A guide to running payroll early and preparing your account for 2020.
Here’s some answers to a few common questions about running payroll over the holiday period and getting ready for the new year.
WHAT TO DO BEFORE THE HOLIDAYS
Running payroll early
Sometimes you may want to run payroll early, either due to a planned absence of someone on your admin team, or due to where public holidays fall.
If your pay cycle ends on a Sunday and a public holiday falls on a Monday when you would usually run payroll, you may want to run payroll the Friday before the end of the pay cycle. The simplest way to do this is to export the pay cycle as usual, before the end of the pay cycle, and pay staff as rostered for any currently unauthorised days.
We don’t recommend authorising timesheets before shifts have been worked, as this will stop staff from clocking in and out of their shifts, and you will have no record of actual hours worked. Payroll will include the published times of these shifts so you can pay employees based on what they’re likely to work.
Having a way to compare what you paid with what was actually worked will allow you to manually adjust any variance once all shifts have been worked within the pay cycle e.g. after Christmas.
- Start by running all the reports you use to check a payroll – the Daily Loading Breakdown by Staff export is recommended as a comprehensive loadings report (it has each loading rate split out by employee and date)
- Run the loadings export, check for usual anomalies, then run payroll as normal
- Then later once the shifts have been worked and authorised, run the same loadings reports again
Note: If you plan to use the Comparison tool, make sure the loadings export template/s you want to compare include the data required for comparison. If the loadings template is flattened by date, you need to include the ‘date’ column etc.
To perform the required Comparison tool calculations and advise which employees have a reportable variance, all loadings reports MUST include:
- employee ID
- Extra field ‘Cost’
- Extra field ‘Earning rate units’
If you’re unsure about any of the above steps, but you plan to use the comparison tool, please contact Ento Support before you run payroll for assistance.
WHAT TO DO AFTER THE HOLIDAYS
Using the Comparison tool
Now you have reports covering what was paid, and newer reports covering what should have been paid.
Use the Comparison tool to compare the reports once hours worked have been recorded and authorised, to get a list of manual adjustments to make by employee ID.
Ensure your loadings export templates include the data you need to compare, at a minimum that will be employee ID, Extra field ‘Cost’, and Extra field ‘Earning rate units’ .
To run the Comparison tool:
- Go to Payroll & leave > Comparison tool
- Ensure you know the name of the export template used, and the date you ran the early payroll export
- Run the same export again after shifts have been authorised, so the comparison tool can compare the shift costs
The Comparison tool article covers this in more detail.
Processing pay cycles once paid vs. worked variance reconciled
Pay cycles should be exported without being processed. Best practice is to ensure all queries about the payroll are investigated and resolved before processing.
When running payroll early, it’s recommended to only Process the pay cycle after the usual payroll run date, to ensure you have time to adjust any variations. Once it is confirmed no further changes are required, click the green Process button to lock down the pay cycle, and update the leave accruals for the period.
TIPS:
- Check all required public holidays for the period are created, and costing correctly (Contact Ento Support if you add any public holidays and need those dates recosted)
- If you have permanent staff who will not work the public holiday:
- Check they have some type of Public Holiday Not Worked leave created and approved so they’re paid for that day
- Check it is not clashing with any rostered shifts (unless your company process allows and expects both)
Read more on Payroll & Leave > Public Holidays here.
WHAT TO DO NEXT?
Preparing for 2020
In addition to any holidays in December, now is the time to ensure all your public holidays for 2020 are added.
You can create them manually via Payroll & Leave > Public Holidays, or read up here on how to Import public holidays.
To import your company-wide, state-wide or regional holidays:
- Download a template to use from Core HR > Account data > Import data
- Select Public Holidays from the dropdown list, and a ‘click here’ to download template link will appear in the purple bar
- Add in the data, copying the sample data formats in the bar that displays
- Save file as .csv
- Select and import
Remember you can check the tips in the Import public holidays article if you have any difficulty.
Top tip: Remember dates need to be formatted as YYYY-MM-DD!
We wish you all a happy, safe, and productive holiday season!
