Have you ever posted payroll, calculated and printed the checks, only to find out that you didn’t pay someone all that they had coming? Now what?
If the checks haven’t been handed out you can uncalculate, post the extra dollars or hours, recalculate, renumber a couple of checks, and reprint those. If the checks have gone to the employees, and the employee in question has already cashed his/her check, than the only option is to run an additional payroll for the additional pay. A lot of extra work.
When I get this call, usually from one of our municipal customers, I ask the caller what kind of documentation they were posting from. (It doesn’t usually happen in the road commissions since they are posting from time cards.) Most often the answer is, “I’ve been here long enough. I know what everyone gets paid. I post from memory”. I don’t know about you, but I’ve been here long enough that I can’t remember what I’m forgetting.
Here are some suggestions to make life easier, as far as payroll post goes:
- Develop a master guide, listing all the employees. Show their base pay, and leave room to enter any additional amounts. You could list the different Pay Types and associated account numbers.
Run a PRAUDIT from a previous pay. Make additions or subtractions to this report.
Have your employees fill out a pay slip. This is not an unreasonable request.
After you’ve posted the payroll, run a PRAUDIT and review what you’ve posted.
And most importantly, after you calc and before you print the checks, run a PRJOURNAL and make sure everyone has a check number, and the amounts look right. It’s much easier to make corrections here than after the checks have all been printed.
So what about the employee who forgets to tell you about some additional pay? There’s always next pay period. Establish a cutoff when the information has to be to you. Make things easy on yourself. Happy Posting!