8.2 HR Data That Feeds Payroll
This guide is for HR officers, payroll clerks, payroll managers, finance reviewers, and tenant administrators. It explains the employee information that Eprecus reads when a payroll is prepared. The best payroll review starts before the payroll period is opened: make employee changes in HR, check the effective date, keep the approval or supporting evidence, and allow the payroll owner to review any change that affects pay.
8.2.1 Start with the employee record
Open Human Resource, then HR Directory. Find the employee and open the profile. Review the Profile, Contracts, Recurring, Timeclock, Manual Hours, and Bank areas before the payroll cutoff. Use the employee record as the controlled source for personal details, employment status, pay terms, and payment instructions. Do not create a second employee record to correct a name or pay-rate change; correct the existing approved record so the history remains clear.
8.2.2 Employee identity and work status
Check the employee legal name, employee number, work email, department, job title, start date, and employment status. A person who has not started, has ended employment before the period, or is not enabled for payroll processing may not be included in the run. If an employee is transferring between departments, changing role, or returning from leave, record the change with the date it takes effect. Payroll needs the correct facts for the pay period, not only the facts that are true today.
8.2.3 Confirm the worker classification before pay begins
Confirm whether the worker is an employee paid through payroll or an independent contractor paid through Accounts Payable. An employee normally has an employment engagement, payroll eligibility, a contract, pay terms, tax treatment, and payslips. A contract-for-service worker normally belongs in the supplier or contractor process and is paid from an approved AP bill or contractor payment workflow. Do not solve a missing contractor invoice by putting the contractor into payroll. If the classification is unclear, stop the setup and have the organization payroll, HR, finance, or legal owner choose the approved path before saving the record.
8.2.4 Contract and remuneration details
Open the Contracts area and review the active contract that covers the payroll period. Confirm the pay cycle, compensation type, hourly rate or base amount per pay cycle, scheduled hours, engagement type, employment status, effective date, end date where applicable, salary disbursement method, and Enable Payroll Processing setting. For an hourly employee, the rate and approved hours must agree. For a salaried employee, the base amount and pay cycle must agree. For a commission or incentive arrangement, confirm the approved input and the rule that determines when it becomes payable.
8.2.5 Use effective dates carefully
Every pay-affecting change needs an effective date. Examples include a salary increase, a new allowance, a change from hourly to salaried pay, a return from leave, a termination, and a bank-detail change. A change effective in the next period should not silently alter the current payroll. A backdated change can create a variance or retroactive adjustment, so attach the approval and explain the period affected before the payroll is executed. When the date is uncertain, use the approved business document rather than guessing.
8.2.6 Tax, jurisdiction, and statutory readiness
Verify that the employee is assigned to the correct payroll jurisdiction and that their tax details are complete for that jurisdiction. Check the tenant payroll setup and the active statutory variables before a new tax year, new location, or legal change. Do not type a statutory rate into an employee record to force a result. If the payroll preview reports an incomplete tax profile, a missing jurisdiction, or an expired rule set, correct the source record or ask the payroll owner to review the configuration before execution.
8.2.7 Timeclock and manual hours
For hourly and timeclock-paid employees, review time before the payroll preview. In the Timeclock area, resolve missing punches, duplicate punches, unapproved exceptions, and entries outside the payroll period. In Manual Hours, check that each entry belongs to the correct employee and payroll period, has the correct hours and earning purpose, and is submitted or approved according to the tenant workflow. Do not enter the same time in both Timeclock and Manual Hours unless the pay policy explicitly requires separate, non-overlapping items.
8.2.8 Leave and absence information
Review approved vacation, sick, maternity, unpaid leave, statutory holiday, and other absence decisions before payroll. The leave dates must be inside the correct payroll period and must reflect the employee policy and jurisdiction. A late approval can change the payroll after the usual cutoff, so record why it is late and ask the payroll owner whether a correction belongs in the current run or the next approved run. Unpaid leave and negative-pay warnings need particular care: do not override a negative result simply to release a payment.
8.2.9 Recurring and one-time pay items
Use Recurring for items that continue according to an approved schedule, such as a regular allowance, benefit deduction, loan repayment, or salary deduction. Check the amount, start date, end date, tax treatment, active status, and employee link. Use the approved one-time adjustment workflow for an isolated bonus, commission, correction, reimbursement, or deduction. Before preview, confirm that a recurring item has not been duplicated by a one-time item and that a stopped deduction has an end date.
8.2.10 Bank and payment details
Open the Bank area for employees paid by EFT. Confirm that an active payment account exists, the account holder information is current, and the selected salary disbursement method agrees with the organization payment process. Use the approved bank-change process and verify the request independently before changing an account. If Salary Disbursement is EFT but there is no active bank record, payroll may block execution. Resolve that setup before the final confirmation, rather than switching the payment method only to get the run through.
8.2.11 A simple data handoff between HR and payroll
HR owns the employee facts and approved employment changes. Payroll owns the payroll-period review, statutory calculation review, variance investigation, and run approval. Finance owns payment funding, accounting review, and reconciliation. Before each payroll cutoff, HR should send the payroll owner a clear list of starters, leavers, rate changes, role or department changes, leave decisions, and exceptional payments. Payroll should return any incomplete records as tasks with the employee, missing field, period, and required action.
8.2.12 Review the payroll preview instead of guessing
After HR data is complete, open Payroll and choose the correct payroll period. Run a preview and review the employee count, gross pay, taxable pay, employee deductions, employer costs, net pay, payment method, and blockers. Compare the preview with the prior comparable period. Investigate unusual changes in pay, hours, tax, recurring items, leave, or net pay. A preview is a control point, not a payment confirmation: correct the source data, rerun the preview, and keep the approval evidence before executing the payroll.
8.2.13 Common situations and the right response
For a new starter, verify the start date, active contract, payroll enablement, jurisdiction, pay rate, and payment details before the first pay period. For a leaver, verify the final work date, final-pay policy, deductions, leave treatment, and bank instructions before finalizing the run. For a pay rise, keep the approval, effective date, old rate, and new rate visible to the reviewer. For a missed time entry, record the approved correction in the proper period and explain whether it is current pay or retroactive pay. For a bank change, confirm the request independently and never reuse an old account number from a message or spreadsheet without verification.
8.2.14 What to do when the preview is blocked
Read the blocker text and correct the related record. Missing contract, pay rate, tax profile, jurisdiction, bank account, approved hours, or leave decision blockers should be fixed in the employee source data or in the approved payroll configuration. Do not edit executed payroll results outside the established correction, reversal, or adjustment workflow. If the totals still do not reconcile after the source record is corrected, stop and escalate to the payroll owner with the employee number, payroll period, preview result, and any displayed error or warning code.
8.2.15 Payroll readiness checklist
Before approving a payroll preview, confirm that each included employee has an active eligible engagement, correct contract and rate, correct pay cycle, current jurisdiction and tax profile, approved time or manual hours where required, approved leave treatment, only the intended recurring and one-time items, a valid payment method, and no unexplained variance. Confirm that each excluded employee is excluded for a documented reason. Keep the approval, preview, payslip packet, payment evidence, statutory register, and reconciliation together for the payroll period.
8.2.16 Related guidance
Use Create an employee record for onboarding steps, Enter manual hours for payroll for approved hour entry, Run a payroll preview for the pre-payroll review, Request leave in Employee Self Service for employee leave submission, and the country-specific payroll guide for the statutory process in the selected jurisdiction. For a displayed Eprecus error or warning code, search the exact code, for example E-10001, in the Support Hub.