Election Officer Payroll
Inevitably, an election cycle will come to an end and we’ll have reports to run for various and sundry offices and agencies. And, right in the middle of all that, there’s a couple thousand election officers screaming “where’s my paycheck?!” Fortunately, this program will help you answer that cry.
Figure 1 – Current election name and default pay amounts are shown when the program opens.
A few days before the election, after all the training sessions are done, you’ll want to pay this program a visit to run Data Validation. This validation counts on the pay for work and pay for training flags being set to ‘Y’ before it runs. The training log-in program sets the flags during the upload process, but you may have altered the flags – for one reason or another. You just need to make sure the flags are correct before running this program.
The purpose of “data validation” is to build a spreadsheet of workers for which we don’t already have a Vendor Number, or whose demographic data is different from that shown in Finance’s vendor database. When you click that button, the program’s screen will change slightly
Figure 2 - Existing vendor numbers have been retrieved, and EO/back-up data's being retrieved
While collecting data, the program displays progress bars to let you know how far along it is on each step. It will display the spreadsheet it’s writing in the third step:
Figure 3 – This worksheet contains only those workers whose data differs
The colored fields in the sheet mark data that differs between our system and Finance’s vendor database. We’re most interested in missing vendor numbers, (the worker can’t be paid without one), but name/address differences could be problematic too.
After the data’s been collected, the workbook will automatically be named and you’ll be asked where you’d like it saved. You can change the name to suit your needs, and save it wherever you need – but you’re not done with it yet.
Next, you’ll send the workbook to Finance. They’ll work their magic on the data, then return the workbook to you – with the new vendor numbers. Your next step:
No, it’s not Exit! You need to upload the new vendor numbers to our database.
Now, except for the thousand other things you need to do in the last few days before the election, you’re done... until after
Election Day
Yesterday, you probably showed up at the office before 5:00am, spent the first four hours answering hundreds of calls about one problem or another, assisted with myriad functions throughout the day, and finally left for home about 9:00pm.
And here you are, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, 8:00am the day after the election, ready to run the payroll program before you start getting those “where’s my paycheck” calls.
After you’ve changed the pay for work flags for those folks that didn’t show up, and set the flag for the replacement workers, you’re ready to go.
Figure 4
Just come back into the program, select which group you want to run payroll for, edit the pay amounts as needed, and click the Build Payroll button. Sounds simple enough, but there is a little trick to it.
When the program opens, the Build Payroll button isn’t visible. Once you click the group you want to pay, the cursor will be placed in the first pay amount field:
-If you’re paying officers, the cursor will move to the Work amount;
-If you’re paying back-ups, the cursor will move to the Trainingamount, (and the Workamount will be disabled).
Naturally, you can changed these amounts as needed. The trick is that you must at least tab through all of the pay amount fields.
Aside from that difference, the program will build a spreadsheet just like it did in data validation, and you’ll send that workbook to Finance so that they can generate the payroll checks.