Are your employees expecting a Christmas payday?

With days running out in the 2022 calendar year, most business owners are now in their final working days of the year and getting through the last of the tasks that need to be completed before the closed sign goes up for a few weeks.

A crucial job that might slip their mind is ensuring payrolls for the holiday period have been run and set up in advance in the business bank accounts.

Avoiding a Christmas payroll disaster can be avoided by following these four steps. These steps will help to ensure that employees don’t end up at their New Year's festivals without the pay that they were entitled to.

1. Get clear on the days each staff member is taking as leave. Get written or app-based confirmation of this and manager approval if applicable

2. Have a clear policy for the closedown period and whether there are any days gifted to staff (where they are not required to work but the day isn’t counted as annual leave).

3. Ensure Christmas and New Year's holidays are Mondayised and paid out on normal working patterns. This helps to ensure that the calculation of annual leave days is correct.

4. Ensure the bank file is set up on a date pre-public holidays or weekends. Staff should be paid before their regular payday and never on the days after.

5. Set up in advance all payrolls for periods up to the date when the staff member in charge of payroll switched off for the break. Ensure these are also future dated in the bank accounts and approved for payment.

Getting these five steps sorted before you head to the bach can remove the stress involved when you get a text from a staff member who hasn’t been paid when they were supposed to.

If you want help with your payroll to clear it from your workload, then get in touch with me for a cost-effective and stress-relieving solution at Brad@yourfinanceteam.nz