Marlin HR enables you to manage the pay cycles that control when your employees are paid.
You can simultaneously operate:
- One weekly pay cycle
- One fortnightly pay cycle
- Up to four monthly pay cycles
Pay cycles can be viewed and edited by selecting System > Options from the menu bar and selecting the Payrun Options tab.
Adding Pay Cycles
System > Options > Payrun Options tab
To add a new pay cycle:
- Select the Pay Day or Date that you will usually process pay runs for that cycle
- Enter the Normal Hours worked for the period (excluding overtime)
- When adding new employees, these are automatically entered as their Normal Hours Per Pay, for the selected pay cycle
- If you change an employee's pay cycle, this figure updates automatically to match
- Their leave accrual hours per year stay the same, but their leave accrual hours per pay update to reflect the change
- Week: 38 hours
- Fortnight: 76 hours
- Month: 164.67 hours (38 x 52 / 12)
- In the Last Paid To field, enter what the Pay To date would have been for the period immediately before the first one you need to process
- HR will not allow any pay runs to be run with a Pay To date on or before this date
- Weekly: If the first pay needs to pay up to and including Wednesday 24th April, enter 17th April
- Fortnightly: If the first pay needs to pay up to and including Wednesday 24th April, enter 10th April
- Monthly: If the first pay needs to pay April, enter 31st March
Once the first pay run of a cycle is finalised, this information becomes read only, with the Last Paid To Date updated automatically to the Pay To date after each pay run is processed.
If you need to change the details for an active pay cycle (including pay run days/dates), please contact the Megabus Support Team.
Pay Cycle Days
The pay cycle day is the day that you usually process the pay runs for a pay cycle.
If your weekly pay period runs Thursday–Wednesday:
- You would likely process pay runs on Thursday, so that all of Wednesday's absences and overtime are included
- Enter Thursday as the Weekly Pay Cycle day
If you have a monthly period and process pay runs on the 15th of each month:
- Enter 15th as the Monthly Pay Cycle day
Changing Pay Cycle Days
If you need to change the Pay Day or Date for an active pay cycle, please contact the Megabus Support Team.
Standard Hours
If the pay cycle day is changed, you will need to manually reduce or increase the Standard Hours on the next pay run, to account for the longer or shorter pay period.
Subsequent pay runs will be full, normal pay periods and do not require adjustments.
If you normally pay up to and including Thursday and then change the day to Wednesday:
- You need to manually reduce the Standard Hours on the next pay run by one day, since Thursday was already paid on the previous pay run
If you normally pay up to and including Wednesday and then change this to Thursday:
- You need to manually add extra Standard Hours for one day on the first pay run after the change, since Thursday was not included on the previous pay run
Leave Balance Adjustments
After a Pay To date change, Leave Balance Adjustments should also be performed for each employee on each leave type accrual, even if the amounts are only small.
This accounts for leave accruals being doubled up or skipped for part of the week, during the changeover.
To calculate the adjustment:
- Divide the weekly accrual amount by 7 to get the daily accrual figure
- Then multiply by the number of days the Pay To date has been moved
- Pay To date moved forwards: Reduce the accrued balance by the adjustment figure
- Pay To date moved backwards: Add the adjustment figure to the accrued balance
An employee accrues 2.92 hours of Annual Leave per week
(as defined in the Entitlements tab of their Employee Maintenance file), and the Pay To date moves backwards 3 days (eg. Wednesday 6/12 to Sunday 3/12):
- Leave accrual per day: 2.92 / 7 = 0.4171
- Required accrual reduction: 0.4171 x 3 = 1.25 hours
Changing Employee Pay Cycles
Add the new pay cycle before making any changes to employee information.
Then follow the procedure below to ensure affected employees are not over or under paid and do not miss out or double-up on accrued leave.
Final Old Cycle Pay
To manage an employee's payments during the change:
- Finish paying affected employees on their old cycle
- But stop paying them before the cycles overlap:
- Any unpaid hours from the gap between cycles get added to the first pay on the new cycle
Changing an employee from weekly to monthly, with monthly pay runs on the 15th:
- Process their last weekly pay run in October
- Then leave them out of any weekly pay runs dated 1st November or later
- Their first monthly pay run (with a Pay To date of 15th November) picks up any hours from the gap
Change Employee Cycle
Once paid up to their last period, change the employee's pay cycle:
- Open their Employee Maintenance file in Edit mode
- Click on the Pay Details tab
- Switch their Pay Frequency to the new cycle
- Update the Standard Pay Rate, Hours Per Pay, Savings, Allowances and Deductions to suit
Check their Entitlements tab:
- The employee's Leave accrual Hours Per Pay should have automatically updated to the new cycle
Temporary Casual
Once the pay cycle is changed:
- Click on the General tab
- Set their Employment Type to Casual
- This is only temporary, for the first pay run of the new cycle
First New Cycle Pay
Run the first pay run of the new cycle as normal:
- Add any carried-over hours
- Check the Tax figures
- Confirm the details before finalising
Change Back From Casual
After the first pay run has been processed:
- Open the employee's Employee Maintenance file in Edit mode again
- Set their Employment Type (in the General tab) back to what it should be (e.g. Full Time)
