Run your payroll

A pay run is one payroll for one period, such as a month or a week.

Before you start

• Add your employees, each with a pay type, a pay frequency and a salary or hourly rate. See Add an employee.
• Upload your logo in Settings › Company profile (press the account button at the foot of the menu, then Settings), under Upload and preview branding: press Choose logo, then Upload branding. It goes at the top of each payslip; without one, payslips show your business name.
• If you pay anyone by the hour, approve their kiosk shifts and tracked time for the period first. See Check and approve shifts and Approve tracked time.
• Then open Time for payroll › Before you run payroll. Its checklist shows whether every hour belongs to an employee and is approved, with what's still To fix. When everything is clear, press Start the pay run. If your business has a kiosk, its shifts are under Time for payroll › Kiosk shifts.
• Payslips are emailed to employees who have an email address on their record. Add any missing addresses before you finalise.

Start a new pay run

1. Open Payroll › Pay runs. The page is called Payroll control center and lists your earlier runs.
2. Press New pay run.

Choose the workflow and the kind of run

Under Choose the payroll workflow, choose Monthly payroll, Weekly payroll or Daily payroll. For fortnightly or twice-a-month pay, choose Fortnightly or Semi-monthly under Other pay schedules.

Each pay run covers one pay frequency. If some staff are paid weekly and others monthly, run a weekly and a monthly pay run.

Under Classify this run, choose Normal payroll most of the time. Partial payroll pays a smaller group, such as new hires left out of this period's normal run. Off-cycle payroll is for missed pay or one-time payments. To fix a payslip that's already gone out, see Fix a payslip after it's sent below.

Pay staff by the day

For staff whose Pay frequency is Every day (daily pay runs), such as casual workers paid in cash, choose Daily payroll. A daily run covers one Day worked, and pays that day's approved hours or daily rate.

If NIS, PAYE and Health Surcharge apply to someone, they come out of each day's pay and add up over the week, Monday to Sunday. By the end of the week, the deductions match what a weekly payroll would take. Health Surcharge is taken once a week. If you don't withhold NIS or BIR for someone, nothing is taken.

Run the days in order, so each day knows what earlier days that week already took.

Check the dates

Period start, Period end and Pay date are filled in for the current period. Change them if you need to. The pay date is the expected one: when you finalise, it changes to that day, so payslips show when pay actually went out.

On a monthly run, choose a Salary pro-rate method: Working days or Calendar days. It sets what a day of unpaid leave takes off a monthly salary: a working day's share of it, or a calendar day's share.

A normal run can't overlap another normal run on the same schedule. To pay extra amounts in a period you've already run, classify the new run as partial or off-cycle. If other runs cover part of your dates, an amber note lists them: check that nobody is paid twice.

Choose who to pay

Under Choose employees, tick each person to pay, or press Select all (the button shows how many people are listed). Only people on this pay schedule appear. Someone whose last day falls in the period is marked Leaver – final pay.

On a weekly run, Hours this week shows each hourly employee's approved kiosk and timer hours in grey. Type over a day only to correct it.

Press Create monthly pay run. The button names your workflow, for example Create weekly pay run. PaySuiteTT works out everyone's pay as it creates the run.

Check each person's pay

The run opens with the pay worked out, and the progress bar shows Approve as the next step. Each person's name opens their employee record. Each row shows Gross, NIS (emp) (the employee's share of NIS), PAYE, HSC (Health Surcharge), Other deductions (such as a subscription taken back from their pay, set on their employee page, or a one-time deduction on the run) and Net. The boxes at the top total the Gross pay, the Employee deductions (with PAYE + NIS + HSC and other deductions shown apart) and the Net pay: gross less deductions is net.

• Open Why this amount? on a row to see how that person's pay was worked out.
• Press Mark reviewed as you check each person, if you want to keep track.
• To take someone out before anyone is approved, untick them under Pay run employees and press Save employee selection. To add someone, tick them there.
• Once anyone is approved or excluded, that list is locked. To leave someone out then, press Exclude on their row, then Exclude employee. You can't undo this for the run, so pay them later in a partial or off-cycle run if they're owed.
• If you change an employee's details or hours after creating the run, press Compute to work the pay out again.

Adjust one person's pay

Press Adjust under the person's name.

• Under Inputs, type a Bonus or a One-time deduction, with its reason in Bonus description / reason or Deduction description / reason. Press Save & Recompute. To pay more than one bonus, or to name it on the payslip (such as Survey bonus), use Other pay this run on the run instead.
• Under Leave, In this pay run lists the approved leave with dates in the run, whoever recorded it: an approved request, the employee's page or this run. Hourly staff are paid for paid leave days. Unpaid days come off a salary. A request still waiting shows "Not decided" with a Decide button.
• For time off nobody booked, such as a sick call or an accident, fill in Add leave: choose the Type of leave, the First day and Last day (inside the run's dates), tick Half day if needed, choose Paid: uses their balance or Unpaid, type a Reason and press Add leave. The pay is worked out again straight away.
• To take off leave added on this run, press Remove beside it, then Remove leave. Paid days go back to their balance.
• For hourly staff on a weekly run, Weekly hours worked shows their approved hours. To correct them, choose Manual payroll hours under Hours source and type a Manual-hours reason.
• For hourly staff on a fortnightly or monthly run, and for anyone in two departments, Hours worked (or Hours by department) shows their approved hours in grey, one row per department. Type over a number to change it: the others fill in from their approved hours. Then type a Manual-hours reason and press Save & Recompute. Each department's hours are paid at its own rate.
• For staff paid by the day, Days worked (daily rate) shows the days with approved time. To change them, choose Entered here under Days from, type the Days worked and a Reason (when entered here), and press Save & Recompute.

