Executing Personnel Actions

The objective of master data administration in human resources is to enter and maintain employee-related data for administrative, time recording, and payroll purposes.

However, there are tasks in HCM that are more complex than just maintaining a single infotype. For complex personnel processes, such as the hiring of an employee where many infotypes have to be created one after the other, the system supports this by using what is known as personnel actions.

You can use personnel actions to:

• Hire an employee
• Change the organizational assignment of an employee
• Change the employee’s pay
• Set an employee’s status to early retiree or pensioner
• Document when an employee leaves or re-enters the enterprise

Personnel action is a sequence of infotypes to map a personnel process. Personnel actions combine several related infotypes into one infotype group. Examples of personnel action types include the following:

• Hiring an employee
• Organizational reassignment
• An employee leaving the enterprise

With the Actions infotype (0000), you can display an overview of all the important changes related to an employee, and you can thus document the most important stages that an employee passes through in your enterprise.

For example, when an employee is hired, you enter the required information into the system by executing a hiring action. A hiring action presents infotypes in the order specified by configuration to the HR administrator for completion. After each infotype is saved, the next one in the action is presented for completion. You can skip a presented infotype and, if necessary, complete the data later.

Data is recorded for these infotypes during the hiring action. In addition, country/region-specific infotypes such as taxes and benefits are usually included in the action.

Personnel actions are accessed using transaction code PA40. When called, a table of all available actions is presented. To hire an employee, choose the hiring action (c.) and enter the employee's start date (b.).

With internal number assignment, the system displays the next available personnel number. With external number assignment, you enter a personnel number that has not yet been assigned (a.).

On the initial screen, you can enter the personnel area, employee group, and employee subgroup of the new employee (d.). Alternatively, you can execute this screen and enter this information on the next screen, which is of the Actions infotype 0000.

The Actions infotype (0000) is the first of the personnel action infotypes and it logs the personnel action. Additional information that can be recorded on this infotype include the reason for the action (a.) and a reference personnel number (if the person has more than one type of employment relationship with in the company). The status indicators are assigned by the system and cannot be manually maintained.

You can directly assign the person to a position. If you have integration between personnel administration and organizational management, and have stored information on the position (such as personnel area, employee group, and employee subgroup b.), the system suggests these as default values. If integration is not active or you have not stored relevant information on the position, these values can be manually maintained.

Once you complete and save the Actions infotype (0000), the remaining infotypes are presented for completion in the order specified in customizing.

The Personal Data infotype (0002) stores an employee's personal details. This includes the employee's name, nationality, birth date, and marital status. Depending on the country/region in which the employee is employed, the infotype uses different screens that are, in part, country/region-specific.

In the Organizational Assignment (0001) infotype, the employee’s integration into the organizational structure, on the one hand, and into the personnel structure, on the other hand, is defined.

This information is paramount for both the authorization behavior and control of payroll. The infotype 0001 screen is divided in three parts of information:

a) Enterprise structure contains

• Company code
• Personnel area
• Personnel subarea

The fields for company code, personnel area, and cost center are not ready for input here. These fields can only be maintained by carrying out a personnel action.

b) Personnel structure contains

• Employee group
• Employee subgroup

You cannot overwrite the values. You can only change these assignments by performing personnel actions. You can overwrite the default value in the field for the payroll area.

c) Organizational plan typically contains objects, such as

• Position
• Job
• Organizational unit

In addition, you can define data for the organizational area of the administrator responsible for the employee in personnel administration. The administrator group combines all administrators that are responsible for an organizational area in personnel administration. You can save the responsible administrator area for HR master data, time recording, and payroll. These fields can be used for the authorization check.

In the Addresses infotype (0006), you store the address data of an employee. The employee’s address is used with the employee’s name, taken from the infotype Personal Data (0002), for employee lists of different kinds, for forms, or for address labels.

You can enter different addresses for each employee. The standard system contains the following address types as subtypes:

• Permanent residence
• Temporary residence
• Home address
• Emergency address
• Mailing address
• Nursing Address

There are different entry screens for the infotype Address (0006) for the individual country versions. When you create an address, the system chooses the country/region-specific entry screen that corresponds to the country of the personnel area to which the employee is assigned in the Organizational Assignment infotype (0001).

In the Planned Working Time infotype (0007), specify the employee's work schedule rule. This defines the employees daily, weekly, monthly, and annual working times. In addition, you specify whether the employee's time postings are evaluated and whether the employee works part-time.

In the infotype Basic Pay (0008), you can store an employee’s basic pay. You can gain an overview of the employee’s payroll history using the infotype history.

The standard system contains the following payment types as subtypes:

• Basic contract
• Increase basic contract
• Comparable domestic pay
• Refund of costs in foreign currencies
• Local weighting allowance

You can process the infotype Basic Pay (0008) on its own or with a personnel action. If you want to create a new data record, enter the payment type on the Maintain HR Master Data screen. The payment type is already set if you carry out a personnel action.

You always have to specify the pay scale group and pay scale level together.

With the infotype Bank Details 0009, you enter the payee and the bank details for the net pay from the payroll or the travel expenses.

The standard system contains the following bank detail types as subtypes:

• Main bank details
• Other bank details
• Travel expenses

When you enter other bank details or bank details for travel expenses to distribute the payment amount to several payees, you specify the amount to be transferred as an absolute value or as a percentage. In the case of travel expenses, the amount is an optional specification.

There are two further bank detail types for countries/regions that have implemented off-cycle activities:

• Main bank details for off-cycle
• Secondary bank details for off-cycle

International bank account number (IBAN):

The use of the along with the BIC or SWIFT code is mandatory for standardized European payment transactions (SEPA). With the SEPA payment procedure, IBANs and BICs must be used instead of country/region-specific account numbers and bank numbers for the bank details of payers and payees.

You store leave entitlements in the Absence Quotas infotype (2006). You also store the deduction from and deduction to dates here. You can use the default dates suggested by the system.

You can restart an executed personnel action by selecting the action on the Personnel Actions screen. Actions infotype (0000) displays and you must choose the Execute infogroup.

This reactivates the execution of the action and the sequence of infotypes assigned to the action is presented and you can make required changes. You must save each record that you change. If you do not make any changes, you can go to the next record without saving.

From the Maintain HR Master Data screen, under the main menu bar option, Utilities, the following options are available:

Delete personnel number:

Enables you to delete personnel numbers from the system for which payroll has not yet been performed.

Change payroll status:

Enables you to manually change the Payroll Status infotype (0003). The Payroll Status infotype is automatically maintained by the system. Selecting this option enables you to manually change this infotype.

Change entry/leaving date:

This enables you to change the start date and end date of all infotypes included in the hiring action simultaneously.

The Additional Actions infotype (0302) enables you to log all personnel actions performed for one employee on the same day. The log includes all action types and action reasons performed for an employee on specific dates. This means that you can save more than one data record per day for this infotype.

SAP recommends that you use the Additional Actions infotype to store an action that processes more than one infotype in a single infogroup. This is due to the time constraint 1 assigned to the Actions infotype (0000), which means only one actions infotype can exist in the system for the same period of time. An example of this type of personnel action is pay change. All programs that interpret an employee's status evaluate the Actions infotype (0000) only.