Compensation terminology can sometimes feel complex, especially when working across salary reviews, budgeting, workforce planning, and reporting. This glossary brings together the most common compensation and workforce planning concepts used throughout the platform, helping you better understand key terms related to employee costs, salaries, bonuses, FTE, budgeting, and financial reporting.
Use this article as a quick reference whenever you need clarification on a concept, metric, or calculation related to compensation and workforce data.
Cycles
| Cycle |
Monthly pay period within the Compensation module. This allows you to define the payroll variables that will be shared with the payroll agency or payroll software for the calculation of pay slips. This corresponds to a ‘pay period’ in the context of the platform. |
| Status: open | Initial state of the cycle. Administrators and users with the appropriate permissions can enter and edit their staff’s payroll variables. |
| Status: calculation | The cycle automatically switches to this status as soon as the export (Excel, CSV, A3NOM) is generated or the synchronisation is triggered via the API. This indicates that the accounting firm or the software has the data required for calculation. |
| Status: in review | This is triggered when the payslip summary / cost allocation is uploaded. It allows you to compare the variables entered in the cycle with the data in the summary received. |
| Status: completed | Final status. This status is reached by clicking "Complete cycle" once the payslip summary has been validated. The cycle is closed and locked. |
| Complete cycle | An action that closes the cycle and marks it as “Completed”. It appears in the top-right corner once the payroll summary has been reviewed and approved. |
Payslip
| Payslip | A document (usually in Excel or CSV format) that sets out all payments made to staff in a specific month: fixed and variable items, contribution bases, and payments to HM Revenue & Customs and Social Security. It may also be referred to as a Cost Summary, Cost Allocation or Costs. Alternative names: cost summary, cost allocation, costs. |
| Cost allocation | Alternative name for the payslip summary. It is the most commonly used term in employment law firms. |
| Upload payslip | Action whereby the person in charge (or the agency, via Professionals) uploads the summary to the platform. This sets the status to ‘Under review’ and feeds the Financial Analytics module. |
| Comparison of variables | The ‘Under review’ status allows you to compare the variables entered in the payroll cycle table with the data in the payroll summary received. |
| SEPA file | A file containing bank payments that the payroll agency can attach to the payroll run using the “Activity” button next to the payslip summary and the individual PDFs. |
Updates Panel (incidents)
| Updates Panel | A view within the Compensation module that automatically displays all actions carried out in Factorial: new hires, departures, changes to contracts, personal details updates and approved absences. Each entry is referred to as an incident. |
| Incident | A row in the updates panel that records a specific change made by an employee. It includes a summary of the action, previous and new details, history and (if Professionals are available) a chat with the office. |
| Automatic incident | An incident generated by Factorial when an administrator or employee modifies data on the platform (new contract, end of contract, change in terms and conditions, personal details, approved absence). |
| Manual incident | A ticket created by the HR team to report events that are not captured automatically (e.g. a garnishment notice). You must select the employee, subject, description and effective date. |
| Information tab | View within the incident details showing the previous and new information. Visible to both the advisor and the client. |
| History tab | Records who created the ticket, when, and what changes have been made. Visible to the advisor and the client. |
| Messages tab | Internal chat linked to the ticket, available when the customer has a Professionals subscription. It allows the advisor and customer to communicate with a full audit trail. |
| Notes tab | Private area for the HR team (excluding Professionals). Allows internal notes to be added to the incident without the office being able to view them. Does not support attachments. |
| Status: pending submission | An incident has been opened but has not yet been reported to the office. |
| Status: sent | The incident has been forwarded to the office via Professionals for processing. |
| Status: in progress | Incident on active treatment. |
| Status: Completed | Incident processed and closed. |
| Status: Rejected | An issue that does not require action and is marked as irrelevant. |
| Automatic forwarding to the office | A setting that allows incidents to be forwarded directly to Professionals as soon as they are raised, without any manual intervention from the HR team. Requires Professionals to be enabled. |
| Direct synchronisation | If the system is integrated with payroll software, incidents (or absences) can be synchronised directly with the software without having to go through the office. |
Payroll concepts
| Payroll concept | A payroll catalogue item that represents a salary component (e.g. overtime, travel allowance, sales commission). It is defined under Settings > Compensation > Payroll Items. |
| Earnings - Fixed salary | A category that groups together the fixed salary components already specified in the employee’s contract or collective agreement. These are included in the payslip. |
| Earnings - Benefits in kind | Category for items such as meal allowances, travel vouchers, childcare or other non-monetary benefits. |
| Earnings - variable | A category of items that vary or change each month (overtime, commissions, bonuses). These are the items entered into the payroll table |
| Deductions | Deductions from your payslip. The most common example is income tax. |
| Contribution from the company | A category that includes the amounts the company pays in respect of its registered employees (Social Security contributions, etc.). |
| Summarised values | Payroll summary category that groups the totals of the various columns or items. |
| Concept unit | Type of measurement assigned to each item: Money (monetary), Distance (kilometres), Time (linked to time recording) or Units (generic quantity). |
| Fixed concept (settings) | For fixed items, you only need to configure them for the payslip summary in order for them to be recognised. They are not entered in the cycle’s variable table. |
| Variable concept (settings) | Variable items must be created in the relevant category in the format in which they are to be reported, as these are the items that are populated each month during the cycle. |
Workspace
| Workspace | Factorial module that allows you to view and analyse aggregated data from uploaded payroll summaries. It is divided into two parts: the Compensation section and the reporting section. |
| Compensation section | A view within Analytics where information from all uploaded payslips is aggregated and grouped by month. It allows you to filter, group and export the data. |
| Internal reporting | Reports generated from the payroll summaries uploaded to the platform, which enable the HR team to monitor staff costs. |
Module settings
| Incident settings | Section under Settings > Offset where you can enable or disable the types of incidents that will be automatically generated in the updates panel (contracts, personal details, absences, etc.). |
| Payroll concepts settings | List of items available to the customer, grouped by category. It includes default items and allows you to add custom items with a name, category, unit and description. |
| a3NOM Integration (TXT) | If the customer uses A3NOM without the API, the integration generates a TXT file that can be configured via the settings section of the Compensation module. |
| Factorial Professionals | Communication layer between the client and the accountancy firm. When active, it allows incidents to be sent to the firm, enables chat for each incident, and facilitates the automatic sending and receiving of documents (payroll summaries, PDFs, SEPA) via the Activity button. |