DealersEdge Professional Forums

NEED SOME HELP HERE - HAVE BEEN WORKING WITH OR ATTEMPTING TO WORK WITH ADP TO RESOLVE A LABOR BALANCE CONCERN.

WE HAVE JUST RECIENTLY GONE TO A FLAT RATE PAY PROGRAM FOR THE TECHNICIANS.

WE PAY THEM OFF THE SOLD TIME ON THE RTH REPORT. THEY ARE PAID TWICE A MONTH. SO WE HAVE TWO PAY PERIODS.

THE ACCOUNTING OFFICE BALANCES THE PAYROLL OUT OF THE 12700 ACCOUNT. WE WERE ATTEMPTING TO USE THE RWP REPORT TO BALANCE THE LABOR ACCOUNT. ADP SAYS IT IS NOT ACCURATE BUT THEY DO NOT HAVE A REPORT TO RECTIFY OR BALANCE THE LABOR IN PROGRESS ACCOUNT, IT APPEARS THAT WE ARE OVER PAYING OUR TECHS.

WE DO USE THE RTH REPORT AND REVIEW THE DOUBLE POSTING SECTION TO MAKE SURE EVERYTHING IS OK. THE TECHS ARE SET UP PROPERLY IN TSS AS A #6 WE HAVE DOUBLE CHECKED TO MAKE SURE THE ACCOUNTING IS RELEAVING THE ACCOUNT PROPERLY BASED ON THEIR RATE AND SOLD TIME. IT IS CORRECT.

HOW DOES EVERYONE BALANCE THE LABOR ACCOUNT MONTHLY IF WE ARE NOT TO USE THE RWP REPORT?

ONE SOLUTION IS TO PAY ONLY ON CLOSED REPAIRS BUT EVERYONE THAT I TALK TO SAYS THEY PAY OFF OF BOOKED AND NOT CLOSED.

ONE MORE CONCERN WE ARE SEEING AND ADP DOESN'T KNOW WHY. IF YOU TAKE THE TWO RTH REPORTS AND ADD THEM TOGETHER AND THEN RUN A RTH FOR THE TOTAL MONTH THE NUMBERS DO NOT MATCH - HAS ANYONE SEEN THIS BEFORE.

THANKS IN ADVANCE FOR ANY SUGGESTIONS.

Accounting needs to schedule the account by ro number. They will have to post the mech flags which can be a little tedious, but much easier than trying to reconcile manually.

Resolving errors in the Wok-In-Process account can be a big headache. In a perfect
world the account should reconcile to the penny with the RWP report, but in the real
world all OEM chart of accounts include an Adjusted Cost of Labor account. Any time
the adjustment is more than 1/2% (0.005) of labor sales the cause needs to be found and
corrected.

If the difference is greater than $1000 I would start my investigation with Payroll. If
your doing payroll in-house using ADP Dealer Services Payroll (i.e. you have a -P
account) check the default debit account for regular pay for the Payroll Department
that the flat-rate Service technicians are setup in. In ADP's payroll departments do
not necessarily correspond to the Dealerships departments, Service techs could be
setup in a separate Payroll department from other Service Department employees.
Typical the default account in Payroll setups for flat rate techs is the Work-In-Process
account, when a new employee is added in Payroll to this department unless the
debit account is overrode it defaults to Work-In-Process. You need to check that any
employee setup in this Payroll department that is not a flat rate tech, has had this
changed to debit the correct account, usually Other Salary and Wages. Pay particular
attention to Porters, Shuttle Drivers, and any hourly Quick Lube Techs. A hourly tech
should have only actual time applied on charged to Work-In-Process, with all
unapplied to time charged to Other Salary and Wages. In addition check how Payroll
is handling Paid Holidays, Vacations, and Paid Training Time, none of these should be
charged to Work-In-Process account. Another possible problem is guarantees paid to
flat rate techs. Vacation and holiday pay are typical accrued, the accrual being
posted as one of the monthly standard entries with the actual pay being posted by
Payroll to the Accrued account.

If payroll is not being handled in-house using ADP Dealer Services Payroll then all
the above items must be handled in some manner and posted into accounting
manually.

Before calculating the Adjusted Cost of Labor the entry for Accrued Labor must be
made.I never found the Accrued Labor figure from ADP's RWP report to be accurate.
Instead I used the RTH report for the unpaid period to calculate my Accrued Labor.
Check the accuracy of your Accrued Labor. Accounting posts this figure as one of the
standard entries to close the month and then MUST REVERSE this entry in the new
month.

Most large differences I have found were due to mistakes in the employee setups in
Payroll. If everything checks out in payroll and accounting move on to Service.

In your posted message you didn't say, but I assume your using ADP's ERO. For the
system to correctly do multiple postings of the In-Pay-Period (AUD)
and Out-of-Pay-Period (OPP) postings, then Update Pay Period (UPP) must be done
correctly. ADP can help on this setup. Make sure the update of an odd Pay Period due
to a holiday is handled correctly.

How do you handle technician Red-Tickets, corrections to times after RO's are closed,
and changes to labor times by the factory on claims paid? While Post-Payroll-
Adjustments (PPA) handles the corrections to the techs pay, accounting must be
notified of the change and then post the offsetting entry in accounting.

If you have a Body Shop, do Service Dept. techs ever work on Body Shop Collision
RO's doing wheel alignment, AC charging, using scan tools to get codes, or R&R of
engines or transmissions? If this is the case and the Body Shop books this RO using
a Body Shop Labor Type then they may not only be getting the sale, but are relieving
their Work-In-Process account instead of Service. There needs to be a Labor Type for
mechanical work on Body Shop RO's that gives the Body Shop the sale and cost, but
relieves Service Work-In-Process.
If you have a Labor Type to handle this, audit some of Body Shop's closed RO's and check if they are booking the RO's correctly.

Look at your Labor Type Report (RLT) and check that all Labor Types are relieving
the Correct Work-In-Process account.

How do you book Administrative Time, Shuttle, and Rental Reimbursements on
Warranty RO's?

I know this is a long-winded answer, but I'm just touching on those I have actual
found, or felt likely to be a problem.

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[This message has been edited by no_account (edited 04-23-2007).]

[This message has been edited by no_account (edited 04-23-2007).]

[This message has been edited by no_account (edited 04-23-2007).]

Wow, no-member really spelled it out. All I will add is when paying on booked (and I think you have to) just make sure to take that into account when reading RTH. You shouldn't have to bother with the posting of flag sheets as one person mentioned if you have RTH mastered.