Lesson 3.9: Salary Allocations

In nonprofit organizations, it is very common for an employee to work across multiple programs, or have their salary reimbursed by several different grants and funding sources. FastFund Payroll requires that every employee’s gross salary expense, Social Security, Medicare, SUTA, and FUTA (if required) be distributed to the proper accounting general ledger accounts to track this activity accurately.

Because entering these multiple account segments manually for every employee would be incredibly time-consuming, FastFund features a Point of Entry Allocation function. This tool allows you to build saved templates (default account groups) for each specific program or grant, which you can quickly apply to an employee’s payroll distribution.

[INSERT SCREENSHOT: The ‘Allocations’ list window displaying existing Point of Entry allocations like Administration – County Grant, After School Program, and Education – State DHHS]

Creating a Point of Entry Allocation Set

1. From the horizontal Main Menu, select Cost Allocations.
2. In the vertical task menu, under ALLOCATION TYPES, click on Point of Entry Setup.
3. Click the New + icon to add a new allocation.
4. Enter an Allocation Name (e.g., “Social Services Salaries”).
5. From the Project drop-down, select a Project Code if this allocation is tied to a specific short-term activity or grant.

Note on Allocation Types: Unlike FastFund Accounting, which allows you to split allocations automatically by percentage, all Allocation Types in FastFund Payroll Online are strictly Accounts Only. You are simply defining the group of accounts here; the actual percentage or hour breakdown is determined later in the employee’s specific profile or payroll batch.

Defining the Expense Accounts In the Distribution Type area, you must link the exact general ledger accounts where the expenses should post:

• Salary Account
• Social Security Account
• Medicare Account
• SUTA Account
• FUTA Account (Only enter if your organization is subject to Federal Unemployment tax)

As you type the account number, FastFund will auto-fill and automatically move between segments (Fund > Cost Center > Object Code). Normally, all accounts within a single allocation set should share the same Fund and Cost Center to ensure the salary and its associated taxes are grouped together accurately.

Navigation Tip: If you do not know an account number segment, place your cursor in the segment box and press the Up Arrow key on your keyboard to display a drop-down list of valid segments.

[INSERT SCREENSHOT: The ‘Add a new Allocation’ screen showing the Salary and Tax fields, with the red invalid account warning highlighting an incomplete general ledger code]

Account Validation and Inactive Accounts If you enter an account number and it appears in red, the account combination is invalid, not linked, or has been marked as inactive in your Chart of Accounts. FastFund will not allow you to save an allocation with an invalid account.

If a valid general ledger account is inactivated after you have already created the allocation set, the entire allocation will appear in red on your list with a checkmark in the Inactive Accounts column. If you apply an inactive allocation to an employee, that employee will be flagged in red on your Employee List until you update the allocation with an active account.

Cloning Allocations If you need to create several similar allocations (e.g., the same salary and tax accounts, but assigned to different Project Codes), you can use the Clone feature. Open an existing allocation and click the CLONE button at the top of the window. FastFund will create an exact copy of the set, allowing you to quickly swap out the one variable without retyping every general ledger number.