What is retroactive accounting in SAP HR payroll?

A payroll run is repeated for a period for which payroll has already been performed in the payroll past. Retroactive accounting is triggered during the payroll run for the current period if the certain master and time data affecting the payroll past has been changed in the meantime.

Only changes to master and time data are relevant for retroactive accounting, since previous payroll results must be corrected. A retroactive accounting limit can be set for the whole company and/or for just one employee.