Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
Welcome to Green Leaf Elevated!
We are excited to introduce you to the platform. While the system is robust, we hope with proper training, the system will become second nature to you. While you work on getting to know the system, we wanted to provide you with the most commonly used articles and questions to help get you familiar with the system and Green Leaf processes. As soon as you have access to the system, feel free to use any articles to maintain your company/employee data.
System Overview
Training Available
Training is weekly and unlimited. This means you can send new managers anytime you'd like!
- Process Payroll Training Registration Link (Monday at 1pm PST)
- Time Keeping Manager Training Registration Link (Thursday at 1pm PST)
How does a user get access to the system?
If you have current employees when transitioning to Green Leaf, the employee roster will be imported into Green Leaf with the current data provided from your previous provider. The Implementation Team will then determine a date you'd like for all current employees to receive their activation emails. At the time the email is received, the user can then use the login link, username, and the temporary password provided in the email to login. When they login the first time, they will be prompted to update their password and verify their identity through a two-factor authentication process. This process will give them the option to have a code texted or emailed to them to verify their identity. New employees hired into the system will be granted access the same way.
Please Note: If you are NOT on our payroll only bundle, your new employees will receive additional information in their activation email letting them know they need to login and complete their new hire checklist. Please select this link to navigate to our article that shows how to complete a new hire checklist from the employee's perspective.Mobile App to Download
In the App Store, download the HCMtoGo app.
You will need your Company Short Name, Username, and Password to login to the app.
Please Note: Your Company Short Name is provided in the automatically sent system welcome email when a new account is created.Please select this link to navigate to our article going over mobile app instructions and troubleshooting.
Why are my employees/users being locked out?
Typically if a new user has received an activation email and has not logged in within 72 hours, they will be locked out. They could also be locked out if they have attempted to use the wrong credentials too many times.
Please select this link to navigate to our article on how to troubleshoot locked employee's accounts.
What are profiles?
Profiles are settings that are configured and assigned to employees to allow any functionality set up to apply to the individual employee record. The most commonly used profiles are related to Time Keeping (Timesheet Profiles, Pay Calc Profiles, Accrual Profiles, etc.) and Access Levels (Security Profiles). Throughout your implementation you will be introduced to the most common profiles and trained on how to assign profiles to your employees. All profiles can be customized to your liking.
Please select this link to navigate to our article that provides an overview of all profiles within the system.
Employee Maintenance
Adding New Hires
Please select this link to navigate to our article on how to hire an employee.
Changing a Pay Rate
Pay rates in our system are referred to as base compensation. The settings related to base compensation are essential to understand in order to ensure your employee is paid accurately.
Please select this link to navigate to our article on how to update an employee's base compensation.
Adding/Changing Deductions
Deductions can be added to the employee and set up to deduct on every pay, every scheduled pay, or only specific payrolls.
Please select this link to navigate to our article on how to add a deduction to an employee.
Please Note: If you have a child support or any type of garnishment that requires payment to a vendor, please send a copy of the garnishment order to your assigned Payroll Specialist and they will set up the vendor and add the garnishment to the employee for you.What is a Vendor?
A vendor is a third party that needs to be tied to either a deduction or an earning code. Once a vendor is set up, the data tied to the Deduction or Earning can produce a payment to the vendor each payroll in the form of check, ACH, or can be used simply for reporting purposes. The most common vendors would be Garnishment Agencies, Worker's Comp Vendors, 401K Vendors, and Unions.
If you need to have a vendor set up, please reach out to your assigned Payroll Specialist and provide them with the vendor and payment information.
Verifying Direct Deposit
If you do need to make changes for an employee or you'd like to verify information that we imported, you can do so by navigating to the Menu > Team > Payroll > Employee Payroll Maintenance > Direct Deposits. This report will show you all active Direct Deposits and allow you to add new accounts if needed. You can also maintain the direct deposit on the employee's profile directly under the Payroll Tab.
Please Note: We do not recommend that you update an employee's direct deposit on their behalf and instead encourage that you ask the employee to submit a Direct Deposit Change Request. Terminating Employees
Assigning Managers to Employees
In order for Managers to have access to the staff they oversee, they must be assigned to the employee as a Manager.
