To be compliant, payroll needs to be paid on a regular schedule. For most employers, that can be every week, every two weeks, twice a month, or once a month. Longer periods are not common.
To stay in sync, you need a pay schedule. That will do two things for you. First, it will define the days and hours covered for each paycheck, and second it will define when people get paid. Payday! 🎉
Here's an example. Let's say payday is every two weeks. One way is to set a bi-weekly schedule that ends on a Sunday, and pays the following Friday. That will create a repeating, two-week pattern that allows employees to track time, and for you to process payroll.
Notice too from this example, the period ends on a Sunday, but payday is 5 days later. Why? because you need those days to approve timesheets, allow enough time to process payroll (ie ACH), and manage any holidays that might conflict. It's always best to give yourself enough time.
1. Go to LOGIN > Settings > Pay schedules
To edit the pay schedule, click on the row
2. Edit the pay schedule
Pay schedule name - This can be any name that makes sense. In most cases just use the default name.
Pay frequency - Can be Weekly, Bi-Weekly, Semi-Monthly, or Monthly.
First period end - The last day of the first pay period. In this example, I set it to Sunday, November 20th. The next period will end on Sunday Dec 4th, and so on.
First payday - In this example, I set the first payday as Friday, November 25th. This gives us five days to approve timesheets and process payroll. If you provide more days, even better.
Second payday - Use this only if you pay semi-monthly, otherwise leave it blank. For semi-monthly, the first payday could be the 15th, and the second payday could be the last day of the month.
When finished, click Save, then Done
3. Check the dates
Now that you've updated your pay schedule, look at timesheet to make sure it's right. Go to Timesheets > then click someone's name. In this example, we see the period ends on November 20th, just as expected.
That's it, you're all set.