Frequently Asked Questions - Salary Cost Transfer

No. An initiator can add attachments until the transaction has been submitted. Once it has been submitted, but before it has been approved, the approver can add additional attachments.

UCB best practice is to select all rows associated with a paycheck so that you have a complete view of the employee’s earnings. Any row that is not redistributed will be removed from the transaction upon submission.

Salary Cost Transfers require that there is at least one redistribution in each earnings period of the transaction. If pulling in a full paycheck includes earnings periods that do not need redistribution, you can click the [-] button in the top right of that earnings period to remove it from the transaction.

No. If no adjustment is made to a row, it will be removed from the transaction upon submission. Alternatively, you could simply not select that row when selecting rows to transact on, although it is best practice to include full paychecks in your transaction.

The best practice is to select all rows from a paycheck, to give yourself a full picture of an employee's earnings. Only select fewer rows if you have a specific need to omit a specific row (for example, the row is on a now invalid chartstring and you do not need to redistribute it, or the row is currently locked up in another transaction).

Upon submission, the row will be removed from the transaction. Your approver will only see the rows that have been redistributed.

No. Once the transaction has been submitted, the only options are to approve or deny it. If there is an error, the transaction should be denied.

Yes, provided you have row level security to access the transaction, you can either continue or cancel a transaction initiated by another user.

Yes. Provided that each transaction includes different rows from the paycheck, it is possible for there to be multiple transactions for the same check.

Yes, assessments will follow to the new chartstrings when earnings are redistributed. This happens during the SCT batch processing.

For high risk transactions, yes.

Once you've uploaded one attachment, a [+] button will display to the right of that attachment. Click the [+] to add an additional attachment.

If you're not sure how to interpret an error message, please reach out to UCBUCPath@berkeley.edu for assistance.

If a transaction hasn’t been approved within seven days of submission, it will skip all potential approvers. In this situation, you can reach out to UCBUCPath@berkeley.edu to have the transaction denied or re-routed to an approver.

Restricted funds refers to a fund source that imposes an annualized salary cap.

No. If the approver identifies an error in the transaction, they will need to deny the transaction so that the initiator can resubmit with corrections.

Once the new cap rate is entered in UCPath, you can start a Salary Cost Transfer to redistribute the earnings. On the restricted row, select the magnifying glass next to the Annual Cap Rate to select the new rate and then proceed with the transaction as normal.

Percent of Pay is a calculation of one earnings row against the UC Monthly Salary. 

Percent of Effort is a calculation of an earnings row against the total effort of the employee for the month. This value has a different calculation for restricted funds when the employee's UC Monthly Salary is greater than the prorated monthly cap rate for that fund. Note, Y-OTC (over the cap) rows do not bear effort, with that effort captured on the N-OTC (under the cap) amount. It should be noted that some earn codes are non-effort bearing.

To avoid a discrepancy in the Percent of Effort, one should always redistributed earnings from/to a restricted fund using the following steps, in order:

1. Add a new row (as needed)

2. Redistribute the Percent of Effort from the original row to the new row. 

3. Update the chartstring on the new row to the new chartstring.

4. Click ‘Calculate Cap Rules’

Newly created Y-OTC rows by default use the chartstring from the position’s funding entry default funding profile. Despite this default, you are able to update the chartstring on the Y-OTC row to another unrestricted fund. 

If there is no default funding profile associated with the position, the chartstring fields will be blank, and require you to manually enter an unrestricted chartstring.

If the checkbox for a row is grayed out in the search results on the Process Salary Cost Transfer page, one of three things will be true: 

• The row is associated with a check from October 2021 or earlier (This would require a Direct Retro)

• The row has previously been redistributed by a Direct Retro (This would require a Direct Retro)

• The row is included in an active transaction. If this is the case, go to the ‘Other Details’ tab in the search results to find a link to that transaction.

You would want to use Save without Validation if there were errors on the page, but you did not want to undo *everything* you've done in the transaction. One use case: Let's say you get an error that an FAU you are trying to redistribute to is invalid. If the issue is that the FAU is valid, but just hasn't been activated in BFS, you could save with the currently invalid FAU in your transaction, get the FAU activated in BFS, and then come back to complete the transaction.

You would want to use Save without Validation if there were errors on the page, but you did not want to undo *everything* you've done in the transaction. One use case: Let's say you get an error that an FAU you are trying to redistribute to is invalid. If the issue is that the FAU is valid, but just hasn't been activated in BFS, you could save with the currently invalid FAU in your transaction, get the FAU activated in BFS, and then come back to complete the transaction.

FAU is short for 'Full Accounting Unit' This refers to the chartstring

Yes. Once a transaction is fully processed in UCPath, you can submit an additional Salary Cost Transfer on those earnings.

Benefits are redistributed using the Benefits Cost Transfer pages. These pages have not been modified by this new SCT functionality.

