When employees are on leave, Workspace and Pay admins will receive an email notification every pay period that their pay file is ready for download in the Documents tab of their dashboard. Cocoon’s software calculates what employees are owed during their leave but employers are responsible for running payroll.
When you open your pay file, you’ll see some columns in yellow and some in blue. The columns in yellow give a high level overview of what makes up an employee’s leave pay amount for that pay period, and the other columns in blue provide further information about the employee and specific payroll calculations. The blue columns are for reference, and you’ll just need to focus on the ‘Total pay owed by employer’ to make sure your employees are paid correctly. Here’s what you need to know about the most important columns in the pay file:
Employee number
The Employee number is your employee’s unique payroll identification number. This ensures that the correct pay amounts are given to the right employee. This is provided to Cocoon in the employee census that your team uploads.
Full Name
This is the employee the pay calculations apply to
Leave type
This column identifies the type of leave the employee is taking
Leave pay
The Leave pay column shows the amount of pay associated with the number of hours that an employee was on leave for. This column contains the amount before any deductions are made for state and/or private disability provider benefits paid to the employee.
Regular pay
The Regular pay column shows any regular pay an employee earns during a pay period. There are two cases where regular pay will be non-zero: when an employee goes on or returns from leave in the middle of a pay period.
Sick Pay + PTO Pay
Cocoon does not calculate sick or PTO pay, so these columns will always have a value of 0
Benefit deductions column
The "Benefit Deductions" column displays the projected state or private disability leave benefits for an employee's leave period. These benefits reduce your company's total pay obligation to the employee for the given pay period. As such, the values in this column will be negative, reflecting the decrease in pay obligation.
In cases where an employee's leave is updated after Cocoon has processed payroll, the changes will be reflected in an adjustment file included in the following pay cycle. Our system will automatically adjust for any missed benefit deductions due to changes in the leave dates in the subsequent pay cycles.
Please be aware, any overpayments or underpayments resulting from modifications in unpaid leave days need to be rectified by the employer. Cocoon will notify you about these amounts via email.
Total pay owed by employer
The Total pay owed by the employer column shows your company's total pay obligation to the employee. This is leave pay plus regular pay, less any deductions received from the state and/or private disability provider.
Scrolling over to the right, you can also see the data our system uses to perform these calculations. This is purely informational– in order to successfully run payroll, you can just use the columns in yellow.
Now that you know what each column represents, let’s take a look at some example files:
Scenario: an employee goes on leave in the middle of a pay period:
Alvin is an employee that’s taking a medical leave through Cocoon. During the pay period for this pay file, Alvin worked for 5 days, and then started their leave, meaning they were then on leave for 6 days.
The ‘Leave Pay’ column shows that based on Alvin’s hourly rate and the number of hours they were on leave, they should be paid $3,365.50 in leave pay. This amount does not include any benefits they are eligible for, it simply displays the total leave pay they should receive.
The ‘Regular Pay’ column shows that based on the number of regular hours Alvin worked before going on leave, they should also be paid $2,884.50.
The ‘Benefit Deductions’ column shows the amount of estimated benefits for this employee based on their leave plan. With Cocoon’s payroll method, these amounts are deducted from the overall employer total, meaning that Alvin can expect to receive $3,750 in benefits from the state and disability programs, but to the employer, that’s $3,750 they don’t have to pay their employee, which is why it’s shown as a negative.
The ‘Total Pay Owed by Employer’ column pulls all of this together by adding leave pay and regular pay and subtracting any estimated benefits. This column is the total that the employer owes the employee for this pay period.
Scenario: an employee goes on leave at the beginning of a pay period:
Mariana is an employee that’s taking a parental leave and their leave start happens to coincide with the start of your company’s pay period.
The ‘Leave Pay’ column shows that based on Mariana’s hourly rate and the number of hours they were on leave, they should be paid $8,333.33 in leave pay. This amount does not include any benefits they are eligible for, it simply displays the total leave pay they should receive.
The ‘Regular Pay’ column is $0 because Mariana did not work during this pay period.
The 'Benefit Deductions' column displays the estimated benefits for Mariana based on her leave plan. In the payroll file, these amounts are subtracted from the total employer pay. This means Mariana will receive $4,166.67 in benefits from state and disability programs. For the employer, this translates to $4,166.67 less that they need to pay Mariana directly, which is why this figure is shown as a negative amount.
The ‘Total Pay Owed by Employer’ column pulls all of this together by adding leave pay and regular pay and subtracting any estimated benefits. This column is the total that the employer owes the employee for this pay period.
Scenario: an employee goes on leave but isn’t eligible for any benefits:
Ning is an employee that’s taking a parental leave and their leave start happens to coincide with the start of your company’s pay period but they are also in a state with no benefit programs or paid family leave.
The ‘Leave Pay’ column shows that based on Ning’s hourly rate and the number of hours they were on leave, they should be paid $8,333.33 in leave pay.
The ‘Regular Pay’ column is $0 because Ning did not work during this pay period.
The ‘Benefit Deductions’ column is $0 because based on Ning’s location, there are no available benefits.
The ‘Total Pay Owed by Employer’ column pulls all of this together by adding leave pay and regular pay and subtracting any estimated benefits. This column is the total that the employer owes the employee for this pay period.
We’re excited to help your employees take leave and in order to ensure the best pay experience possible, we need your Payroll team’s help. Make sure you’re familiar with Cocoon’s payroll method and please review our additional pay resources.
Questions? Please reach out to the Support team at: