PBJ Export

Overview

The Payroll Based Journal is a system for facilities to submit staffing and census information to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). CMS started collecting staffing and census data through the PBJ system on a voluntary basis on October 1, 2015, and will collect it on a mandatory basis beginning on July 1, 2016.

The Time and Attendance software creates the ZIP file(s) as required by CMS. Each ZIP file contains a single XML file. If your software contains a single facility then the zip file will be named pbj.zip and the xml file in the zip file will be named pbj.xml. In a multi-facility software, the zip and xml file will both be named using the facility description. You can access the folder where the PBJ files are created from Tools / Folders / PBJ Folder.

The PBJ Export is run from Reports / File Export / PBJ. You should use version 1 during the voluntary submission period and version 2 when the mandatory period begins. 6/26/2016 is the first date that version 2 files can be submitted.

CMS requires categorization of the employees and their time data within the XML file. The data required by CMS is organized into 4 sections; header, employees, hours and census.

Header

The header contains information identifying the file version specification being used (currently version 1 or version 2), information to identify your facility and the date range of the PBJ data being submitted within the file. It also contains information about SBV including a contact email address and the software version used to create the file.

Required (one time) : You need to enter your PBJ facility identifier and state into the software. For a single facility software the PBJ Facility ID is entered in Configuration / Setup / System / Payroll. The state is entered in Configuration / Setup / System / Defaults. In a multi-facility software both the PBJ Facility ID and the state are entered in Configuration / Setup / Labor Levels / Facility.

Note: - you can include data only from the same fiscal quarter in the file. The minimum date range would be one date and the maximum would be the three calendar months from the same fiscal quarter.

Employees

The employees section will use the the hire and termination information from the Employee / Status tab. CMS also requires a Pay Type Code which is used to distinguish Exempt, Non-Exempt and Contract staff. The Is In House setting on the Company labor level is used to distinguish contract staff from your payroll employees. To identify exempt staff we are providing three methods; at the pay rule level, at the base schedule group level, and at the employee level.

Required (one time) : In Configuration / Setup / Labor Levels / Company, select Is In House for your payroll companies. If all of your employees are paid from your payroll, you may not have a company labor level.

Required (one time) : Determine at what level you wish to identify your exempt staff. This can be done by using the Is PBJ Exempt setting in either Configuration / Calculation / Pay Rules / Misc tab, Configuration / Schedules / Base Schedules on the Base Schedule Group, or on a per employee basis on the Employee / Misc tab. For example, if you have a pay rule that is used with Salaried staff then by using the Is PBJ Exempt setting on this pay rule, all employees using this pay rule will be identified as exempt.

Important: - when running the PBJ Export it is not necessary for you to exclude any employees except in a multi-facility setup when you only want to run the export for a single facility. As such, do NOT filter employees and be sure to include all statuses under Current Status.

Note: hire dates are required for all staff. If you have not entered an Active status date in the employee's Status tab then we will use the first day that the employee worked (first day with hours). There is also an additional requirement that an rehired employee that has had a termination date previously submitted to PBJ can only be submitted with a hire date that is later than the previously submitted termination date. If an employees has an Active status date after an Inactive status date then we will use this Active status date even if an earlier Active status date is marked as the Hire Date. We will not assume any Termination date because no punch or hours information exists. As such, unless the employee is indicated as Inactive in their Status tab, we will assume that they are still currently active.

Note: the software has an expectation that the built in Active and Inactive status types are being used to indicate Hire and Termination. Additional employee status types that have been added are ignored because these indicate a transient state of employment such as LOA.

Note: an additional field named Work Type Code was used to distinguish Full Time from Part Time employees but this field has been eliminated in the version 2 of the specifications. As such, we are identifying all employees as Full Time in the version 1 file.

Hours

The employee's paid hours for time worked are to be submitted. You should not submit hours that were worked that were not paid. This has been clearly stated in the first revision of the PBJ guidelines with an example given: A salaried employees working 10 hours but getting paid 8 hours must be submitted as 8 hours.

Required: agency and contract staff need to be included in this report so therefore at the very least be entered in the software and have their hours per day entered.

Required (one time) : specify the PBJ Work Type Code for each department including a choice of Exclude From Report for departments that are not considered to be direct care departments. This is done is Configuration / Setup / Labor Levels / Department (or whatever your departmental labor level is named).

Required (one time) : select the pay types that are considered worked making sure not to include matching pay types such as differentials. This is done in Configuration / Schedules / Pay Types in the Payroll tab. The setting is named Is PBJ Pay Type.

Note: the following hours are included in the file:

• All time calculated from punches that occurs between midnight to midnight from the the start date at 12:00am until the end date at 11:59pm.
• All hours not from punches with an actual date between the start date and end date. Example of these hours may be owed time or salaried non punching employees.

Census

For each month of the PBJ report there are 3 census numbers; Medicaid, Medicare and Other.

Required: the PBJ monthly census is entered from Tools / PBJ Census. The census should be based on the last day of the month, and needs to be split between Medicaid, Medicare and Other.