In Illinois, the Teachers’ Retirement System requires that you report the “Full Annual Rate” for full-time and part-time contractual employees. SchoolInsight Financials will automatically fill this data into each Gemini payroll file, using either an amount calculated from payroll settings or an overridden amount that bookkeepers can enter for each employee.
Automatic calculation
There are two basic steps in calculating the full annual rate:
- All employee payroll items (EPIs) with a TRS Payment Reason of “Base Salary” are assigned a yearly rate and summed together.
- That sum is multiplied by a “pick-up factor” if the employer pays all or part of the employee TRS contribution.
Step 1: Wage EPIs
There are four wage algorithms that can contribute to the full annual rate. If an employee has multiple wage items labeled “Base Salary,” then the yearly value of each will be added together.
- Salary: A salary EPI already has a yearly value assigned, so in most cases this is the number used in the full annual rate calculation. However, if custom pay periods are selected, then the yearly rate is multiplied by the percentage of the selected pay periods. For example, if the yearly rate is $48,000 and only four semi-monthly pay periods (each worth 1/24 or 4.16666%) are selected, then we will calculate 16.66664% of $48,000, to equal $8000 which would be the full annual rate for that item.
- Hourly: An hourly item’s yearly rate is calculated as [Hourly Rate] * [Work Day Hours] * [Days on Work Calendar]. If the Work Day Hours field is left blank, then the number 1 will be used in place.
- Simple Amount: The simple amount rate will be multiplied by the number of pay periods that the item is assigned to.
- Amount Series: The amounts in each selected pay period will be added together.
Step 2: Pick-Up Factor
If the position has a Non-Taxable Benefit that uses the payroll item “TRS (employee)” (which represents cases where the board is paying for all or part of the employee TRS contribution), a pick-up factor is applied based on that percentage. These factors can be found in the TRS Employer Guide.
Override
If you wish to report a different Full Annual Rate than SchoolInsight Financials will calculate, then you can do your own calculation. When entered, the automatic calculation will be replaced, and your calculation will be added to every Gemini payroll file.
To override the calculation with your own amount:
- Go to Financials Main > Employee - Single View
- Look up an employee
- Go to the Positions tab
- Edit Yearly Options
- Enter the amount you want to report in the TRS Annual Salary Rate field
- Save