Deck 12: The Human Resource Business Process

Question 1

The human resource business process encompasses activities needed to acquire and to pay for employee labor.

Answer 1

True

Question 2

At the value system level, the human resource business process is the point of contact between the enterprise and its employees, who are considered external business partners.

Answer 2

True

Question 3

Although enterprises utilize employees' knowledge and skill, the enterprises usually do not end up owning employees' knowledge and skill.

Answer 3

True

Question 4

In a typical REA enterprise value chain diagram, labor is the resource that flows into the payroll process.

Question 5

In the payroll cycle, a staffing plan schedules specific employees to work on certain future days and times.

Question 6

In the payroll cycle, an employee schedule is a mutual commitment event that obligates the employee to work specific hours and obligates the enterprise to pay a certain amount of cash for that work.

Question 7

Timecards capture information about labor acquisitions in the payroll cycle.

Question 8

To calculate wages payable, one should focus on the Participation relationship between Cash Disbursement and Employee in the payroll cycle.

Question 9

Labor requisition events are often documented with staffing plans.

Question 10

Labor acquisitions are fulfilled by labor requisitions.

Question 11

Labor acquisition is the primary economic increment event in the human resource business process.

Question 12

Labor requisition events typically participate in duality, participation, and stockflow relationships.

Question 13

In the human resource process for most enterprises, participation relationships between mutual commitment events and employees are usually many-to-many, because an employee can be scheduled to work multiple times and a schedule can include many employees.

Question 14

Most enterprises pay for labor acquisitions after the labor has been acquired.

Question 15

The question of whether an enterprise owns any imprest cash accounts is a payroll cycle event query.

Question 16

To determine the total dollar amount withheld from payroll checks during a specific time period, one should focus on the Duality relationship in the human resource process.

Question 17

To determine the total dollar amount of cash disbursements made from an imprest cash account during a specific time period, one should focus on a Fulfillment relationship in the payroll cycle.

Question 18

To determine the dollar value of cash committed to by a labor schedule, one should examine a Reservation relationship in the payroll cycle.

Question 19

To determine the number of labor schedules authorized by a specific department supervisor, one should examine a Participation relationship in the payroll cycle.

Question 20

The human resource process is often divided into two functions: personnel and payroll.

Question 21

Which document is often used in the human resource business process (payroll cycle) to represent the labor acquisition event?

A) Employee schedule
B) Time card
C) Employee contract
D) Voucher
E) Staffing plan

Question 22

Which of the following is the instigation event in the human resource business process (payroll cycle)?

A) Labor acquisition event; i.e., the purchase of employees' time, effort, skills, and knowledge
B) Sales call event; i.e., the marketing of goods and services to a customer to show the goods and services will meet a need of the customer
C) Staffing plan; i.e., the identification of need for specified quantities of various types of labor for a defined time period
D) Employee labor schedule; i.e., the agreement that specifies the dates and number of hours an employee is scheduled to work during a defined period
E) Cash disbursement event; i.e., the payment of employees for work performed

Question 23

Joe has been given the task of creating a query to calculate wages payable for a user defined balance sheet date. Joe observes that Cash Disbursement number is posted into the Labor Acquisition table as a foreign key. Thus he realizes that each acquisition instance that contains a corresponding cash disbursement number has been completely paid for. He therefore determines the wages payable balance is the sum of the gross pay minus the sum of the withholdings for the acquisitions that have null values in the cash disbursement number field. The tables and Joe's initial query design are illustrated below. He also intends to create a second query based on the first query result that will calculate
WagesPayable:Nz(SumofGrossPay)-Nz(SumofWithholdings)
Which of the following is a problem with Joe's queries?

