Definitions and Terminology

Payroll

In NV2 Payroll, a "payroll" is a group of employees.

All employees can be in one group/payroll, or they can be subdivided into separate payrolls.

Payrolls can be sub-divided to as many levels as needed to form the organizational structure you want to use to manage the groups.

Employees can be moved from one payroll to another as required however care should be taken when doing so. It is not recommended that you move employees from on payroll to another if the pay frequency differs between the two payrolls.

Pay Frequency

Pay frequency refers to the number of times a year you pay your employees. NV2 Payroll supports seven pay-frequencies: 1 (annual), 4 (quarterly), 12 (monthly), 13 (every 4th week), 24 (semi-monthly), 26/27 (bi-weekly), and 52/53 (weekly).

Note: Bi-Weekly will have an extra pay date once every 11 years. Weekly will have an extra pay date once every 6 years.

The pay frequency is a setting that applies to a payroll, therefore all employees on a payroll share that pay frequency.

If you pay different groups of employees at different frequencies, then you would create a separate payroll for each pay frequency, and add the employees to the appropriate payroll.

Pay Period

A pay period is a period of time over which employee earns wages which are paid either at the end of the period, or on a date shortly after the period ends.

Pay periods are either a fixed number of days such as 7 or 14 days, or are measured by divisions of a month, such as once per month or twice per month.

Each successive pay period begins on the day after the prior period ended. Pay periods do not overlap, and there are no gaps between pay periods.

Paychecks are always associated with a pay period. This is to enable the reporting of earnings by pay period.

Pay Period End Anchor Date

NewViews Payroll calculates the begin and end dates of your pay periods based on a year and a pay period number. To do this, it must know the ending date of one of your pay periods, and from this date it can calculate the dates of any other pay period.

For example, you have a weekly payroll, and your pay periods runs from Monday to Sunday each week. For the pay period end anchor date, you would enter the date of any Sunday, such as January 10, 2010.

Now that NewViews payroll knows you operate a weekly payroll, and your pay periods end on Sunday, it is able to calculate the begin and dates of any pay period in the past or future. For example, the 1st pay-period in 2010 would start on Monday January 4, 2010 and end on Sunday January 10, 2010.

Pay Period End Anchor Dates
Pay
Frequency

Pay Periods
Valid Anchor Dates
1
Annual
no option, must be Dec 31
4
Quarterly
Mar 31, Jun 30, Sep 30, or Dec 31
12
Monthly
the last day of any month
13
Four weekly
Jan 31 2010, Feb 28 2010, Mar 28 2010, or Apr 25 2010, etc
24
Semi-monthly
recommend Dec 31
 
if pay period ends on a Friday
if pay period ends on a Sunday
26/27
Bi-weekly **
Jan 15 2010, Jan 29 2010, Feb 12 2010, Feb 26 2010, etc
Jan 17 2010, Jan 31 2010, Feb 14 2010, Feb 28 2010, etc
26/27
Bi-weekly **
Jan 8 2010, Jan 22 2010, Feb 5 2010, Feb 19 2010, etc
Jan 10 2010, Jan 24 2010, Feb 7 2010, Feb 21 2010, etc
52/53
Weekly
Jan 8 2008, Jan 15 2008, Jan 22 2008, etc
Jan 10 2008, Jan 17 2008, Jan 24 2008, etc

** With Bi-weekly payroll most months have only two (2) valid anchor dates. Set a date that lines up with your current pay period ending date.

NOTE: You only need to set the anchor date once. Once it has been set, all other pay period dates will be calculated based on this date.

NOTE: Changing the anchor date after you have processed payruns can have unpredictable results.

Timecard

A record of the hours an employee worked on one or more jobs for a given period of time. A pay period (or Payrun) may have any number of timecards for the same employee.

Payrun

Short for "paycheck run".

A Payrun contains a list of active employees and their hourly or salary earnings (called a "Paylist".) You may review and edit the list as required, then "process" the Payrun to create the employee paycheck transactions.

Paylist

A list of the active employees on a payroll with columns for all hourly and salary amounts to be paid on a Payrun. You edit the hours and amounts as required so long as the hours are not part of a timecard. You then process the Payrun to produce the paycheck entries. The Paylist remains as a permanent list of the hours and amounts paid.

Paycheck

A record of the earnings and deductions of an employee for a specific pay period. This can then be printed onto a physical check for the employee to take to the bank or onto a remittance advice if the employee is paid using electronic fund transfer (EFT).


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