Our system allows for up to 6 different managers to be assigned to an employee and each level of Management may relate to different security access and/or indicate certain workflows. The simple task of assigning the manager to the employee will give the manager visibility to the employee, where the Manager Placement (Manager 1, 2, etc.) would indicate which workflows the Manager would receive tasks for.
Please select this link to navigate to our article covering general employee account access information.
How to change an employee from Hourly to Salary?
What is my short name?
Short Names in the system are your client number. If you have more than one account with Green Leaf, then you will use the same short name for all EINs if they are linked to the same instance. The short name is provided with the activation email that sends to all current employees and new hires. Your short name will be used for logging into the mobile app and may be asked from you when calling into the office for security purposes.
If you're not sure of your short name but have the web URL to the login landing page, you can look to the URL and the short name will be listed in place of the highlighted portion shown below.
What is VCA? How does it work? Why do I have to do this?
VCA or Virtual Code Authentication is a required functionality for all account users due to the system housing sensitive data. VCA protects your company and your employees from someone maliciously trying to login to the system on you or your employees behalf. This code will be sent to an email address or texted to a phone number that the employee specifies when they first login to the system.
Please Note: Company Administrators are responsible for verifying these email addresses or phone numbers as legitimate or the employee will be locked out of their account after 72 hours.For more information on why employees can be locked out of the system, please select this link to navigate to our article on how to troubleshoot locked employee accounts.
Time Keeping Maintenance
How do employees clock in/out?
During implementation, we typically will identify the method in which you'd like your employees to be able to access the time clock. The common options are as follows:
1. Web - This would use web browser access with the employee's username and password. This is most common for employees who work on individual computers or a small staff that might share the same computer. Employees will clock in and out using the Clock widget on their dashboard. Web access can be restricted to only allow for the user to use the clock function while on your company's IP address(s) if needed. The user will still be able to access the rest of the system while not on the IP for other functions such as submitting change requests, etc.
A screenshot of what this looks like is below:
2. Web Clock - This would allow for employees to use the web browser through a web browser link specific to only clocking in and out. The Web Clock has the ability to allow the user to use a Badge Number or a Username/Password combo to clock in and out, rather than requiring the employee to log all the way in. This is an ideal solution for a device used for multiple users. This option can also utilize the IP Address restrictions. The Web Clock can also allow users the ability to login or can be restricted to only allow punching.
Below is an example where the user is being required to enter Username/Password to clock in and out:
3. Mobile App - If you'd like to have employees utilize the mobile app to clock in and out, they'd need to download the mobile app called HCMtoGo and would need to have the Employee Security Profile that indicates mobile app access. Without this setting, the employee will be able to do other functions on the mobile app but will not have the ability to clock in and out. Geofencing restrictions can be set up for your employees. This would restrict your employees from being able to clock in and out unless they are within a certain perimeter of an address specified by yourself.
4. Physical Clock - Employees are restricted to only be able to punch on the physical clock. They will not see punch options when logging into the web. Most of the physical clocks offered require a badge to be assigned to an employee in the system. The badge would then need to be registered to the clock for the punches to feed to the employee's timesheet.
If you would like to know more about physical clock options, reach out to your Sales Representative.
How do employees update missed punches or any other corrections?
Managers will have the ability to manually add in missing punches but we highly recommend having the employees request all changes through the change request function. When employees submit change requests, the manager assigned to the employee will receive a notification that the employee needs to add a punch or needs a punch modification. In either instance, once the manager approves the change, the change will automatically add or update on the employee's timesheet.
If the manager rejects the change request, they will be required to enter a comment on why they are rejecting. The employee will then be notified that the request has been denied and will include the manager's comment.
Please Note: If managers update timesheets manually and the employee also submits a request for the same adjustment, the manager may receive an error that there are duplicate punches. The system does not know that the manual adjustment to the timesheet was meant to take the place of the change request. In that case, managers should reject the duplicate request noting that the change was manually added to the timesheet.
Please select this link to navigate to our article on how an employee can submit a change request.
How do we handle Meal Penalties?
The system is built to track the penalties if the punches are out of compliance. As edits are made, the system corrects any punches that put the time out of compliance and the meal penalty will fall off.
For more information on how the meal penalty rule is being applied and how to waive a meal penalty if the employee consents, please select this link to navigate to our meal penalty guide.