A) Wages payable will be overstated. Joe should have listed the criteria (date constraint and cashdisb is null) on separate lines in the query grid instead of on the same line
B) Wages payable will be understated for any balance sheet date that falls between the acquisition end date and the cash disbursement date because the first query uses the purchase date instead of the payment date to determine which disbursement amounts are applied to the acquisitions
C) There are no problems; Joe's queries will produce an accurate wages payable amount for any dates the user specifies
D) Wages payable will be understated. Joe should not have subtracted withholdings from the gross pay in calculating the amount payable to the employees
E) Wages payable will be overstated because the query should not treat null values in the SumOfGrossPay and SumOfWithholdings columns as if they were zeroes

Question 24

What cardinalities are generally most appropriate for the participation relationship between the Employee Schedule event and Employee agent entities in the human resource business process (payroll cycle)?

A) (1,N) Employee Schedule - (0,N) Employee
B) (1,N) Employee Schedule - (1,1) Employee
C) (1,1) Employee Schedule - (0,N) Employee
D) (0,1) Employee Schedule - (0,N) Employee
E) (0,N) Employee Schedule - (1,1) Employee

Question 25

The following is a relationship between Employee and Skill implemented in Access notation. What is the most likely underlying conceptual model for the relationship?

A) Choice 1
B) Choice 2
C) Choice 3
D) Choice 4
E) Choice 5

Question 26

All employees at Bishopsons' Corp are assigned to departments as soon as they are hired. An employee may have a split assignment, for example, working half-time for the marketing department and half-time for the customer service department. Occasionally Bishopsons' decides to add a new department. Information about new departments must be input into the database before any employees may be assigned to the department. Which of the following entity-relationship models best depicts this scenario?

A) Choice 1
B) Choice 2
C) Choice 3
D) Choice 4
E) Choice 5

Question 27

On an enterprise REA value chain diagram, what is the most likely resource outflow from the payroll process?

A) Cash
B) Raw Materials
C) Labor
D) Machinery
E) Finished Goods

Question 28

Which entities are typically paired in a payroll cycle Fulfillment relationship?

A) Labor Requisition and Labor Schedule
B) Labor Requisition and Labor Type
C) Labor Schedule and Labor Type
D) Labor Type and Labor Acquisition
E) Labor Acquisition and Cash Disbursement

Question 29

Which entities are typically paired in a payroll cycle Proposition relationship?

A) Labor Requisition and Labor Schedule
B) Labor Requisition and Labor Type
C) Labor Schedule and Labor Type
D) Labor Type and Labor Acquisition
E) Labor Acquisition and Cash Disbursement

Question 30

If it is materialized, what is the relationship between Labor Schedule and Cash Disbursement?

A) Duality
B) Fulfillment
C) Proposition
D) Reservation
E) Stockflow

Question 31

What is the primary objective of the human resource business process?

A) To train employees on how to use new software
B) To advertise job openings
C) To provide the human labor and expertise the enterprise needs to function efficiently and effectively
D) To calculate overtime pay for hourly workers
E) To determine the ideal benefits packages to offer employees

Question 32

Which document captures information reflective of the labor requisition event in the payroll cycle?

A) Timecard
B) Employee schedule
C) Direct deposit notification
D) Voucher
E) Staffing plan

Question 33

In the human resource business process, what underlying activity does the labor acquisition event represent?

A) The act of a department supervisor requesting the personnel function to recruit a new employee to fill a job opening
B) The act of a personnel agent interviewing a job candidate
C) The act of employees rendering services to the enterprise
D) The act of a payroll clerk preparing paychecks based on timecard data
E) The act of withholding payroll taxes and other payroll deductions

Question 34

In the REA enterprise ontology, the scheduling of specific employees to work certain hours on certain dates and times is a

A) Instigation event
B) Commitment event
C) Economic increment event
D) Economic decrement event
E) Economic reversal event

Question 35

In the REA enterprise ontology, the act of a payroll clerk issuing payroll checks to employees to compensate them for hours worked is a

A) Instigation event
B) Commitment event
C) Economic increment event
D) Economic decrement event
E) Economic reversal event

Question 36

What claim accrues if labor is acquired without corresponding cash disbursements?

