the system restricted the ability to change time entries after the pay period had ended or the entries had been approved. Going forward, you will be able to make changes to the time entries of the employees anytime when necessary if you are not using UZIO payroll.
Clients of UZIO payroll can also modify employee time entries before the hours have been synced to UZIO payroll. In the event that the changes are still necessary, you are allowed to make them after the hours have been un-synced. - Previously, the system restricted the ability to change time entries when the payroll was in draft status. Going forward, you will be able to make changes to the time entries. To modify time entries, you first need to cancel the draft payroll. Next, approve the updated entries and sync the hours again to UZIO Payroll..
UZIO HRIS New Features and Enhancements
UZIO Integration with Zoho Recruit
UZIO is pleased to announce its integration with Zoho Recruit (a talent acquisition software). This integration allows you to export candidates from Zoho Recruit and create prospective employee records at UZIO. As a result, you will be able to initiate a seamless onboarding process from the moment you hire someone. It saves you time and effort, and it provides added security by reducing the chances of data entry errors from one system to the employee management system.
Once Zoho Recruit and UZIO are connected, any employee who has been marked Hired in Zoho Recruit can easily be moved to UZIO. Employees moved to UZIO will be created in a DRAFT status and you will receive system notifications to complete employee onboarding.
If you are using Zoho recruit for hiring and managing employees at UZIO, then this integration will be very useful for you. Contact the UZIO support team at support@uzio.com to learn more about it.
Manage Employees Time Off Request
Previously, only employees were able to update their time off requests until they were approved. We have made an enhancement with this release, and now admins can edit employees' time off requests regardless of whether they are in requested or approved status.
Furthermore, the time off history and upcoming time off sections have also been enhanced to provide more information, such as the leave request period. Also, the requested date label, which was referring to the submission date, has been changed to the Submitted Date.
Setting to Control Negative PTO Balance
The UZIO time off system previously allowed employees to request PTO despite having an insufficient PTO balance. Now, the admins could decide whether to allow employees to apply for PTO even if a balance isn't available. "Is there a negative PTO balance allowed?" is a newly added setting at the policy level. The existing employers and their policies will continue to work as they do now because we have set the default to "Yes."
If you want to restrict your employees from applying for PTO when they do not have sufficient balance, you can edit your policy to say NO to the question "Is there a negative PTO balance allowed?"
An enhancement has been made to the employee's time off page as well. Employee PTO balances will now be shown in detail with a breakdown of the employee's current balance, scheduled time off, and available time off for each policy assigned.
Current Balance: It refers to the number of hours or days someone has remaining right now. This balance does not take into account any scheduled requests.
Scheduled Time Off: It refers to Time off requests for future dates or those scheduled for past dates but not yet approved.
Available Balance: It refers to the number of hours or days someone has available to use for PTO. This is the number of hours or days derived from current balance minus any scheduled time off.
If the "Is there negative PTO balance allowed" flag is set to No, an employee cannot take time off beyond their available balance for a time off type.
Other company users can use Custom Report Templates
UZIO has enhanced its platform so that custom report templates created by one company user can now be accessed by others. The owner of the custom report template can only update it. Users with access to the report can run it and view the output. A user who is not the owner cannot apply permanent changes to a template. In this case, all they do is run the template, view the output, make changes to it, and then save a copy of it by selecting Save as New Template from the Actions menu.