Varying an Employee Package Item
Varying an Employee Package Item
Overview
When you vary an Employee Package Item, the Vary screen now shows figures drawn directly from the linked Contract, and saving without making changes no longer alters the item's remaining deduction schedule.
This does not apply to direct-link vehicle-lease items, whose Vary behaviour is unchanged.
How It Works
Open an Employee Package Item and select Vary.
Remaining Cycles and Deduction Per Pay display the Contract's current, live figures.
Make any changes needed (or none, to simply review).
If pending adjustment records would be removed by your changes, a confirmation prompt appears.
If you're suspending an item with a far-future end date, a warning prompt appears.
Save. If the billing schedule was misaligned with the pay-cycle calendar, it's corrected automatically, with existing amounts carried across.
Expected Behaviour
Saving Without Changes
Each pending period keeps its own existing amount — nothing is flattened to a single figure.
Changing Remaining Cycles Only
Total Deduction recalculates from the existing Deduction Per Pay and the new cycle count; Deduction Per Pay itself is unchanged.
Increasing Remaining Cycles adds new pending periods at the amount shown on screen; existing periods keep their own amounts.
Decreasing Remaining Cycles removes periods from the end of the schedule; the retained periods keep their own amounts.
Entering a New Deduction Per Pay
Every pending period is updated to the new amount, as before.
Misaligned Billing Schedule
The schedule is corrected onto the pay-cycle grid when saved, and existing amounts land on the corrected dates in their original order.
Pending Adjustment Records Would Be Removed
A confirmation prompt appears before the save proceeds; cancelling leaves everything unchanged.
Suspending an Item with a Far-Future End Date
A warning appears before the save proceeds.
The Contract Changed While You Were Editing
The save is rejected with a message asking you to re-open the screen and try again; nothing is written.
Claim-to-Budget Items
Deduction Per Pay is read-only.
Only the number of cycles can be extended; new cycles are added at $0.00.
Reducing cycles is rejected unless the item is being suspended and every removed period is already $0.00.
Direct-Link Vehicle-Lease Items
None of the above applies — these items keep today's Vary display and save behaviour unchanged.
Troubleshooting
Why does Remaining Cycles show a different value than before?
Remaining Cycles now reflects the actual number of billings remaining on the Contract schedule. Once all scheduled billings have been completed, the value will display 0.
Why has Deduction Per Pay changed unexpectedly?
Deduction Per Pay is now sourced directly from the Contract schedule rather than a stored item value.
The system uses the following logic:
The Total Inc. GST amount from the next pending billing period.
If the next pending period is unavailable or has a value of $0.00, the last posted billing amount.
If no valid posted amount exists, the item's stored deduction value.
Important: A pending period with a value of $0.00 will never be displayed as the Deduction Per Pay amount.
Why does Total Deduction no longer match previous calculations?
Total Deduction is now a display-only value that is calculated from the current Deduction Per Pay and Remaining Cycles. It can no longer drive or update Deduction Per Pay.
Why weren't my Contract billing amounts changed when I saved?
If you saved the item without changing Deduction Per Pay, existing pending billing periods are preserved exactly as they were. The system no longer converts all pending periods to a single flat amount during save.
Only new periods created by increasing Remaining Cycles will use the Deduction Per Pay amount currently displayed on screen.
Why were all pending billing amounts updated after saving?
If you changed Deduction Per Pay before saving, the system behaves as it did previously and updates all pending billing periods to use the new amount.
Why did my billing dates change after saving?
The system now automatically corrects Contract billing schedules that are not aligned to the expected pay-cycle grid.
When this occurs:
Billing dates are adjusted to valid pay-cycle dates.
Existing billing amounts are retained.
Amounts are transferred to the corrected dates in the same sequence.
Why am I being asked to confirm before saving?
You may see the following warning:
"This Contract has N pending adjustment record(s) which will be removed when saved. Are you sure?"
This occurs when the save operation would remove pending adjustment or correction records from the Contract schedule. You must confirm before the save can continue.
Why am I receiving a warning when saving a suspended item?
A warning is displayed when:
The item is being saved in a Suspended status, and
The item's end date is more than two pay cycles in the future.
The warning is intended to prevent accidental changes to items with significant future billing activity remaining.
Why am I seeing "Unable to Save. Another process has updated the contract budgets while you were editing"?
This message appears when the Contract schedule has been updated by another process after you opened the screen, such as:
A nightly billing run
Another user action
An automated system update
To prevent overwriting newer data, your changes are rejected and you must reopen or refresh the item before making further updates.
Why can't I edit Deduction Per Pay on a claim-to-budget item?
For claim-to-budget items, Deduction Per Pay is now read-only and cannot be modified manually.
Why can't I reduce Remaining Cycles on a claim-to-budget item?
For claim-to-budget items:
Remaining Cycles can only be increased.
New periods added by the increase are created with an amount of $0.00.
Reducing Remaining Cycles is only permitted when:
The item is being suspended, and
Every billing period being removed already has a value of $0.00.
If either condition is not met, the save request will be rejected.
Why were new billing periods created with a value of $0.00?
For claim-to-budget items, any new periods created by increasing Remaining Cycles are intentionally added with a $0.00 amount and must be funded through the normal claim-to-budget process.