Multiple Components of Pay means that an employee's salary is comprised of different types of rows. In some cases this means multiple earn codes. In the context of a Salary Cost Transfer, this is talking about the under-the-cap (N-OTC) and over-the-cap (Y-OTC) rows.

UCPath has confirmed that the Direct Retro tool will be retired in June 2025. Once retired, transactors will still be able to view processed transactions via the Review Retro Distribution page, but will no longer be able to redistribute earnings that require a Direct Retro. 

As a reminder, paychecks require use of the Direct Retro tool if: 

• The earnings are from October 2021 or earlier, or
• The earnings have previously been redistributed via a Direct Retro

The final date to approve direct retros is in discussion and will be communicated along with fiscal close dates.

Yes. There are three job aids for SCTs:

• Basic / Unrestricted

• Restricted

• Work Study

The ‘Leave As-Is’ should only be used if all of the rows in the transaction have a WS Indicator of ‘X’ (split refusal), or no WS Indicator. You would use this option if you need to update or redistribute the department chartstring. If ANY of the rows in the transaction show a split (WS Indicator = D, W, P, S, Y) then you cannot use the ‘Leave As-Is’ option. Instead, you would want to use ‘Re-Apply WS’.

If the earnings have not been split (Work Study Indicator is 'X' or blank), you can use the 'Leave as Is' option to redistribute to the correct FAU. Important Note: If there is a split in the earnings, you cannot use 'Leave as Is', and must instead use 'Re-Apply WS'. 

If the earnings have been split, use 'Re-Apply WS'. Redistribute both the D and the W amounts to the new/correct chartstring. When processed by UCPath, the system will use that new/corrected chartstring when generating the new D and W rows.

The result of a work study transaction is not displayed on the page in UCPath. The resulting split, unsplit or re-split only happens when the transaction is processed to the labor ledger.

The balance would be updated on the page the next time you went to that page, provided the transaction has not already been submitted.

Transactions involving federal funds that are either:

• Greater than 120 days after original earnings end date, or 

• Greater than 90 days after the award end date, 

are considered high risk. 

If a transaction is high risk, you will be required to complete a Questionnaire on the Salary Cost Transfer page. High risk transactions require a second level of approval through the Contracts & Grants office.

For more information explore the Salary Cost Transfers Controller webpage.

Salary Cost Transfers are processed by UCPath in batches, approximately three times a month. The schedule for batch processing can be found by searching ‘GL Processing Calendar’ on SharePoint.

Search results will be PDF calendars grouped by quarter year. 

Note: These dates are updated frequently, so we do not recommend downloading the calendars. You should search for the document each time to make sure you are getting the most up to date information. 

Note: There are additional steps from when the transactions are batch processed and when you will see the transactions reflected in CalAnswers. We recommend adding one week from the ‘Processed SCTs in RI’ date to determine when you might see the transaction in CalAnswers.

There shouldn't be. We have seen transactors select 500 rows at a time, without issue.

No. You can only select one Empl Record per transaction.

Earnings End Date is the end of the period in which the earnings were earned. 

Pay End Date is the end of the period in which the earnings were paid.

For some earnings, primarily earnings from prior to October 4th, 2021, the Earns End Date is not populated. If you don’t find the results you’re looking for when searching by Earns End Date, try searching instead by Pay End Date.

The ‘Find an Existing Value’ option on the Process Salary Cost Transfer page is asking for the Employee ID of the initiator. Using this option will allow you to find the last saved search results from that initiator. This option has very limited use, and it is recommended that you search for transactions using the Review Salary Cost Transfer page instead.

The easiest way to find a transaction in progress would be to go to the Review Salary Cost Transfer page. There you can search by the transaction ID, the employee ID, the transactor’s employee ID, and a number of other values. 

You can also find transactions through the Process Salary Cost Transfer page by searching for the Employee ID, Empl Record, and earnings period associated with the transaction. In the search results, the ‘Other Details’ tab will display the in progress transaction ID as a link to that transaction.

While the ‘Redistribute Eligible Earns’ button is active(yellow), the N-OTC rows will be read only. To edit these rows, click the ‘Redistribute Eligible Earns’ button.

While the ‘Calculate Cap Rules’ button is active(yellow), the Y-OTC rows will be read only. To edit these rows, click the ‘Redistribute Eligible Earns’ button.

The calculation for Percent of Effort is different, depending on whether the FAU is restricted or unrestricted. As a result, when redistributing restricted to or from a restricted fund, you will need to redistribute (by earnings, percent of pay, or percent of effort) first, and then update the FAU.

UCPath with rare exception, does not allow multiple rows that share the same Earn Code, Paycheck, Earnings End Date, and Pay End Date to have the same chartstring. Look at the other rows in the transaction to find the another row matching the above values, and redistribute to that row.