Employee Records
Part of Employee records and HR data
Checking effective dates for employment changes
Review approval, effective, entry and receiving dates so employment changes apply to the intended period and system.
Check an employment change against the date it should apply, the date it was approved and the date it reached each system. These are different facts.
A current profile can look correct while an earlier pay period or report still uses the wrong value.
Follow the decision through each date
For each change, capture the employee identifier, the field or arrangement changed, old and new values, effective date, approval and entry date. If the change is sent to another system, record when that system accepted it.
Confirm which date governs the approved arrangement. The date someone entered an update is not automatically the date it took effect.
For a change in ordinary working hours, follow this timeline:
Point in the timeline / Question to answer
- Request
- What change was proposed, and for whom?
- Approval
- Who approved the final terms, and when?
- Effective date
- From which date should the approved arrangement apply?
- Entry or transmission
- When did each system receive the change?
- Use
- Which version did payroll or another process use?
Look for gaps, overlaps and late entry
Within each employment period, sort changes for the same field by effective date. Check whether the earlier value ends when the new one begins under the employer’s intended rule.
Two values covering the same period need a decision; so does a period with no applicable value. If two changes share an effective date, inspect the approvals and determine which value was intended to apply.
Compare the effective date with the date payroll or another recipient accepted the update. A late entry may affect a period already processed.
Flag it for review rather than assuming a system will recalculate automatically. Where pay could change, a payroll reviewer should check the applicable arrangement and actual pay outcome.
Accurate, up-to-date records help show which arrangement applied and when.
Keep the reason and evidence for a correction. Do not use a retrospective effective date merely to hide an unresolved difference.
Review a small set of cases
Select protected sample records representing a future change, a change partway through a pay period, two successive changes and a correction entered after processing.
Before inspecting the system, write the expected value for dates immediately before, on and after each effective date. Compare the approval, HR history, transmitted record and receiving result.
Record each difference with the employee key, field, affected dates, system, cause, owner and resolution. Recheck the affected period after correction.
Close a case when the relevant owners can explain which value applied, which version reached each recipient and whether any pay or record correction remains open.
