Sometimes, contracts end mid-month and a new contract begins during the same month. Avoid confusing paycheck calculations by following these best practices for mid-month contract changes.

If an employee will be rehired to a new contract mid-pay period, use a different Record Number to rehire the employee. This is necessary because of the unique relationship between contracts and position data in Job Data.

Contracts are associated with a record number in Job Data. Job data uses position data to establish a job, but position data is not directly tied to specific contracts. The position data available during the contract period is used to post contract pay, determine funding and establish account codes.

Because contracts are independent of position data, contracts ending mid-month and starting new mid-month on the same job record cannot differentiate that a new corresponding position was entered. 

• It will not differentiate that there are two different positions associated with two different contracts. Instead, the pay from both contracts will post to the last position that is effective on the pay period end date.

Why does this matter? Funding distributions and account codes are posted consistent with position data when posting pay. Funding distributions are defined by position number and job code, and account codes are determined using position data including job code, regular/temporary status and sum of standard hours (full- or part-time status). 

• In the case of mid-month contracts changes on the same job record, since the pay does not differentiate that there are two different positions associated with two different contracts, the funding distribution and account codes from both contracts will post using the data from the last position that is effective on the pay period end date.

When the earlier contract uses position data that would otherwise generate different account codes — for example part-time rather than full-time job codes — but only the final position data is used to post the account codes, it can impact the monthly fringe rates that post with pay. So, in the above example, if the previous period was a part-time position, but the new contract is a full-time position, then the full-time fringe rates will apply to the entire month.

There may be cases when the partial month contract should be corrected. 

• If just funding must be corrected, then use a Payroll Expense Transfer.
• If the account codes must be corrected, reach out to your campus controller’s office for special assistance or email system.hrgl.team@cu.edu.
• If the position(s) must be corrected, submit a manual adjustment form. The form can also be used to change employee record, pay group, earnings code, job code, department and earnings period.

Need extra help?

You can find contract resources on the HCM Contracts page.

As always, you can email hcm_community@cu.edu or System.HRGL.Team@cu.edu for additional help.

To access the HCM queries mentioned above:

1. Log into the employee portal.
2. Open the CU Resources dropdown menu and click Business Tools.
3. Select the HCM tile and choose HCM Community Users from the drop-down menu.
4. Click the HCM WorkCenter tile.
5. Select the Resources tab and click the query you desire.