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Budget Office

LCD Process Information

All of the CSUSM Employees’ salaries and benefits are paid out of one agency and one funding source at the State Controller’s Office. On a monthly basis, CSUSM receives the pay tape. The salaries and benefits are then redistributed to the same or different departments and funding sources through the Labor Cost Distribution (LCD) process. The Budget Office owns the funding source tables, which consists of the Combo Code Build, Pool ID Table and Department Budget Table.

The Combo Code Build creates the chartfield string and makes it valid for use. It identifies the effective date, fund, project, class, and program. It also includes a “Hot Key.” This hot key is a two-letter code that helps identify the chartfield string in some way. We have tried to use it to identify different funds. For example, a chartfield that resides in the Operating Fund uses the hot key GF for general fund (the prior name of the current operating fund). The Extended Learning fund 44101 has a hot key of EL.

The combo code build establishes all possible salary account codes and benefit account codes. To avoid having to build each account code separately, it uses 601300 as the default account code.

Once the combo code build process has been completed, the next step is to establish a pool ID. This is what budget creates and HR uses to identify an employee’s funding source. As in the previous example, if the funding is in the general fund, the pool ID would be built to reflect that. A department that resides in the operating fund will have a pool ID of G.  If it is the first funding set up for that department, it normally will have a pool ID of G01. If additional codes are added (such as program, class, project) once that new combo code has been built, a new pool ID will need to be identified. Within the same department and fund, this would be G02.  For example:

  • Department 1080 in the operating fund, G01 represents 1080-GF-601300
  • Adding chartfield codes, G02 represents 1080-GF-601300-107

Each time there is a change to the basic chartfield (an element is added, or a new fund is used), a new pool ID is created to represent the new chartfield.

Now that the combo code has been built, and the pool ID created, the Department Budget Table must be set up. This involves effective dating and identifying the funding source. The funding source for the employees can be defined at four different levels:

  • Position – the position number is used to set up the Department Budget Table (DBT).
    • Must be unique, or all individuals with this position number will be funded the same
  • Position pool – a pool ID is created to represent the chartfield string
  • Job code – the job code is used to identify the funding
    • Most commonly used in the Federal Work Study set up
  • Appointment – this uses the employee ID (emplid)

When the pay tape is received and loaded into our system, the paycheck creation process tries to match each paycheck with a person and specific job within the PeopleSoft HR database. It looks at SSN, job code, etc. If it can’t find a match, Paycheck Creation Errors are created and Payroll reviews and corrects those errors to make the information match.

Once Payroll is done, the paycheck distribution process is run. This process distributes earnings, taxes, and deductions associated with all paychecks. As the paycheck process uses SSN, job code, unit # and serial to match, the distribution process uses these as well as position number, pool ID, earnings ID, etc.  Based on the setup tables above, the process will dynamically replace chartfields. If job code or account code information is missing, it will error out. Mid-month changes contribute to these errors, as the pay tape may include data for an employee who quit earlier and is inactive. The employee was probably issued a manual check, and the actual check is coming through the pay tape process.

Budget corrects these errors through the Paycheck Distribution Errors process. We have the ability to correct the department, position number, pool ID, budget level and account code. The account code will either be blank or will default to the account code of the person whose data erred during the Paycheck Distribution process. Normally we correct chartfield string only, but adding the correct pool ID may be helpful.

There are some instances where manual corrections need to be made in the Paycheck Distribution Override process.  If a correction is made to a paycheck, it must be made to each line of earnings and to each benefit line. Once we are satisfied we have made the appropriate corrections and reviewed any other items in question, we notify FSO/LCD Administrator that we are done.