Today is payroll day. It is the day accountants clean up employee timecards, get in touch with managers to verify that hours are correct, check paid time off, and submit payroll. While payroll day is not usually too complicated, it can be nerve wracking knowing you\u2019re the one in charge of making sure people receive the correct paychecks on time.<\/p>\n
6:30 AM:<\/strong> Wake up and immediately make coffee. It\u2019s an early morning. I like to be in the office by 7:45 AM on payroll days so I can send an email out to managers at 8:00 AM sharp.<\/p>\n 7:45 AM:<\/strong> Arrive at the office. Make another coffee because I only drank half of mine this morning.<\/p>\n 8:00 AM:<\/strong> Open the expertly written email draft I wrote last night. \u201cHi everyone, I hope you had a good weekend. It\u2019s time to run payroll. Please review all employee hours and let me know if everything is correct by noon. Any adjustments made after that time will have to be processed through off-cycle payroll. Thank you, and have a great day!\u201d *Send<\/strong>*. And now we wait.<\/p>\n 8:01 AM:<\/strong> Check my email. Surprisingly, I only received a few emails over the weekend, and they were all for my clients. I usually get a few emails that should go to them, so I start to click through to make sure they\u2019re not accounting related before I forward them.<\/p>\n 8:03 AM:<\/strong> Uh-oh. This email said they received a package Saturday at their building\u2019s front door. Should I forward it? It\u2019s 8:00 AM on Monday; they\u2019re in the office. They probably already picked it up. *move to trash<\/strong>*<\/p>\n 8:20 AM:<\/strong> All done with emails. Time to move on to another task due today, paying their rent, while I wait for payroll confirmations. I visit the online rent portal website and type in the client\u2019s email address and password. Error: wrong email address. Interesting. Try another email address. Error: Wrong email address. Weird. I try another, then another, and soon I\u2019m trying the CEO\u2019s email address and each individual manager\u2019s. They must have changed the email address again and forgot to let me know.<\/p>\n 8:25 AM:<\/strong> Write email to the property management company: \u201cHello again Jim, I hope you\u2019re having a good Monday. I am trying to get into my client\u2019s account again to pay rent and can\u2019t seem to be able to access it. Could you look into it and let me know what\u2019s going on? Thank you, have a great day!\u201d *send*<\/strong><\/p>\n 8:30 AM:<\/strong> Check to see if the client emailed me back about payroll. Nope.<\/p>\n 8:31 AM:<\/strong> Start reconciling some bank accounts against credit cards and PayPal. Just normal accounting stuff.<\/p>\n 9:31 AM:<\/strong> Check to see if I received an email from A) my client or B) the property management company. I didn\u2019t.<\/p>\n 9:32 AM:<\/strong> I wonder if the CEO came into his office through the back door today. If he did, he definitely missed the package. I better forward that email just in case. I\u2019ll just move it out of the trash and send it after I answer a few more emails.<\/p>\n 10:32 AM:<\/strong> Still nothing in my inbox. Start getting a little anxious. I would much rather start processing payroll early so I don\u2019t have to rush at the end of the day. That way I can be sure to triple-check everything for mistakes. Processing payroll makes me nervous. This is someone\u2019s livelihood. If I make a mistake, the consequences could be dire.<\/p>\n 11:32 AM:<\/strong> Still no email. They have 28 minutes to let me know if it\u2019s right or wrong before I start processing it anyway. And I can\u2019t believe Jim hasn\u2019t gotten back to me yet. All I\u2019m trying to do is pay my client\u2019s rent\u2026. Oh no\u2026 I haven\u2019t paid MY rent yet!<\/p>\n 12:00 PM:<\/strong> Time\u2019s up. I hope we don\u2019t miss anything. I download one employee\u2019s time sheet, input the employee\u2019s regular and overtime hours into our payroll system, and check for paid time off hours. There are none, so I upload the time sheet into the payroll system and move on to the next employee. Repeat.<\/p>\n 12:15 PM:<\/strong> Run into an employee with paid time off hours. Uh-oh. Draft quick email: \u201cHello again Mary, Could you verify that this employee has 8 paid time off hours this week? Please let me know by 3:30 PM so I can submit payroll. Thank you.\u201d Send<\/strong>. I hope it doesn\u2019t take until 3:30 to get a response. I\u2019d rather have this out of the way soon!<\/p>\n 12:55 PM:<\/strong> Wow, that was quick. Receive an email approving the employee\u2019s PTO. I can submit payroll early today!<\/p>\n 1:00 PM:<\/strong> Double and triple check everything. Get a second set of eyes on it just to be sure.<\/p>\n 1:30 PM:<\/strong> Press the \u2018submit\u2019 button in slow motion. The moment my finger presses down on the mouse, the nervousness sets in. What if I missed something? This is someone\u2019s pay I\u2019m dealing with. If something is wrong, they won\u2019t get paid on time. What if they can\u2019t pay their rent? *Click<\/strong>*<\/p>\n 1:45 PM:<\/strong> Take a quick lunch and get right back to business (and bookkeeping). If I don\u2019t occupy my time, I know I\u2019ll keep worrying about payroll.<\/p>\n 1:55 PM:<\/strong> Open up my email and forward the package notification I forgot about. Just in case.<\/p>\n 2:45 PM:<\/strong> Oh no, did I put in that one employee\u2019s overtime? Let\u2019s see, she worked a regular week, I know I got her regular hours in, how much overtime did she work? 2 hours? That sounds right. Oh, it was<\/em> 2, I remember now. I remember thinking about how that\u2019s the same number of coffees I\u2019ve had today. Maybe that\u2019s why my heart is beating so fast.<\/p>\n 3:15 PM:<\/strong> Did only one employee have paid time off? What if I missed someone and they don\u2019t get paid for it? I mean, we can pay them off cycle, it\u2019ll just be late. What if they have to pay rent on payday? OH SHOOT RENT.<\/p>\n 3:15:30 PM:<\/strong> Check email, nothing from the property managers. Today is just not the day for email communication.<\/p>\n 4:55 PM:<\/strong> Receive an email! Jim got back to me! I hop onto the portal and pay their rent.<\/p>\n 5:00 PM:<\/strong> Get out right on time and pay my<\/em> rent on the bus ride home.<\/p>\n 11:32 PM:<\/strong> Wake up from a nightmare. I dreamt that I missed payroll day. At least I know that I didn\u2019t miss that<\/em>. All the rest of my worries, though, will only be solved two days from now when the employees get paid. I hope everyone was direct deposit and didn\u2019t need a check. No way. I would have caught that.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Today is payroll day. It is the day accountants clean up employee time cards, get in touch with managers to verify that hours are correct, check paid time off, and submit payroll. While payroll day is not usually very complicated, it can be nerve wracking knowing you\u2019re the one in charge of making sure people receive the correct paychecks on time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":660,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[31],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n