Run the Payroll-Based Journal (PBJ) Report
The Payroll-Based Journal report in timekeeping is used for companies in the health care industry that need to report staffing data to the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). The report only includes staffing data collected through timekeeping; it does not include census data.
This article explains how to run the Payroll-Based Journal for your quarterly reporting. You have the option to export either the entire quarter's worth of data at one time, or make incremental exports that can be uploaded periodically through the quarter.
The Payroll-Based Journal report is found under the Reports Menu and can be exported as a ZIP file for uploading to CMS. There is also option for an XLS file which can be viewed in Excel.
If you do not see Payroll-Based Journal as an option in your Reports Menu, contact your provider. They will need to configure the report for your account.
The report includes the following data related to employees and staffing hours:
- Employee Name
- Employee ID (Employee Code)
- Hire Date
- Termination Date
- Date
- Hours
- Job Title Code
- Pay Type Code
For information on generating a report for multiple facilities within one timekeeping account, see Filter by Facility for PBJ Reporting.
What's Not In the PBJ Report
Not all data collected in timekeeping needs to be reported to CMS. Here is a list of data that's excluded, or can be excluded, when generating the report:
- Paid and non-paid breaks are excluded automatically.
- Hours without an eligible PBJ Job Type code or descriptions are excluded automatically.
- Select pay types, like Sick or Vacation, can be excluded by using a filter in the report options.
- Select employees can be excluded by using a filter in the report options.
Instructions how to apply the employee and pay type filters is explained in the Report Options section of this article.
Midnight Cutoff
CMS requires a midnight-to-midnight reporting period, so it's important to remember that the Payroll-Based Journal Report automatically splits times at midnight on the first and last day of the quarter. So, regardless of any split scripts or reporting date rules you may have running on your site, the report will strictly cutoff any hours from a single shift that cross into a different period.
Version 4.10.0 Update
The Payroll-Based Journal report currently supports the version 4.10.0 schema. When configuring the report, your provider needs to select this version otherwise you will see the following error message when trying to run the report:
Warning: After April 1st 2026 the file version currently in use will return a fatal error. Please change to file version 4.10.0 in the rule setup page.
it means the configuration of your report setup is using an outdated version. Contact your provider and ask them to update the Payroll-Based Journal Processing Rule to version 4.10.0.
Report Options
When you run the Payroll-Based Journal Report, you'll be presented options configuring the report. Please read through each of these options to understand how they affect your report before exporting and uploading to CMS.
Facility ID
The Facility ID defaults to the value set by your provider in the PBJ Processing Rule. This Facility ID appears in the header of the report and is critical for making sure your data is correctly identified in CMS.
In most cases, you will not need to change this value. However, if you are tracking multiple facilities in one timekeeping account, you can click Change to manually type in a different Facility ID. Please see the article Filter by Facility for PBJ Reporting for more on this process.
Type of Report (Replace vs. Merge)
The Payroll-Based Journal can be run for the entire quarter, or in segments that can be periodically uploaded to CMS throughout the quarter. These options are shown in the Type of report dropdown and dictate whether your staffing data are merged or replaced in CMS.
Previous Quarter and Current Quarter include data for the entire quarter and REPLACES any previous data uploaded to CMS for that quarter.
Date range within Previous Quarter and Date range within Current Quarter allow you to choose a start and end date for the export. Choose this option if you have already uploaded data to CMS and you want to MERGE the data.
Employees to Include
The Employees to include filter defaults to All employees (including inactive). Generally, that selection applies to most facilities using this report. The exception would be those sites with multiple facilities tracked in one timekeeping account. In that case, this filter provides a way to generate a report per facility. Please see the article Filter by Facility for PBJ Reporting for more information on this process.
Additional Filtering
Like the Employees to include filter, the Additional Filtering option gives you the ability to filter the data, but in this case, by a clock prompt. There are two criteria for using this option:
- Multiple facilities are being tracked in one timekeeping account.
- Employees work at multiple facilities.
See the article Filter by Facility for PBJ Reporting for more information on this process.
Exclude Categories
CMS does not require hours in "non-work" categories, like Vacation or Holiday. With the Exclude Categories dropdown, you can select which punch categories are excluded from the report.
Export Buttons
The PBJ report has three options for generating the report:
- View Report creates an on-screen preview of the report. This can help you double-check the report before submitting it to CMS.
- Download XML (.zip) creates the format specifically required by CMS.
- Download Excel (.xls) creates a spreadsheet with all the pertinent data for your records.
Errors
If you receive the following error message:
Warning: After April 1st 2026 the file version currently in use will return a fatal error. Please change to file version 4.10.0 in the rule setup page.
It means your report configuration is using an outdated version. Contact your provider to update your Payroll-Based Journal Processing Rule to use version 4.10.o.
Time card errors, like missing punches or invalid codes, will also prevent the report from being generated. If any of these errors are present in your data, you will see a notification detailing all the errors. There may also be errors reported when uploading the report to CMS. See the article PBJ Errors for an explanation of these error codes.
