Payroll is the process of paying employees: turning hours and salaries into gross pay, taking out taxes and deductions, paying people on time and reporting it all to the government.
On top of each pay run, payroll has a quarterly calendar. According to the IRS instructions for Form 941, the return is due by the last day of the month after the quarter ends: April 30, July 31, October 31 and January 31. If all taxes for the quarter were deposited on time, the employer may file by the 10th day of the second month after the quarter ends, and when a due date falls on a weekend or legal holiday, the return can be filed on the next business day.
To total hours with breaks and overtime, use our time card calculator.
Year-end adds W-2s and annual returns. See the payroll year-end checklist.
A delivery driver earns $20 an hour and works 44 hours in the week, all approved. Gross pay is 40 times $20 plus 4 times $30, or $920. A $25 health premium is taken pre-tax through the employer’s cafeteria plan, which lowers the wages subject to Social Security and Medicare to $895: Social Security at 6.2% is $55.49 and Medicare at 1.45% is $12.98. Federal and state income tax come from the withholding tables and her W-4.
Two things could make this check wrong before payroll software ever sees it: a missing clock-out on Thursday that a manager guessed at, and 4 overtime hours that sat unapproved past the cutoff and were left out. Both are time-data problems, which is why the approval step comes before the calculation.
Every pay run depends on a fixed sequence of deadlines. Write them down for the whole year, including holiday weeks, and share them with every manager who approves time.
| Step | When | Who |
|---|---|---|
| Workweek closes | Sunday at midnight | Time system |
| Missed-punch requests and corrections | By Monday 10:00 a.m. | Employees and managers |
| Timesheets approved, exceptions reviewed | By Monday 2:00 p.m. | Managers |
| Hours exported to payroll | Monday afternoon | Payroll |
| Payroll submitted to the provider | By its deadline, often 2 banking days before payday | Payroll |
| Pay arrives | Friday | Provider and banks |
The earlier steps matter most. A correction made before approval costs a minute. The same correction made after payday means a special check, a pay stub reissue and an unhappy employee.
A delivery driver forgets to clock out on Wednesday and notices on Tuesday after payroll was submitted. Her check shows 6 hours for Wednesday instead of 10.
The company pays the missing 4 hours on a correction check that week rather than waiting for the next payday, and records the change with a reason. Then it moves its missed-punch deadline to Monday morning and turns on reminders, so most forgotten punches are fixed before managers approve.
The process of paying employees, including calculating pay, withholding taxes and deductions, paying people and filing reports. It also refers to the list of employees being paid.
Payroll is about paying people correctly and on time. HR covers the wider employment relationship: hiring, policies, benefits, performance and offboarding. In small businesses the same person often does both.
By the last day of the month following each quarter: April 30, July 31, October 31 and January 31, according to the IRS instructions.
No. EZTime records time, breaks and schedules and produces payroll-ready reports you can export to PDF or Excel for your payroll provider or accountant.
As often as your state requires and your team needs. Weekly and biweekly are common for hourly staff; some states require weekly pay for certain workers.
Missing punches, overtime, missed breaks, edits without a reason, new hires, terminations and rate changes.
Approved hours, breaks and missed-punch corrections come together in signed reports, ready to export to PDF or Excel.