A) Accounts payable
B) Accounts receivable
C) Duality
D) Wages payable
E) Prepaid expense

Question 37

In the example that follows, what result will be generated from applying the LaborType Query to the LaborType table?

A)

B)

C)

D)

E)

Question 38

Given the following database tables, how many employees were specifically (by name or ID) requested on staffing plan (labor requisition) LR8?

A) Six
B) Three
C) Two
D) One
E) Zero

Question 39

Given the following tables, what is the maximum budget amount for labor requisition LR8?

A) $1,160
B) $1,440
C) $1,600
D) $4,200
E) $4,500

Question 40

Given the following tables, which employee(s) performed work on April 1-7, 2010 for which they had not yet received paychecks by April 15, 2010?

A) E23
B) E23, E15, E16, and E17
C) E15, E16, and E17
D) E18, E19, and E21
E) E20

Question 41

Examine the following value system level model for a wholesale distributor. What part(s) of this diagram encompass the human resource process?

Question 42

In a typical REA value chain for a manufacturer, what resource is used up in the human resource process and what event uses up that resource?

Question 43

List the resource, internal agent, external agent, and any other events typically associated with the employee schedule event in the payroll cycle for a manufacturer.

Question 44

How many employees acting as external business partners does each labor acquisition instance typically involve?

Question 45

What document is often used to capture information regarding the labor acquisition event in the human resource business process?

Question 46

What is the difference between a time card and a job time ticket?

Question 47

Given the following tables, has a paycheck been issued for labor acquisition TC54?

Question 48

Given the following tables, calculate the dollar amount of wages payable as of April 15, 2010.

Question 49

Given the following tables, determine which labor type(s) were scheduled for more hours than were actually acquired.

Question 50

Given the following tables, determine which employee(s) worked less hours than were scheduled.

Question 51

Create a "generic" REA business process level model (without cardinalities) in either grammar or diagram format to represent the human resources business process for fast food restaurant. Your model should encompass the entire human resources process, from the creation of staffing plans to the issuance of paychecks.

Question 52

The Coolest Consultants (TCC) is an enterprise that provides consulting services to various clients. TCC's services include a wide variety ranging from marketing-oriented consulting to tax-planning services to computer system recommendations and installation. TCC's employees need different sets of skills to perform the various services. For example, tax-planning services must be performed by employees who have masters degrees in tax. At the beginning of each month, one of TCC's supervisors determines the staffing needs for the following month based on upcoming consulting service engagements. The supervisor records on the staffing plan the number of hours required for each type of labor (e.g. preparing a tax plan, installing a computer system, creating a marketing jingle, or developing a trademark) for the upcoming consulting service engagements. The supervisor also notes on the staffing plan whether the client has requested any specific employees for the service engagements. The supervisor then creates a schedule for the upcoming consulting service engagements by calling the employees who have the skills needed for each type of labor and verifying their availability and willingness to participate in the consulting engagements for a specified wage rate. The schedule lists each employee and the date and hours the employee will need to work on this engagement. When the consulting engagement occurs, details of the hours worked by each employee are recorded on separate timecards. The supervisor verifies the accuracy of each timecard and sends the approved timecards to the payroll department. On last day of each month, a payroll clerk summarizes each employee's timecards for consulting engagements in the month. The clerk calculates gross pay, withholdings, and net pay dollar amounts and enters the monthly payment information into the database. The net pay amounts are transferred to the employees' bank accounts via direct deposit and a pay stub is given to each employee for recordkeeping purposes.
Cash disbursements are tracked via voucher number, since check numbers and direct deposit numbers for different checking accounts may overlap. Less than half of the payments TCC issues are for payroll; other checks are written to vendors, stockholders, lenders, and so on. Payroll clerks process only payroll payments; employees in various other positions process nonpayroll payments.
To aid in scheduling, TCC must be able to look up the labor types for which an employee is qualified. Therefore after information about employees is entered into the system, information connecting them to the labor types they are capable of performing must also be entered.
Required:
a. Prepare an REA business process level model for TCC in ER diagram or grammar format including all relevant entities, relationships, attributes, and participation cardinalities. The following attributes are of interest to TCC and should be included in your solution. Do not add or subtract any attributes.
b. Convert your REA business process level model into a set of minimal relational table structures.

