Virtual TimeClock Support Blog
Multiple Payroll Periods
November 6, 2014
We occasionally run across companies or organizations that pay different groups of employees according to a different payroll schedule. For example, a school may pay office staff twice a month and custodial staff every week. Since the payroll frequency setting Virtual TimeClock is a global setting, applying to all users, closing payroll periods can present a bit of a challenge because of overlapping pay periods. Closing the payroll period is important because it archives employee timecards and prevents accidental timecard changes.
There are two options for handling multiple pay frequencies in Virtual TimeClock:
- The first option is to purchase a second time clock license so you can group employees according to payroll frequency. This allows you to set two different payroll frequencies to accommodate the different payroll cycles. This option may not be the most convenient or cost effective depending on your deployment of the TimeClock.
- The second option is to create a different display group for each type of employee and then run separate employee timecards. For example, you could create a display group called "Weekly Payroll" and a group called "Semimonthly Payroll". You can then set the global payroll period frequency to Semimonthly, since the weekly pay period will fall within a semimonthly frequency. Then create a new timecard report with a default date range of This Week or Last Week depending on when you need to calculate time. This new timecard report can then be set as the default timecard for the "Weekly Payroll" group. The "Semimonthly Payroll" group can continue using the original employee timecard. With this scenario, you just want to be careful that you don't close the period before both groups have cleared their payroll cycles.
Note: If you have unique payroll frequencies, you can also use the User Defined payroll frequency. You will need to wait to close the payroll period until all pay cycles are complete.
When working with multiple payroll periods in Virtual TimeClock, the most important thing to remember is not to close the payroll period until all pay cycles that fall within the payroll settings are completed.
