The PAYREG records serve no useful purpose after they are no longer used for pay. They can be deleted if not being used.

Alternatively, they can be flagged inactive and moved to the Archive data file. The system only looks at the INACTIVEFLG for a Y so anything else in the field would be considered “no."  The [PAY.FILES]payreg_archive.dta contains old payreg records.  At 09/20/05, all payreg records older than 2 years were moved to the archive file and deleted from PAYREG.

The contbegdate can be used for those without contracts and those with contracts. Just keep in mind that the payroll system sees the date as a starting date (compared against the payroll date) to see if the record should be paid. If the .contbegdate is prior to the payroll date for a given payroll, the record will be paid.