Contract Payrolls for Fiscal Year End

  • It is common for schools to process the payroll for their less-than-12-month contract employees early for July and August. (Paying the balance of their contract for the previous fiscal year). In order to ensure the correct fiscal year for the expense, and,report correct wages in their contract year, it is crucial to use the correct calendar and fiscal periods when processing these payrolls.

  • OpenRDA has 14 fiscal processing periods; Pre-Year=0, January to December=1 through 12, and Post-Year=13. 

  • BEST PRACTICE: Post Year is recommended to be used as the fiscal month for the early July/August payrolls as a means to distinguish/separate the expense for those payrolls from the actual expenses for the last month of the fiscal year (June), when there is not a concern about state reporting, such as with ND Retirement.



Using Post Year as the Fiscal Month

  • Wages and deductions will be applied to the current Calendar Year and Calendar Month of July (or August, if Calendar month is August) for W-2 purposes.

  • Expenses will be applied to the previous Fiscal Year and Fiscal Month of Post Year.

  • Post Year is its own Financial Period, the last of the Fiscal Year (month 13).

  • Expenses are separated in the Post Year month, but are still applied to previous Fiscal year.

  • With this setup, when you run expense reports for the Fiscal Month of June, only the payroll(s) for the month of June will be on the report. And when you run reports for the Fiscal Month of Post Year, that report will reflect the July and August payrolls.

  • Refer to screen shots below when creating your Pay Master/Pay ID.


July payroll, when using Post Year as the Fiscal Month:




August payroll, when using Post Year as the Fiscal Month:



Using June as the Fiscal Month

  • Wages and deductions will be applied to the current Calendar Year and     Calendar Month of July (or August, if the Calendar month is August) for W-2 purposes.

  • Expenses will be applied to the previous Fiscal Year and Fiscal Month of June.

  • With this setup, when you run expense reports for the Fiscal Month of June, the payrolls for the months of June, July and August will all be on one report.

  • Refer to screen shots below when creating your Pay Master/Pay ID.


July payroll, when using June as the Fiscal Month:




August payroll, when using June as the Fiscal Month:



Payroll Vendor Withholding


For customers whose fiscal year will change in July, the fiscal year they should use in Payroll Vendor Withholding should be the new year when the associated Payroll checks are dated. The checks will hit cash in the new (current) fiscal year since they're dated in July. In Payroll, the fiscal period should be when you want the payroll expensed, but since there's nothing expensed in V/W, the fiscal in V/W should be the current fiscal month and year.