Doing the run
The sequence itself, what to check before approving, and the comparison nobody makes.
Nobody elseif the person who does this is away
The Sequence, In Order
A payroll run is nine steps in a fixed order. Written down, it takes an hour and can be followed by somebody else. Held in one head, it is a different thing each month.
Keying It
The entry itself takes twenty minutes and produces most of the errors that reach payslips. A handful of habits remove nearly all of them.
Comparing It With Last Month
Twenty minutes comparing this run with the last one catches nearly every input error. It is also the first thing dropped when the run is late.
What to Look At Before Approving
Approval is where a run stops being provisional. Six things are worth looking at first, and they take about three minutes between them.
The Step That Cannot Easily Be Undone
Approval is treated as a click and behaves like a commitment. Knowing what your package does at that moment is worth finding out before you need it.
Running It Twice on Purpose
A parallel run is one month produced two ways and compared. It is the only reliable way to change anything about payroll without finding out in public.
The Month You Did Not Check
Skipping the check is not an error of discipline. It is what a compressed run does, and the way to fix it is to stop compressing runs.