Which salary encumbrance processing method should I use?

Infor applications provide various methods for processing salary encumbrances. Which method you use depends on what type of expenses you are budgeting and the time frame for which you are budgeting.

  • Personnel Administration encumbrance processing

    Personnel Administration tracks encumbrances using General Ledger accounts and accounting units. They can be further broken into positions so that you can track encumbered salaries for each of your positions.

    You use Personnel Administration encumbrance processing when you are budgeting salaries for a fiscal year. It is typically used by the public sector, such as school districts. Public sector clients have revenue streams that generally align with fiscal years and are best managed through General Ledger with more granular management using position management.

    For example, a K-12 school district may need to encumber employee salaries through the end of the fiscal year. They might have different periods over which encumbrance should occur, such as nine months or 12 months.

  • Time Record Entry encumbrance processing

    Time Record encumbrance processing is typically used by professional services organizations, such as consulting organizations who want to use activities functionality to bill their customers for time worked before an employee is paid.

    For more information about Time Record Entry, see the General Ledger and Project Accounting user guides.

  • Grant Management encumbrance processing

    Grant Management encumbrance processing is typically used in healthcare (such as academic medical centers or private research organizations). Healthcare clients typically have multiple funding sources with varying funding periods, which are best managed through Project Accounting.

    Grant Management clients will be less likely than public sector clients to manage salary encumbrance and labor distribution at a position level. Grant Management enables labor distribution templates to be created by employee and position when required.

    For example, a health care organization uses grants (which may extend over several years ) to pay some employees. Encumbrances are important in confirming that available grant monies are not under- or over-spent.

    For more information about Grant Management encumbrance processing, see the Grant Management User Guide.