Run payroll

Make a pay run, read its warnings, approve it, pay people and give out payslips.

Payroll is on the Professional plan, and in the free trial. Only the Admin and Payroll roles can open it.

Before your first run, give people a salary. See Salaries and pay lines.

1. Make a draft

Go to Payroll and click New pay run. Choose the month and the pay date. A month has one regular run. You can also make an off-cycle run for chosen people, or a final settlement.

A regular run takes everyone employed during the month who has a salary. For each person it works out:

• Paid days - the month's days, less approved unpaid leave, and days absent or half days if attendance is kept. Someone who joins or leaves during the month is paid for their share.
• Salary lines for those days. Lines not set to change with days are paid in full.
• Arrears from a back-dated rise.
• One-off amounts for the month, such as a bonus or commission.
• Overtime that was approved, and shift allowances.
• Income tax and social contributions from your tables. See Salaries and pay lines.
• Loan and advance repayments. See Loans and advances.

2. Read the warnings

A draft tells you what needs a look, such as:

• No salary set
• Deductions more than pay

Fix them and work it out again, as often as you need. You can also hold someone's pay, so they are skipped when you pay the rest.

A draft can't be approved if someone's deductions are more than their pay.

3. Approve

Approving a run:

1. Freezes it.
2. Writes a journal in your books: salaries and employer contributions on one side, and what is owed to each person, the payables and loan repayments on the other.
3. Moves loan balances on.
4. Locks the month's attendance.

You can turn off posting to the books in Settings. You can also take an approval back while nobody has been paid. The journal is then cancelled and the run is a draft again.

4. Pay people

Ellibo doesn't move money. Download the bank file and upload it to your bank, or pay people your own way. Under Bank file, choose General CSV or a format of your own. See Bank files below.

The file leaves out held slips and people not paid by bank. If someone's bank details are missing or wrong for that format, the app lists them first, with a link to fix each one. You can then fix them, or download the file without them and pay them another way.

Then choose Record payment with the cash or bank account you paid from, the date and a reference. The app adds one Payment Out for each person. Held slips are skipped. When everyone has been paid, the run shows as Paid.

If a payment was recorded by mistake, undo it on that payslip.

5. Payslips

When a person's payment is recorded, they are told their payslip is ready, and can download it from My profile. You can also email payslips from the run.

Bank files

Every bank has its own upload layout. An Admin can build yours under Settings > Bank files, from your bank's sample file. It then appears under Bank file on every pay run. Choose one of these types:

• Columns. Comma, semicolon, tab or pipe. Choose the columns in your bank's order, their headings, and how dates and amounts look. You can add fixed text, such as a payment type, and a line above and below the rows, such as a total.
• Fixed width. Set each column's width, its alignment, and whether it fills with spaces or zeros. An account number that doesn't fit is never cut: the app stops and tells you.
• SEPA XML. The standard euro credit transfer file (pain.001.001.03). It needs your business's IBAN, and each person's IBAN entered as their account number.
• NACHA. The US ACH file. It needs your bank's routing number and the company ID your bank gave you, and each person's routing number and account type.

Click See a sample to see the file with two made-up people. Before you pay anyone with a new format, send your bank a small test file and ask them to confirm it.

The books

Missing accounts are made the first time they are needed.