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.
Nobody elseif the person who does this is away
One run end to end, as it is actually performed
Done by: The owner
Done by: The owner
Done by: The owner
Done by: The software
Done by: The owner
Done by: The owner
Done by: The owner
Done by: The software, on instruction
Done by: The software
Nine steps, about an hour, and the order is not optional: the comparison has to sit before the approval or it does not happen at all. One small employer's own run.
A payroll run is about nine steps in a fixed order and takes roughly an hour once everything has arrived. Written down, it can be followed by somebody who has not done it before.
The practical lesson in “The Sequence, In Order” is that payroll depends on a sequence somebody can explain. When a small team reviews a clearer work weeks in a year workflow for work weeks in a year, the useful role is to organise time and project evidence before approval, with proportional settings and a clear correction route for employees.
Held in one person's head, it is a slightly different sequence every month, and that variation is where errors live.
The questions raised in “The Sequence, In Order” can also be checked against Dayforce workforce resources. Use that material to identify the evidence and owner needed for the next payroll run.
Why order matters
Two steps have to sit in particular places. Entering changes has to come before calculating, obviously. Comparing against last month has to come before approving, which is less obvious and much more often got wrong.
A comparison performed after approval is a report, not a control.
Step one: read the list
The change list, start to finish, for the period. Before touching anything.
It is the cheapest step and the one most often skipped, because it feels like preparation rather than work.
Step two: people in and out
Starters added, leavers processed. These are the entries with deadlines of their own, and doing them first means a missing detail surfaces while there is still time.
Step three: hours and absence
Entered from whatever arrived, with exceptions handled explicitly rather than assumed.
Step four: calculate
The part the software does, the part that takes no time, and the part everybody thinks of as "running payroll".
Step five: compare
Against last month, person by person, looking at differences rather than at figures. This is the subject of its own note here and is the single most valuable twenty minutes in the cycle.
Step six: approve
Irreversible in many packages, or reversible only awkwardly. Worth treating as a decision rather than a click, and worth not doing while distracted.
Step seven: fund
The money into the account from which payment is made, in time for the method being used.
It is not part of the payroll software, it is not prompted by anything, and it is the step most likely to be missing from a written sequence.
Step eight: file
Whatever submission is required, when it is required. Usually a button and sometimes forgotten precisely because it is a button.
Step nine: payslips
Issued and actually delivered, which is not the same as generated. Worth confirming once rather than assuming.
Writing it down properly
Numbered, with the screen names your package actually uses, the figures to check, and what each step produces.
Not a description of payroll in general — a description of this business's run, in this package, with these people.
The test of whether it is good enough
Somebody else, with the login, could follow it and produce a correct run without telephoning anybody.
That is the standard, and almost no small business's written sequence meets it on the first attempt.
When to write it
While doing a run, not afterwards. A sequence written from memory leaves out the small things that are only visible with the screen in front of you, and those are exactly the things that stop a substitute.
Keeping it current
Reviewed when the software changes, when the arrangement changes, and after anything goes wrong.
Three triggers, no schedule.
What a substitute needs that you do not
Where things are. Which report. What the warning message means. Which of the two similarly named buttons. What "normal" looks like for this business.
All of that is invisible to the person who does it every month, because they stopped seeing it years ago. It is the entire content of a useful written sequence and the reason it has to be written while doing a run.
The decisions, not just the clicks
What to do when hours have not arrived. Whether a late change goes in this period or the next. Whether to run without a starter's details. When to stop and telephone somebody.
A substitute following only mechanical steps will produce a run. A substitute who also has the decisions will produce the right one, and will know which of the two situations they are in.
Keeping it where it can be found
With the calendar and the credential list, reachable by more than one person, not inside the payroll software and not in anybody's personal account.
A sequence that only the usual person can find has documented something for nobody.
The date on the front
So that whoever reads it knows whether it predates the last software update. An undated sequence is trusted exactly as much as a dated one and deserves considerably less.
What it is worth
An hour to write and a few minutes a year to maintain, against the difference between a business whose payroll can be run by one person and one whose payroll can be run.