I verified all the setup information for an employee, but the employee still doesn’t show up in the payroll. What’s the easiest way to get the employee on the Time Cards and in the payroll run?

When an employee is not showing up on a particular payroll run, it usually has to do with the “last pay date” found in Add/Edit Employee Earnings and Deductions (Data Entry Tab). For example, when Adding a Standard Transaction to a Payroll run for a weekly payroll, and the Ending Date you entered in 9/16/02 – the corresponding date in the employee’s Add/Edit Employee Earnings and Deductions record should be 9/902 (7 days prior). The system will prevent an employee from being paid more frequently that 7 days for a weekly payroll, 14 days for a bi-weekly etc. Easiest solution: remove the date from both the earnings and deductions records found in Add/Edit Employee Earnings and Deductions. The system will rely on the Frequency (i.e. weekly) to process the respective employee, and will automatically assign an ending date for both earnings and deduction records in Add/Edit Employee Earnings and Deductions. An even easier way to “reset” the payroll dates would be to “Undo Payroll” (Actions tab). This feature simply eliminates the current payroll and resets employee earning/deduction dates.

Connecticut Fund Accounting | Enhanced Business Systems

Fund accounting is the fundamental financial system used by governments and non-profit organizations. Unlike the corporate world, where the primary goal is profitability, the public sector’s ultimate goal is accountability. Fund accounting achieves this by breaking a government’s finances down into separate, self-balancing sets of accounts—or “funds”—each designated for a specific purpose and bound by specific legal constraints.

Think of it as a series of separate checking accounts. You might have one account for paying your mortgage, another for groceries, and a third strictly for your child’s college tuition. You cannot legally take money from the college fund to pay for a vacation. Fund accounting enforces this exact discipline on a massive, statewide scale.

The Mechanics of Fund Accounting

In government accounting, funds generally fall into three broad categories:

Governmental Funds: These handle core services. The biggest is usually the General Fund (which pays for education, public safety, and general administration), but it also includes Special Revenue Funds (money legally restricted for specific purposes), Capital Projects Funds, and Debt Service Funds.
Proprietary Funds: These operate like businesses, charging fees for services (e.g., a state-owned utility, a lottery, or a toll road system).
Fiduciary Funds: These hold assets in trust for others, such as state employee pension funds.

Why Fund Accounting is Crucial for Connecticut

For a state like Connecticut, Connecticut fund accounting is not just a bookkeeping exercise; it is the structural backbone of its fiscal stability and legal compliance. Historically, Connecticut has faced significant financial challenges, including high debt burdens and heavily underfunded pension liabilities. Fund accounting has been the essential tool used to install strict “fiscal guardrails” and legally restrict how revenue is spent.

Here is how fund accounting proves vital to Connecticut’s daily operations and long-term economic health:

1. Protecting the Special Transportation Fund (STF) Connecticut established the Special Transportation Fund in 1983 to ensure that revenue collected from drivers is actually spent on roads, bridges, and public transit.

The STF is a perfect example of a Special Revenue Fund. It is funded by the motor fuels tax, a dedicated portion of the state sales tax, and highway mileage taxes. Because of fund accounting, these revenues are legally walled off from the state’s General Fund. If Connecticut runs a deficit in general services, lawmakers cannot simply raid the STF to plug the hole. This ensures that essential infrastructure projects, debt service on transportation bonds, and the operations of the Department of Transportation and Department of Motor Vehicles remain fully funded.

2. Enforcing the Budget Reserve Fund (The “Rainy Day” Fund) Connecticut’s economic engine is heavily reliant on the financial sector, meaning state revenues from capital gains can be incredibly volatile—booming during market highs and crashing during recessions.

Fund accounting allows Connecticut to operate a strict “Volatility Cap.” When tax revenue from investment earnings exceeds a certain threshold, the excess is legally diverted away from the General Fund and deposited directly into the Budget Reserve Fund (BRF). By segregating these volatile revenues into a specific fund, the state prevents itself from using temporary windfalls to fund permanent, ongoing programs.

3. Tackling Long-Term Pension Debt Perhaps the most impactful use of fund accounting in Connecticut’s recent history is how it handles a full Rainy Day Fund. State law mandates that once the Budget Reserve Fund hits its statutory maximum limit (currently 18% of General Fund appropriations), any additional surplus dollars are automatically transferred out and used to aggressively pay down the state’s unfunded pension liabilities for teachers and state employees. Without a rigid fund accounting system to categorize, cap, and automatically route these specific revenue streams, Connecticut would not have been able to systematically direct billions of dollars toward its historical debt over the last several years.

4. Transparency and Public Trust Finally, fund accounting provides the transparency required for taxpayers, Wall Street bond rating agencies, and federal grantors to see exactly what Connecticut is doing with its money. When the federal government provides Connecticut with Medicaid funding or emergency infrastructure grants, those dollars are placed in restricted accounts. Fund accounting provides the strict audit trail proving that federal dollars were spent exactly as the law required, maintaining the state’s eligibility for future funding.

By compartmentalizing resources, fund accounting forces fiscal discipline, honors the legal restrictions placed on taxpayer dollars, and ultimately provides the framework Connecticut relies on to stabilize its financial future.