Payroll Help

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Setting Up Pay Schedules in Time and Attendance

Currently in Beta for select customers

Before you can start using Patriot’s Time & Attendance software, you must first set up your pay period schedule.  You’ll be prompted for this when you first go to Payroll > Time & Attendance Tasks > Manage Time Cards.

A time card preview grid will appear with a breakdown for each pay frequency you have for your employees. You will only need to select one date. The software will automatically configure the other timecards based on your selection. If you have direct deposit, be mindful of your ACH timing required for the pay date.

  • For instance, in the example below, the workweek starts on a Monday and has the date of 1/1/2024. The grid shows the time card’s first pay period date for Weekly, Biweekly, Semi-Monthly, and Monthly employees.
example of time and attendance settings
Example of time and attendance settings with multiple pay frequencies

When setting up a Monthly or Semi-monthly pay schedule, you’ll also be required to fill in the start day of the week.

  • If you would like to set custom dates for semi-monthly or monthly, please contact our support department to request the beta pay schedule feature, otherwise, your start and end date will be limited to the first of the month (for monthly) and the first and 15th of the month (for semi-monthly.)

After you complete these steps, any time cards you create will automatically use the pay frequency you selected when you added each employee. Based on this first pay period date that you enter, Patriot TIME will create a list of pay periods that appear in the dropdown list.

Finish your time and attendance setup listed on Setting up Time and Attendance.

Editing pay period start dates

If you need to change your pay period start date after initially selecting one, you may change it.  However, note that changing your start date will remove any time cards that have not yet been sent to payroll.  You may need to copy the hours entered and enter them again after you have made the change.  You can continue to view historical time cards previously sent to payroll. The ideal time to change your start date is at the beginning of a pay period where no one has entered time yet.

[RELATED ARTICLE: What Does Pay Frequency Mean? | How Often to Pay Your Employees]
[DEFINITION: Pay Period]

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