Add service charge or commission

If you share out a service charge or pay commission, add it under Other pay this run on the run while it's a draft. Service charge and commission are kinds of pay that are there from the start. Each is added to each person's pay before NIS and PAYE are worked out, and their payslip lists it by name.

1. Type each person's amount under Service charge (TT$) or Commission (TT$).
2. To share out one total, use Share a service charge total: type it in Total to share (TT$), choose Evenly or By hours worked under Share it, untick anyone under Shares who doesn't get a share, and press Share it out. Check the amounts it fills in.
3. Press Save and recompute.

Amounts can't change once a person is approved. After their payslip has gone out, fix a mistake with Correct this payslip (see below). On the TD4, service charge counts as pay and commission has its own line.

Add bonuses and other named pay

Each kind of pay, such as Survey bonus or Referral bonus, gets its own column under Other pay this run and its own line on the payslip, so people see what each amount was for. Owners and accountants can add them.

Kinds of pay, at the top of Other pay this run, lists each kind with what it counts for, such as "Service charge · NIS and PAYE". You set this once for each kind.

1. Under Kinds of pay, press Add a kind of pay.
2. Type the Name on the payslip, such as Survey bonus.
3. Under Goes on the TD4 as, keep Bonus for a bonus. Choose Travel allowance or Other allowance for an allowance, or Commission for commission.
4. Leave Counts for NIS and Counts for PAYE and Health Surcharge ticked unless your accountant says otherwise, and press Add.
5. Type each person's amount in the new column and press Save and recompute.

Each kind gets its own line on the payslip, and Why this amount? lists it.

The kind stays for every run after this one. To change whether a kind counts for NIS or PAYE, press Edit kinds, change the ticks next to it and press Save; amounts already saved keep the setting they had. Press Hide to take a kind you no longer pay off new runs; payslips already made keep it. Pay that's the same every run, like a fixed phone allowance, can go on the employee instead as a recurring allowance.

Approve the run

Press Approve. The box shows how many employees are in the run and the total net pay. Press Approve pay run.

Approval locks everyone's pay. To approve people one at a time instead, press Approve on their row.

Finalise and send the payslips

1. Press Finalize. The Finalize pay run page opens.
2. Check the list of employees and their email addresses, then press Finalize (generate payslips).
3. Press Finalize and generate.

PaySuiteTT makes a payslip PDF for each employee and emails it to everyone with an email address. Anyone without one shows "No email (payslip saved only)", and you can download their payslip instead. See Payslips: sending them and what staff see.

If your business and employee NIS details are complete, finalising also produces the run's NI184 and NI187. If anything is missing, the Finalize pay run page lists it, and the payslips still go out.

Back on the run, Check payslips sent → opens the Payslip Outbox, and NIS forms for this month → opens that month's NIS forms.

Fix a payslip after it's sent

If a finalised payslip has a mistake, such as a bonus left off or the wrong hours, press Adjust under the person's name and use Correct this payslip at the top. Only that person's pay changes. Payslips: sending them and what staff see shows each step. An off-cycle run is still the way to pay someone you excluded, or pay that was missed altogether.

Download the bank file and statutory files

Press Exports on the run for your bank file, the PAYE, Health Surcharge and NIS files, and the NI184 and NI187. Bank files, statutory exports and NI forms explains each one.

Mark the run paid

Once the money has gone out, press Mark paid, then Mark paid again in the box. The run then reads "This pay run is complete. Payslips and journals are recorded."

Pay public holidays at time and a half

Hourly staff with Time and a half on public holidays ticked on their page are paid 1.5 times their rate for hours worked on a public holiday. The dates are under Payroll › Pay runs › Public holidays.

• Trinidad and Tobago's fixed holidays are already listed under Confirmed holidays.
• Dates from Google's holiday calendar, such as Divali and Eid, arrive under Suggested from Google's holiday calendar. Check each against the official announcement, change the date if you need to, and press Confirm, or press Dismiss.
• Only confirmed dates change pay. A pay run whose dates include a suggested holiday says so at the top.
• For a one-off holiday, use Add a holiday yourself.

Good to know

• Leave approved after the run was worked out changes the pay in any draft run over its dates. Approved runs don't change.
• The same person can't have two approved leave entries for the same day. Cancel one first.
• A run won't approve while hourly time in its period is waiting for approval or isn't linked to an employee. The message says how many entries need attention.
• Approved pay can't be changed or worked out again. Check Why this amount? before you approve.

What's next

Download your bank and statutory files with Bank files, statutory exports and NI forms, then see Payslips: sending them and what staff see.