Purpose: This guide will walk you through how to start your payroll run and what data BambooHR uses to determine who is included in the payroll!

The Start Payroll button will appear above the payroll information box for the upcoming pay cycle as long as there are employees assigned to the syncing pay schedule and have an active record as of the pay period start date. Keep in mind the following before beginning payroll:

1. If an employee has a wage or demographic record end and a new record starts within the pay period range, we will use the record that was effective at the beginning of the pay period for reference on which information to use on the payroll. This may cause an employee to be underpaid. You can override this by adding the difference in pay as extra pay on the Edit page in Payroll.
2. If an employee is terminated during a pay cycle but was active on the pay cycle start date, we will still include them in that payroll run. Please complete the Final Pay Date field during offboarding to prevent missing pay for a terminated employee. If your terminated employee is salaried and terminated mid-pay-period, you will need to prorate the salary to eliminate overpayment. Note: The hours shown on the salary employee's pay stub will show the prorated hours.
3. We will check for any new hire dates that fall within the current pay cycle to ensure new hires are not excluded from payroll if they start in the middle of a pay cycle. New hires must also have active wage and demographic effective dates to be on the current payroll. If a new hire who salaried starts mid-pay period, you will need to prorate the salary to eliminate overpayment. Note: The hours shown on the salary employee's pay stub will show the prorated hours.

Missed, late, or overdue payrolls will have the Move Pay Date and Delete This Payroll buttons. Upcoming payrolls will not have a button, as you will need to process the current payroll before opening the next payroll run.

Clicking Start Payroll will initiate the payroll data sync in BambooHR. If any company-level error is detected, you will be rerouted to the Payroll tab, and a banner will appear with the error for you to fix.

If an employee-level error is detected, a modal will pop up, and you will have the option to handle the error(s) by clicking Fix Errors or disabling payroll for the employee by hovering on the record and clicking on the X. The Fix Errors button will take you to the People Being Paid page, which is where you can update employee information. 

Once you fix all of the errors, go back to the Payroll tab and click Start Payroll to get back into running payroll. If you pass the data validation and sync, you will be automatically taken to the Edit page. From here, you can continue to work through the steps of processing payroll.

If you start payroll and exit before approving payroll, the button in BambooHR will switch to the Continue Payroll button for you to pick up where you left off.