Frequently Asked Questions - Salary Cost Transfer

I received an approval request for a Salary Cost Transfer, but don’t see approve or deny buttons in the transaction. How can I approve the transaction?

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.

Is it possible for there to be multiple Salary Cost Transfers associated with the same paycheck?

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

Is the questionnaire required?

For high risk transactions, yes.

I don't understand the error or warning message received upon validation. What do I do?

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

What is a ‘restricted’ fund?

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

Can an approver return a Salary Cost Transfer back to the initiator for revisions?

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.

The annual cap rate associated with a restricted fund has been updated retroactive to the start of the year, but payroll has already run using the old annual cap rate. How can I correct this?

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.

What are the steps to redistributing earnings on a Salary Cost Transfer including restricted funds where the employee’s monthly salary is over the cap for that fund?

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:

Add a new row (as needed)

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

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

Click ‘Calculate Cap Rules’

What is the difference between Percent of Pay and Percent of Effort?

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.

I’ve clicked ‘Calculate Cap Rules’, resulting in a new Y-OTC row. Where did the chartstring for this row come from?

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.