Question 53

Consider the statement "the human resources or payroll process is a special case of the acquisition/payment process." Consider also that the two processes are apparently different enough to warrant separate coverage in the textbook. Write an essay to compare and contrast the payroll and acquisition/payment cycles and to explain why the payroll cycle is a special case of the acquisition/payment process and yet warrants separate discussion.

Question 54

Quickest Franks (QF) is a fast food restaurant that specializes in frankfurters. QF cooks and prepares cheese franks, chili franks, plain franks, and so forth, to customers who need a quick meal. QF has several stores in the city of Quincy and hopes someday to expand and become a national franchise. QF employs several types of personnel, including managers and assistant managers for each store, cooks, counter clerks, cleaning staff, marketing personnel, a systems technician, and an accountant. The marketing personnel, systems technician, and accountant work in a back office at the headquarters store and are on salary. They are required to work 40 hours per week, but they may choose their own hours and need not be included on any schedule. If they work less hours they make up the time; if they work more hours, they don't receive additional compensation.
The managers and assistant managers are also on salary; however, they must be scheduled for certain hours along with the hourly employees (cooks, counter clerks, and cleaning staff) to ensure each store is adequately staffed and managed at all times. On Wednesday of each week, the manager of each store determines the staffing needs for the following week (Sunday through Saturday) based on predicted restaurant traffic (which depends on seasonality, school vacations, holidays, planned sporting and musical events in town, and so forth). Each manager prepares a staffing plan, including the number of hours required for each type of position at that store. The staffing plan does not specify employees - only the positions needed. The manager then creates a tentative schedule that lists each employee and the dates and hours the employee is expected to work for the week; this tentative schedule is posted and employees have until Friday at noon to request changes. The schedule is then adjusted and the final version obligating QF and its employees to the scheduled hours is posted on Friday by 6 p.m.
Each week each employee is issued a new time card. The time cards are kept in a central location at each store. When each employee arrives to work, leaves for and returns from breaks, and leaves work for the day, he or she inserts the time card into a device that inserts the current date and time into the appropriate spot. At the end of each week, the manager verifies the accuracy of each timecard and sends the approved timecards to the accountant. The accountant calculates gross pay, withholdings, and net pay dollar amounts and enters the weekly payment information into the database. Paychecks (each identified by a unique check number) are issued to employees each Friday for the previous week's work. Because QF purchases its ingredients from a very small set of vendors and is a closely held company, very few payments are issued to non-employee recipients; most payments QF makes are for payroll. The accountant processes all payments, including payroll and all other checks.
Following is a business process-level REA diagram that is intended to represent the payroll cycle for QF. Your task is to identify errors in this diagram. The types of errors you should consider include missing entities, missing relationships, extra entities, and extra relationships (i.e., entities or relationships that are either nonsense or don't belong to the represented cycles). List the errors on the following page. Do NOT include cardinalities or attributes for this problem! If you identify a missing entity you should word your statement as, "An entity named _______ is missing." If you identify a missing relationship you should word your statement as, "A relationship named _____ is missing and should exist between the _____ and _____ entities." If you identify an extra entity or relationship you should word your statement as, "The entity (or relationship) named _____ should not exist." If you identify a mis-named entity or relationship, you should word your statement as, "The entity (or relationship) named _____ should instead be named _____."
REA Model for Quickest Franks
List the errors you identified from Quickest Franks payroll cycle model below. The number of blanks available does not correspond to the number of actual errors. Use only as many as you need to use, and add blanks if necessary.
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