Pay Run Initialisation Screen

What is the Pay To Date?

This field is used to select the pay period that you wish to pay. The date selected is the last day included in the pay period being paid.

When you open the pay run initialisation screen, the system will normally select the Pay To Date of the first pay period that has not yet been paid and all employees should have a '1' in the Pay Qty column.

If you have processed a Normal Pay in advance for only some employees, or an employee's pay is in arrears, their Pay Qty will be '0' or greater than '1' and will be displayed in red to highlight this.

If the default Pay To Date is not the one you wish to pay, just select the correct Pay To Date manually.

What is the Date Paid?

This field is used to enter the date on which you actually paid the employees for the pay run.

By default it will display the current date.

Although the Date Paid is not used in any calculations, it is printed on the Pay Advices and included in the Banking File.

It is critical to the ATO who use it to determine which month this payrun is to be included in.

What is the Superannuation Contribution Payment Date?

This is the date by which you expect to pay the superannuation contributions into the superannuation funds.

As Marlin HR can't know when you will do this, the date simply defaults to today's date and you will need to enter the appropriate date.

This date will be displayed on the Pay Advices to inform employees of when they may expect to see the contributions in their funds.

What is the Pay Run Message?

This field allows you to enter a message that will appear on the Pay Advices of all employees included in the pay run.

You may use it to enter a Christmas message or perhaps a reminder to employees.

What is the Pay Qty?

The number in this column indicates the number of pay periods for which the employee has not been paid (including the one you have selected in the Pay To Date field and any earlier ones).

If all employees are paid up to date they should have a '1' in the Pay Qty field. If an employee's pays are in arrears, their Pay Qty will be greater than '1' and you will need to pay any unpaid pay periods before you can include them on a pay for this period.

If the Pay Qty for an employee is '0' it indicates that you have already paid the employee for this pay period and they will be displayed in red.

Can I skip a pay period?

No.

Pay Periods must ALWAYS be paid in the correct sequence.

When you finalise a pay run, Marlin HR updates the "Last Paid To" date for each employee included on that pay run with the "Pay To" date of that pay run.

When you change the Pay To date on the pay run initialisation screen, the number in the Pay Qty column for each employee will change accordingly.

If you want to pay an employee for one or more pay periods in advance you should run each payrun for them in the correct date order.

This will ensure that there is a separate pay advice, bank file, pay journal and STP reporting submissions to the ATO for each period.

If I leave an employee off a pay run can I still pay them for that pay period?

Yes. You can re-select the same pay period and the employees already paid will have a red '0' in the Pay Qty column and cannot be selected. The unpaid employees will have a '1' and can be selected on the pay.

Do I have to do a pay run for an employee if I'm not paying them for that pay period?

Yes, except for Casual employees who are only included on pay runs for pay periods in which they worked. The Pay Qty (pay periods to be paid) will always be '1' for Casual employees.

Doing so will cause their Paid To date not to be updated and their Pay Qty (payable pay periods) will increase as a result.

Even if you adjust the default hours, allowances, deductions etc down on the first pay run after their return, the system will calculate tax as if the earnings were earned over multiple pay periods and be significantly lower than it should be, perhaps even zero.

The employee will also receive leave accruals for every one of those pay periods.

If the employee is entitled to leave accruals for the unpaid pay periods

Include them on each pay run and enter their normal work hours as Unpaid Leave (see Leave without Pay) rather than Standard Hours.

Be sure to zero any Overtime or Allowances that are not payable and also any Deductions to avoid a negative Net Pay.

The employee will receive no payment or superannuation and the Net Pay will be $0 but their Paid To date will be updated so that Pay Qty remains at '1' and this will ensure that their earnings and tax are correctly calculated over a single pay period when they return to work.

You may also include a comment on the employee's Pay Advice with the reason and dates for the unpaid leave.

If the employee is not entitled to leave accruals for the unpaid pay periods

Follow the procedure in Leave Of Absence to see how to leave the employee off pay runs during their absence but have everything calculate correctly upon their return, including tax and leave accruals.

Why is an employee not appearing on the Pay Run screen?

This may be due to one of several reasons.

The employee's status has been set to Terminated (by a Termination Pay Run or by manually setting the employee's status to Terminated in Employee Maintenance).

Check the Status field on the General page of Employee Maintenance.
The employee's status has been set to Inactive (used when an employee is on a Leave of Absence).

Check the Status field on the General page of Employee Maintenance. Set back to Active if required.

The Payment Summary Done check box in Employee Maintenance has been inadvertently ticked.

Ensure the Payment Summary Done check box on the General page of Employee Maintenance is not ticked.

It is a new employee that has been entered with incorrect dates in Employee Maintenance.

Check the Joined Date on the General page of Employee Maintenance. It should be the date of the employee's first day of work.

Check the Paid To date on the same page. It should be the Pay To date from the last Normal pay run prior to the employee starting work.

Why is a Leave Entry not appearing on the Pay Run?

This may be due to one of several reasons.

You have selected the wrong Pay To date for the pay run.

Check the From Date and To Date at the top of the initialised pay run screen. If incorrect, abandon the pay run, select the correct Pay To Date and Initialise.

The Leave Entry was saved after the pay run was initialised.

Abandon the pay run then restart the pay run, or
Select the relevant employee on the initialised pay run then click on the Reset To Standard Pay Advice icon and respond Yes to the Reset to Standard Pay Advice confirmation prompt.

The Start date on the Leave Entry does not fall within the pay period of the current pay run.

Open the Leave Entry and check the From and To dates are correct and that some or all of the leave period falls within the pay period being paid.

There are some incorrect or incomplete settings in Employee Maintenance for the employee.

On the Pay Details page in Employee Maintenance ensure that:

• Normal Days Worked At Standard Pay Rate - at least one day must be ticked

• Normal Hours Per Pay (at Standard Rate) - the employee's normal hours of work per pay period must be entered in this box, it must not be zero.

• Standard Hours in the Earnings box (top right section) - the employee's normal Standard Hours of work per pay period must be entered, it must not be zero.