What do Managers need to do in order to prepare for Time Keeping?
The timesheet workflow starts with timesheets in an open status which is the state the timesheet is in during a current pay period. After the pay period has ended, the employees must then submit their timesheets. By default, the employee's timesheets will auto submit the day after the pay period has ended to ensure managers can begin working on the timesheets. After timesheets have been submitted, the managers would then approve timesheets in order to allow the timesheets to process through to payroll. All timesheets MUST be approved in order to process payroll. This would also apply to timesheets for terminated employees and timesheets with zero hours. Ultimately if zero hours is correct, then the timesheet must be approved. If no hours are present, nothing will be paid in payroll.
Please Note: If timesheets are submitted or approved prematurely, the employee will be locked out of the timesheet. If additional punches or changes need to be made, the manager would need to reject the timesheet to allow the employee to continue punching and/or submitting change requests. The employee can then submit again and the workflow would follow the same Open > Submit > Approve process.To see the entire process start to finish, please attend our Manager Time Keeping Training and select this link to navigate to our step by step timekeeping guide.
How are Holidays Managed?
Holidays can be auto populated onto employee's timesheets with the utilization of the TS Auto Population Profile and the Holiday Profile.
- The Holiday Profile declares what days throughout the year are considered Holidays for your company.
- The TS Auto Population Profile looks at the Holiday profile and populates the holiday on the timesheet if the holiday is upcoming.
Please Note: If an employee is missing either one of these profile assignments, the holiday will not auto populate on their timesheet. Please reach out to your assigned specialist for assistance if both of these profiles are assigned to an employee and the holiday time is still not populating on their timesheet.
How do we enter Extra Pay or other types of pay to the timesheet other than hours?
Extra Pay needs to be enabled by your implementation specialist in the employee timesheet settings before this is available to see on the timesheets. Once this is enabled, Extra Pay becomes a selectable tab on the employee's timesheet. Here is a link to our timekeeping guide that covers how to add extra pay.
How do we check total hours before processing payroll?
Navigate to the Menu > Team > Time > Reports > Time Allocation > Detailed Hours Overview.
For more information on timekeeping, please select this link to navigate to our step by step timekeeping guide.
Payroll Maintenance
How do we verify Deductions/Earnings?
Only users with a security profile of Company Administrator will have the ability to view Deduction and Earning Codes set up in the system by default. Company Admins should navigate to the Menu > Settings > Payroll Setup > Deduction Codes (or Earning Codes).
Please Note: Company Admins will only have the ability to view these so if you want anything updated, added or removed, please reach out to your assigned specialist so they can make these changes for you.
Where are payroll reports?
Please select this link to navigate to our article about payroll-related reporting and the most commonly used reports.
Can reports be emailed?
Yes, reports can be emailed. Please reach out to your assigned specialist and list the specific report you would like to be emailed, as well as who should be receiving the emailed report.
How to Process Payroll?
Please select this link to navigate to our payroll processing article for a step by step guide.
Please Note: If you do not have time keeping in the system, please skip steps 3a-3i and 4c as they do not apply to processing payroll.
What are the deadlines to process payroll?
The deadline to process and submit your payroll is 2 days before your check date at 2pm PST. For example, if you have a Friday check date then the deadline would be Wednesday at 2pm PST. If you are having trouble making this deadline, please reach out to your assigned specialist to see if you can be granted a 30 minute deadline extension.
How do we process an unscheduled payroll?
Please reach out to your assigned specialist for assistance on setting up an off cycle (unscheduled) payroll. It is vital that they assist you to ensure that the pay period dates and check date are entered in correctly and follow our ACH guidelines. You can begin to process this payroll after the specialist has created it for you. Typically we would need to know 2 full business days before the check date.
How do I verify pay statements and how the pay statement was processed (direct deposit or live check?)
When previewing an employee's pay statement, you will be able to tell if this is going to via direct deposit or a check from the settings shown at the top of the pay statement. Please select this link to navigate to our article on how to view pay statements.
If you see a check number listed in the top right corner of the pay statement, along with an authorized signature then this would be a live check.
If you see a voucher number listed in the top right corner, then this would be a direct deposit. You will also see the bank account listed for the employee that the funds will be sent to.
How do we process a manual check?
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