For fixed amount deductions, the system takes the amount given in the deduction and subtracts the correct portion from each check to ensure that the total amount is subtracted over the indicated period. For fixed deductions, the allowance field is ignored. The flags field for fixed amount deductions is f.
The Frequency field specifies how often this deduction is to be made. For instance, if a fixed amount was to be taken out each month (say $30 to United Way), then the frequency would be m and the amount would be $30.
The system makes the necessary conversions to get the amount of the deduction. For example, if an employee is paid semi-monthly (twice a month) and has a fixed annual deduction of $240.00 then $10.00 needs to be taken from each paycheck ($240 per year, with 24 checks per year = $10 per check). The number of checks in a year comes from the employee frequency. The number of times the deduction amount is taken in a year comes from the deduction frequency. Both frequencies are converted to a number per year by looking up the frequency in the Frequency File. The formula for the fixed deduction amount per check is
(deduction_amount x #deductions_per_year) / #checks_per_year .