Purpose
Company level earnings define the types of pay your company can put on a paycheck: regular wages, overtime, bonuses, reimbursements, and so on. An earning must exist at the company level before you can assign it to an employee or use it in a pay run. Each earning's setup decides how it is taxed, whether it counts toward overtime and garnishments, and which W-2 box it reports to.
Who can do this: Any user whose role includes the Payroll permission. This is usually the Employer Admin, but other admin roles can be granted the same access.
What's already there
UZIO provides a master catalog of earning types. The common ones, such as Regular Wage, are added for you when your company filing address is saved. The Earning Type drop-down on the Add Earning form lists:
- Wages: Regular Wage, Overtime, Double Overtime, Holiday, Holiday Premium, Vacation, Sick
- Premiums: Meal Break Premium, Rest Break Premium
- Incentives: Bonus, Commission, Stock Options
- Time off and absence: Unpaid Time Off, PTO Balance Payout, 3rd Party Sick Pay - Taxable, 3rd Party Sick Pay - Nontaxable
- Reimbursements and allowances: Reimbursements, Expense Reimbursement, Mileage Reimbursement, Clothing Allowance, Tool Allowance
- Tips: Cash Tip, Pay Check Tips, Allocated Tips
- Education and separation: Tuition Assistance, Non Tax Tuition Assistance, Moving Expenses, Severance
- Special situations: OT Adjustment, Group Term Life Insurance, Owner's Draw, Station Closure, Dividend, Other
Note: A few legacy types (the three COVID sick and family-leave earnings and some retired 457(b) and LTD types) still exist in the master catalog for historical payrolls. They are no longer current options. Do not build new pay structures on them.
Note — Qualified OT Premium: A system earning named "Qualified OT Premium" carries the FLSA overtime premium UZIO calculates for W-2 Box 12 Code TT. It appears on the earning grid, the earnings import template, and uploads. You do not create or configure it here. See Managing Qualified Overtime.
DSP note: On Amazon DSP accounts, dedicated time-off earnings are auto-created and linked automatically whenever a time-off policy is created (preserving the Vacation and Sick master types). You do not add them here. The audit trail shows the real acting user, not "SYSTEM." DSPs also get the Amazon-funded discretionary earning "Frontrunner of the Year", whose Include-in-OT setting is locked to No. Processing steps live in Processing Discretionary Bonuses; see also DSP on UZIO: What's Different.
Steps: Add a custom earning
- Open Company Earnings from the payroll setup checklist, or from the Payroll Dashboard once you are live.
- Add an earning and complete the fields:
| Field | What it controls |
|---|---|
| Name | Unique name shown on pay stubs and reports. |
| Earning Type | The master type it is based on. This drives tax treatment. |
| Taxability | Taxable or non-taxable. |
| W-2 Reporting | Which W-2 box (if any) the earning reports to, with an optional label. |
| Amount basis | Flat dollar amount per pay period, or a multiplier of the regular wage rate. |
| Include in overtime | Whether this earning counts toward overtime rate calculations (relevant for non-discretionary bonuses and commissions). |
| Include in disposable income | Whether the earning counts toward disposable income for garnishment calculations. |
| Subject to workers' comp | Whether workers' comp applies to these wages. |
- Save.
Conditional fields and locks
Which fields you can edit depends heavily on the earning type. Many are set by the system:
| Field | Behavior |
|---|---|
| Earning Name | Up to 45 characters. Required. |
| Display Order | 1 to 999 (non-zero). Appears when editing an existing earning. |
| Paid Earning (Yes/No) | Editable only for type Other. Fixed by the system for every other type. |
| Hourly Based Earning (Yes/No) | Editable only for Other, and only while the earning is not assigned to any employee. Yes reveals Rate Determination Factor: Multiples of Regular Wage (rate 0.01 to 5.00) or Flat $ Per Hour (up to 999,999). |
| Taxability Type (Taxable/Non-Taxable) | Editable only for Other. |
| Subject to Garnishment Disposable Income (Yes/No) | Required. Locked for Owner's Draw, Unpaid Time Off, and Station Closure. |
| Subject to Workers' Compensation (Yes/No) | Required. Locked for Owner's Draw, Unpaid Time Off, and Station Closure. |
| Subject to Federal Income Tax (Yes/No) | Appears only for Group Term Life Insurance. |
| Include in Overtime Rate Calculation (Yes/No) | Appears only for Bonus and Commission, when the non-discretionary feature is enabled. |
| Linked Non-Discretionary Earning | Required. Appears only for the OT Adjustment type. |
| Time Off Policies | Multi-select (including All). Appears with the Time Off feature for Vacation and Sick (paid and sick policies) and Unpaid Time Off (unpaid policies). Links the earning to those policies. |
| W-2 Box | Required for Other. Unpaid Time Off and Station Closure show Not Required (read-only). Box 12 uses a label dropdown that includes TT (Qualified Overtime) and TP (Qualified Tips). Box 14 takes free text up to 8 characters. |
[Screenshot: Add Earning form with Earning Type "Other" selected, showing the Paid Earning, Hourly Based, and Taxability controls unlocked; use demo data]
Where this earning shows up afterward
- Employee records: the earning becomes assignable on each employee's Earnings tab in Employee Payroll Setup. Company-level edits cascade to assigned employees automatically, unless you have overridden the value on a specific employee. That employee's override stays.
- Pay runs: it appears as a column in the earnings grid during payroll processing, under the name you gave it.
- Pay stubs and reports: employees see the earning name on their pay stub. Payroll reports break out the earning by name.
- W-2: the W-2 Box and label you set here decide where the year's total reports.
- General Ledger: if you use the GL export or QuickBooks Online sync and mapped earnings individually, map the new earning to an account or your next GL file will be out of balance. See Setting Up the General Ledger and Exporting Payroll Journal Entries.
Note: Earnings that have been used in payrolls, or assigned to employees, cannot be hard-deleted. Removing one retires it from future use.
Warning: "Include in overtime" has compliance weight. Under the FLSA, non-discretionary bonuses and commissions generally must be included in the regular rate used for overtime. Confirm treatment with your accountant before excluding an earning from overtime.
Common mistake: Creating a taxable "Other" earning when a non-taxable master type already covers the case (for example, 3rd Party Sick Pay - Nontaxable). Pick the master type that matches the tax treatment instead of adjusting after the fact.
Note — PTO Balance Payout: This type is system-defaulted to W-2 Box: Not Required and is excluded from garnishment disposable income. It is treated like other paid-time-off cash-outs, not regular wages, for those two purposes.
Related articles
- Payroll Setup Overview
- Setting Up Company Level Deductions
- Managing Qualified Overtime: the Qualified OT Premium system earning
- Owner's Draw: Setup and Payment
- Processing Discretionary Bonuses: DSP incentive earnings
- Overtime Rules Setup and Compliance Controls: how overtime hours and blended rates are determined
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