Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA/HR 6201) setup guidelines

The Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA/HR 6201) outlines that certain employers provide their employees with paid sick leave or expanded family and medical leave for specified reasons related to COVID-19. For COVID-19 related reasons, employees receive up to 80 hours of Paid Sick Leave and expanded childcare leave when employee’s children’s schools are closed, or childcare providers are unavailable. When paying employees with this Leave, it is important and recommended NOT to include any regular hours or overtime type of pay. If partial regular hours need to be computed and paid in addition to this type of pay, the employee will ideally receive two separate paychecks. For more information regarding specifics of the new law, please refer to the U.S. Department of Labor web site: https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/pandemic/ffcra-employee-paid-leave For additional information and resources please see the Sage Coronavirus Hub

Section I – Pay Level Setup

1. In the product, from the Maintain menu, select Payroll > Payroll Settings
2. The Payroll Settings window appears. On the left Navigation bar, click Company Information.
3. Click on the Pay Types option that is revealed. The Pay Types for Hourly and Salary pay types are displayed.
4. If you have Hourly employees, in the next three available fields (generally included with the text “Rate”), add the following Pay Level rate levels with the following naming conventions:
   1. EHMPaidSickLv
   2. EHRMPaidFMLA
   3. EHMPaidSickOth
5. If you have Salary employees, in the next three available fields generally included with the text “Salary”) featured in the lower portion, add the following naming conventions:
   1. ESMPaidSickLv
   2. ESRMPaidFMLA
   3. ESMPaidSickOth
6. Verify that the Payroll expense account number and Payroll tax expense account number fields contain valid General Ledger account numbers for which you would like this pay to post.
7. Click the Finish button.

In steps 4 and 5 above, you defined the Paid Sick Leave and FMLA Pay Level categories for hourly and salaried employees respectively.

• Any field ending in PaidSickLv is representative of Paid Sick Leave pay:

  The Act provides that employees of eligible employers can receive two weeks (up to 80 hours) of paid sick leave at 100% of the employee's regular rate of pay up to $511.00 per day (or $5,110.00 in the aggregate) where the employee is unable to work because the employee is quarantined, and/or experiencing COVID-19 symptoms, and seeking a medical diagnosis.

• Any field ending in PaidSickOth is representative of Paid Sick Leave pay that meet the following conditions:

  Applies to employee to care for others subject to childcare provider not available or employee experiencing any other similar condition stated or to be specified by the Secretary of Health and Human Service in consultation with the Secretary of Treasury and the Secretary of Labor.

• Any field ending PaidFMLA is representative of Emergency Family and Medical Leave Act pay:

  An employee who is unable to work because of a need to care for an individual subject to quarantine, to care for a child whose school is closed or child care provider is unavailable for reasons related to COVID-19, and/or the employee is experiencing substantially similar conditions as specified by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services can receive two weeks (up to 80 hours) of paid sick leave at 2/3 the employee's regular rate of pay up to $200.00 per day (or $2,000.00 in the aggregate). An employee who is unable to work due to a need to care for a child whose school is closed or child care provider is unavailable for reasons related to COVID-19, may in some instances receive up to an additional ten weeks of expanded paid family and medical leave at 2/3 the employee's regular rate of pay up to $200.00 per day.

Section II – Employee Record Setup

1. In the product, from the Maintain menu, select Maintain Employees/Sales Reps.
2. The Maintain Employees & Sales Reps window appears. Select the affected Employee record, whether Hourly or Salaried.
3. Click the Pay Info tab.
   1. For an Hourly employee, define the Hourly Pay Rate for the EHMPaidSickLv and/or EHRMPaidFMLA where applicable.
   2. For a Salaried Employee, define the Salary Pay Rate for the ESMPaidSickLv and/or ESMPaidFMLA where applicable.
4. Repeat steps 2 through 3 when the need arises to configure an Employee record impacted under the Act’s criteria.
5. When paying the affected Employee(s) in Payroll Entry, please ensure that only the fields ending in PaidSickLv, PaidFMLA and PaidSickOth contain hours or dollar entries depending on the employee’s pay type.

Section III – Reporting

In the future, it is anticipated these values will need to be reported on quarterly tax forms submitted to Government authorities. This section will be expanded later to elaborate on the procedures established at that time, but in the interim, use the following steps to produce Payroll Reporting that will summarize the pay data disbursed to affected employees defined under the Act’s criteria:

1. From the Reports & Forms menu, select Payroll.
2. The Select a Report or Form window appears with the Payroll section highlighted. Double-click the Payroll Register report.
3. The Hourly and Salary pay rate types are displayed on this report, with historical pay data for each employee.
4. You may choose to use the report options to include only the affected employee record and save the filtered selections to a customized report. As more employees are impacted, you may use the report options to include the additional employee records and save the customized report with these changes.

Related documentation/links:

https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/pandemic/ffcra-questions
https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/pandemic
https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/fmla/pandemic
https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/pandemic/ffcra-employee-paid-leave

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