Calculate and review payroll

Starting processing and calculating payroll are separate actions. Calculation creates the employee results for review; it does not issue payslips or transfer money. Check both the amounts and who is included before asking another person to approve the run.

Access needed

Access depends on your assigned permissions and workflow scope.

Read the run and employee transactions: payroll.read
Payroll must be included in the workspace plan. Source compensation, deductions and employee data can require additional read permissions.
Role and permission labels
Typical responsibility: Payroll reviewer. Role names alone do not grant access.
Read payroll periods and results
Start processing and calculate/recalculate: payroll.manage
Start processing requires Draft; calculation requires Processing. Reading the run separately needs payroll.read. Source corrections have separate write permissions.
Role and permission labels
Typical responsibility: Payroll operator. Role names alone do not grant access.
Manage payroll runs
Approve after review: payroll.approve
The approver must be a different account from the processor. Read results with payroll.read; do not treat approval eligibility as proof that a calculation is complete.
Role and permission labels
Typical responsibility: Independent payroll approver. Role names alone do not grant access.
Approve or reject payroll runs

Demo screenshots may show broader access than your account.

Confirm the preparation first

Open Payroll processing → Periods, then the intended run. Check its name, dates, frequency, run type and status. Use Prepare pay periods to review readiness and source records. Resolve or investigate findings and failed checks; an unavailable check is not a clear result.

The fictional example has no effective pay records and is used to demonstrate an empty calculation. Do not treat its zero totals as a model for a real payroll run.

Start processing from Draft

Select Start processing, read the confirmation, and confirm only for the intended Draft. Wait for the saved Processing status.

Start Processing confirmation for the fictional payroll run — Processing and calculation are separate actions.

Calculate payroll

Open Calculate payroll
Use the leading Calculate payroll button or the run's Actions menu when offered. The run must be Processing.
Read the recalculation warning
Calculation uses employee pay, approved leave, overtime and active deductions. Existing results and this period's deduction applications can change.
Confirm once and wait
Select Calculate payroll in the confirmation and wait for the result. Do not submit another calculation while the first is pending.
Inspect the saved outcome
Check Last calculated, Employee results, Skipped last time and the latest Created, Updated and Removed counts. Open Employee results to verify the actual records.

Processing and calculation complete before the action returns; there is no scheduled six-hour wait like leave accrual. If calculation fails, read the error, inspect the period and source records, and investigate before retrying. Do not infer success from Processing status alone.

Check counts and the employee list together

Completed demo calculation showing zero employee results and zero skipped — Zero skipped is not proof that everyone is included.

The demo calculation reports Created 0, Updated 0, Removed 0, Employee results 0 and Skipped 0. Last calculated confirms that a calculation ran. The absence of results means there is no employee pay to approve in this example.

Open Employee results or View employee results. Check that the intended employees appear. For populated runs, inspect each person's currency, earnings, deductions and net pay through the available transaction details. Review effective dates, leave, overtime and proration where relevant. Do not combine different currencies into one total.

Empty employee results after the fictional payroll calculation — This is an empty calculation, not a populated pay example.

This capture is an empty result list from a completed calculation, not a populated employee-pay example. Continue with Employee pay records to see the same fictional run populated after a dated pay record is added.

Investigate skipped employees

When the latest calculation returns skipped employees, read the reason before changing records. Common documented reasons include conflicting pay records, invalid currency, no effective compensation and calculation failure. Some employees with no eligible pay record are omitted rather than listed as skipped.

Reason	What to review
Conflicting compensation	Overlapping pay records, effective ranges and inconsistent currencies. Multiple valid dated segments can be handled by Regular proration; do not delete legitimate history merely because there is more than one record.
Invalid currency	A valid uppercase three-letter currency is needed; a placeholder currency is not sufficient.
No effective compensation	Whether the employee has eligible pay covering this period.
Calculation failed	Source amounts, applicable deductions, leave/work-calendar inputs and whether the result would be invalid, such as negative net pay.

Inspect run history fields

Open Run details to check the processing and calculation information. The processor is the account that started Processing, not necessarily the person who later calculated the run. The approval separation rule compares the approver with the processor.

Processing run details after calculation — Check the processor and calculation metadata before independent review.

The last successful calculation's timestamp and counts are useful after reopening the run. Detailed latest-response counts and skipped reasons may be shown in the current result view; inspect them before leaving and use the saved period fields to establish when it last ran successfully.

Stop for independent review

After verifying the population and amounts, use your organization's approval process. The current demo remains Processing. It has not been approved, finalized or paid.

Continue with Approve and finalize payroll for independent review and the correction cycle.

Troubleshooting

Problem	What to check
Calculate payroll is unavailable	Check payroll management access and Processing status. Approved and Finalized periods are locked.
Processing shows Not calculated	Starting the run did not generate employee transactions.
Calculation succeeded with no employees	Check effective pay records and expected population; zero skipped is not proof of completeness.
Source edits did not change results	Calculate again in the permitted stage and recheck the outcome.
A calculation failed	Read the error and inspect current data before retrying; status alone does not prove success.
No payslips appeared	Calculation does not issue payslips; finalization does.
The processor cannot approve	A different authorized account must perform approval.