Balances in oracle payroll is nothing but
addition/subtraction of 'run result values'. Considering a lay man example of
showing year to date salary payment made for particular employee, it may be
computed through summing up run result values generated after each payroll
through specified time period or one could use Balances.
We could define our own balance or use one of the seeded balance to take particular element feeds.
Navigation -> Total Compensation -> Basic -> Banlances
Again, balances can be fed by individual elements or through element classification(at the larger level). We should note that both are mutually exclusive. Basic balance information is stored in PAY_BALANCE_TYPES table in R12 .
Dimension:
Dimensions talk about period context of balance i.e. in our previous example, 'one financial year' forms the dimension. similarly dimension can be quarter to date, month to date types. Dimension details are stored in PAY_BALANCE_DIMENSIONS.
Balance Feeds:
As we saw previously, balance feed is nothing but how element types are used to feed balances. The input values of element type is linked to balance type via PAY_BALANCE_FEEDS_F table.
Defined Balances:
Balances by itself does not hold the accrued balance values. Because the context in which balance is going to be used may change depending on the dimension with which we query it. Hence PAY_DEFINED_BALANCES links the valid combination of balance types and dimension types. This table has defined_balance_id as the primary key which will be extensively referred in latest balances.
Balance Dimension Types:
Usually balances are associated at the assignment level. But there are five different types of dimensions based on which the balances may be used differs.
- N type - Not Fed, Not stored
- F type - Fed, but not stored
- A type - stored at assignment level
- P type - stored at person level
- R type - Run level balances
Latest Balance:
In R12, the latest balances, be it in assignment level or at person level are stored commonly in a table called PAY_LATEST_BALANCES. The latest balances at assignment level are stored in PAY_ASSIGNMENT_LATEST_BALANCES and linked to PAY_LATEST_BALANCES through latest_balance_id. This table also holds assignment_id and assignment_action_id also. Similarly PAY_PERSON_LATEST_BALANCES is also linked to PAY_LATEST_BALANCES
