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Introduction

The Payment frequency (Weekly, Fortnightly, Four-Weekly and Monthly) can be set up under the Pay Details tab in the Company screen. Other, less commonly used frequencies are also available under the Other tick box (Two Monthly, Quarterly, Four-Monthly Six-Monthly an Annually)

The day that an employee is paid (Monday, Tuesday... Sunday) can also be set up here. For Monthly employees, you can specify whether you want them paid on the first day or the last day of the month.

For Employees who are paid Fortnightly, Four-Weekly or Monthly, the payment week can be specified. For example, for fortnightly employees, you may wish to pay them every second Thursday, starting from the second Thursday in the year.

Finally, the default payment method can be selected here (Cash, Cheque or Credit Transfer). You are free to change this in the Employee screen for individual employees, but when you set up a new employee, their default payment method will be whatever you specify here.

Setting up payment frequencies

The pay date can be changed in the Company screen, under the 'Pay details' tab. Payment frequencies can also be set up here:

  • Weekly
  • Fortnightly
  • Four-Weekly
  • Monthly

(The following frequencies can be set up under Other)

  • Two Monthly
  • Quarterly
  • Four Monthly
  • Six Monthly
  • Annually

If a payment has been made for a pay frequency, then it can not be unticked. This is to stop 'Orphan payments'. At least one payment frequency must be set up. Click 'Update Company' at the top of the screen to update the Payment frequency.

The Pay date will be determined by the way you set up the payment frequency. For example, if pay day of Monday is set up for the weekly pay frequency, then the pay date will be the date of each Monday in the year.

Setting employee payment frequency

Once you have finished setting up the Company payment frequencies, you can assign the appropriate payment frequency to each employee in your company. This is done in the Employee screen.

Note that if you go back and change the pay day or week number for a payment frequency in the company screen, then any employees with that payment frequency will have their pay day or payment week also changed.

Changing the Pay frequency Mid-Year

Once you start processing pay using a payment frequency (eg Monthly) it is possible to change payment frequency mid-year (eg Monthly to Weekly). However, we do not recommend this. Changing Payment frequency mid year can cause problems with tax credits and insurable weeks. For example a monthly paid person has been paid for 3 months, with a total of 13 weeks and are then moved to weekly, but the user starts them on week 12 or 14, then they will end up with the wrong number of insurable weeks.

If the pay date is changed, you may not be able to easily select past, processed payslips. This is because in the Payroll screen payslips are selected according to the pay date in the calendar. (You have to change the pay date back again to see the old payslips and things start to get messy).

The screen opposite before changing the payment date.

 

After changing payment frequency

Here you can see the same employee as above but the pay day has been changed from Monday to Friday. The period remains the same at pay period 1. Note that the date on the processed payslip differs from that on the payroll calendar.

It is still possible to view this payslip because even though the pay day (and date) has changed, the pay period remains the same. 

Example two - Weekly to Fortnightly

In the example, the same employee as above has been changed from Weekly to Fortnightly, paid on the second week.

Note that you can no longer see, or access,  their first processed payslip which has a pay date of 2 Jan 2017.

The payment is still there and you can see this by clicking the history tab. In order to rewind or re-process this payment, you would have to first set the employee's payment frequency back to the way it was when the 2 Jan 2017 payment was processed.

Notes

We recommend only changing pay frequency at the start of the year, before any payments have been processed. If you have no choice but to change pay frequency mid-year, please consider the above two issues:

  • viewing old payslips (with the old payment frequency)
  • making sure that the insurable weeks are correct.

(If you've already processed a payment at the 'wrong' pay date, it will be easier to just rewind that payment first before changing the payment frequency or pay date)

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