Assign Costing Allocation

In Workday, the Assign Costing Allocation business process is designed to change or adjust source funding accounts for an employee or a vacant position. This business process may be initiated on its own, or it may be a subprocess of another transaction, such as Change Job, Create Position, or Edit Position Restrictions.

Below is a text-only guide to using this business process at Texas A&M University. For a job aid that includes images and a quick reference guide, please visit Workday Help in your Single Sign On (SSO) menu.

Start Screen

This screen will only be seen if the Assign Costing Allocation business process is initiated on its own. If this business process is triggered automatically as a subprocess in the Workday inbox, the material seen will be under Next Screen.

Worker Costing (if changing accounts for employee)

  • Worker: Search for and select the employee who needs a payroll account change.
  • Position: This field should automatically populate with the correct PIN and title.
  • Earning: This field is designed to change or assign a funding account to a stipend or allowance that an employee may regularly receive. If a specific allowance is selected in this field, the next screen will only edit funding for that allowance and will not affect the accounts associated with an employee's regular pay. If an employee receives no allowances that require editing, this may be left blank.

Position Restrictions Costing (if changing accounts for a vacant position)

  • Effective Date: Select the date you wish the account changes to take effect.
  • Position Restrictions: Search for and select the vacant position you wish to update source funding for. The fastest way is to search by PIN.

Next Screen

Depending on whether editing for a vacant position or an employee, this will display either the employee's name and position (if updating employee), or it will just display the position (if updating a vacant position).

If the rest of the screen is blank, please click Add to add a new costing allocation section. You should then see the following fields within your first section:

  • Copy Costing Allocation: If this checkbox is selected, the contents of the entire costing allocation section will be duplicated, creating a new space to set up accounts for a specific time period. This can be useful if accounts are changing often, but a few accounts remain consistent throughout each time period. Only use this when setting up changing accounts over multiple time periods.
    • Note: When "Copy Costing Allocation" is clicked, the newly created costing allocation section will default a start date with today's date, which can then be edited.
  • Start Date: The date that funds will begin to be allocated to the person or position.
  • End Date: (Optional) If account will carry over year to year, leave this blank. Only end if there is another account taking over payment. Accounts do not need to close at the end of the fiscal year. If no end date is entered, Workday knows to continue using the accounts in this section going forward.
  • Costing Allocation Attachments (if nothing under this section, please click the "+" symbol. May click "+" for as many rows of accounts as needed)
    • Order - May use this to change the order the accounts appear in. The order of displayed accounts has no bearing on how much funds are withdrawn or the timeline in which they are withdrawn. It is only a visual change.
    • Default (as of start date) - Not used.
    • Required with no default (Must have costing override) - Not used.
    • Worktags - Search for and select the source funding account. When searching accounts, must include the system part and subaccount with dashes separating (ex: 02-120400-10000).
    • Distribution Percentage - Defaults to 100%, must change if several accounts are paying portions of salary.

Special Note: May add as many costing allocation sections as required (to indicate where some accounts may begin and end). Every costing allocation section must add up to 100% distribution, even if the FTE of the employee is less than 100%. Cost Allocations in Workday are designed to indicate how much funding is being withdrawn to cover the entire Total Base Pay. So, for example, for an employee making $1000/month at 50% effort, Workday needs to know how much of this total $1,000 is being taken from each account per month. So if the employee is paid evenly out of two accounts, the Cost Allocation would read: Account 1 - 50%, Account 2 - 50%, and based on this, Workday knows the employee is paid $500 out of Account 1 and $500 out of Account 2. The system will not allow you to enter accounts that do not total to 100% coverage.

  • If needed, click the "Add" button (or click the "Copy Costing Allocation" checkbox) to add an entire new costing allocation section. Each section requires a start date and Workday will verify that there is full coverage from your selected accounts over the course of the fiscal year. If you accidentally click the "Add" button, you can click "Remove" to eliminate a costing allocation section.
  • Example: From 09/01 to 12/31, Joe Employee has two accounts, each distributing at 50%. Account 1 - 50%, and Account 2 - 50%
    • Starting on 01/01, Account 2 will cease and be replaced by Account 3, and the distribution will also change. So from 01/01 to the end of the year, Joe Employee is paid from: Account 1 - 70%, and Account 3 - 30%.
    • Both of these sections add up to 100%, and when looked at back-to-back, constitute full coverage for the entire year.
    • If there is no End Date entered for the second Cost Allocation Section (which began on 01/01), then Workday knows that these accounts will be continuing all the way past 08/31 into the next fiscal year, unless otherwise indicated. This is why all the date fields also include the year.

Continued Routing:

  • Approval step goes to Cost Center Approver (usually Department Head)
  • Approval step goes to Payroll Partner

After this, Assign Costing Allocation process is complete.

[10:04 AM] Havel, Stacey