Check a pay period's hours before anybody is paid

Payroll goes wrong in the gap between three different numbers. The roster says what you planned. The timesheet says what happened. Payroll pays whatever somebody typed into it on Monday. In most venues nobody ever puts the three side by side, so the errors only surface when a staff member counts their own pay.

The pay review screen sits between them. One screen for a pay period, every person on it, corrected before a single hour reaches payroll.

Start from the roster, not from memory

The screen is Tools, then Pay review. New pay period takes a First day and a Last day, then Read the roster fills it.

Everybody with a confirmed shift between those two days gets a row. Their Days worked, what the Roster came to, and the Hours being paid. The message above the table says how many people came in and how many shifts are still to confirm.

Only confirmed shifts are read. A shift nobody has confirmed drops out rather than paying at its rostered time. That is the right way round, because a rostered shift is a plan, and plans change. If the count of unconfirmed shifts is high, click it, confirm them in Timesheets, then come back and click Refresh from roster.

The expensive number is the break nobody entered

No break recorded under a name counts the days where nobody entered a break at confirmation. Nothing has come off those days, so the hours on screen are the full span from start to finish.

This is the single most common way a venue overpays, and it is invisible on a roster: the shift looks like every other shift. That person's pay for those days is a decision, typed straight into the row. One unrecorded half hour break, across four staff, across a fortnight, is most of a shift.

Correct the pay without touching the roster

A figure typed over Hours changes what somebody takes for the period. Roster beside it keeps showing the confirmed figure, so the two sit together and the difference stays explicable later.

The Add somebody the roster missed button puts a person on with hours of your own. The bin takes a person off this period.

Nothing here changes the roster, and that matters when you come back. Somebody you removed who came from the roster returns the next time you refresh, because the roster still holds their confirmed hours. If they should not be paid, the fix belongs on the roster.

The roster has moved on means somebody confirmed or changed shifts since you started. Refresh from roster brings them in, keeps the hours you typed yourself, and tells you how many of each it did.

Say who everybody is in Xero, once

A roster holds the name you call somebody. Payroll holds their legal name. Dave on the roster is David on his tax file declaration, and Kate is Katherine, so most people will not match on their own.

The Check Xero button asks Xero. The Payroll column then shows each person's Xero employee, or a chooser. The right employee goes under Choose in Xero. That choice sticks, so it is a one time job per person, and Matched to under a name means somebody made it. A line above the table counts the people nobody has matched, and their hours wait until you pick.

One Xero employee belongs to one staff member. Picking somebody who already has a match fails and names who holds them, because two timesheets for one employee in one period pays them twice. Nothing gets guessed from a name. An employee who leaves Xero makes the row ask again, rather than quietly falling back to somebody.

Freeze it, send it, then read back what landed

The totals get a last look, then Mark as reviewed. The hours are frozen, and Reopen unfreezes them.

Then Send to payroll. Each person's hours go to Xero as a draft timesheet for the period. You still open Xero and approve them, because only an approved timesheet counts in a pay run. Xero works out tax and super from its own employee records.

Afterwards the Payroll column says where each person's hours are, in words rather than a tick. Not sent, Sent to Xero with the date, Changed since Xero got ... after a later edit, or the reason Xero refused them.

The Check Xero button reads back what Xero actually holds for those dates, at any time. In Xero then shows each person's hours there and their state, such as draft or approved. Amber marks a figure that differs from the one being paid. Hours Xero holds for somebody the list cannot name appear above the table. That is how a timesheet entered by hand at the other end surfaces.

What it is not

The pay review screen pays nobody. It works out hours and hands them to payroll, and Xero does the tax, the super and the payslip. For the whole run in one place, Run Pay works out withholding, super and net pay. It writes the payslips itself, for Australian companies.

Sending needs your own Xero organisation, connected under Admin, Accounting, Xero, by somebody who is a payroll administrator in Xero. Hours cannot go to QuickBooks.

The habit worth keeping

• Shifts get confirmed as the week goes, so the period opens with a small unconfirmed count rather than a week of guesswork
• No break recorded comes first, every period, ahead of anything else
• Match every person to their Xero employee the first time, and never again
• Mark as reviewed before sending, so the hours somebody questions later are the hours that were sent
• After sending, click Check Xero once, and act on anything amber