Timely payment of wages

palmer · May 2003

In our state (Utah), failure to pay employees promptly may result in legal ramifications. However, we have several employees who don't turn in their time cards on the required date. Our payroll manager has ask me if it's OK to not pay these employees until she gets their time cards. Can we use not getting paid as an incentive to turn in their time cards on time? And, can she wait until she receives all late time cards to process their checks, or does she have to process each as they come in? Thank you, in advance, for your help.

sandra_d · May 2003

I'm not in Utah, but I also work in a state where there are laws pertaining to timely payment of wages. Our policy is that time cards are due by "xx" date. If the payroll process is far enough along that a late time card cannot be entered, that person must wait until the following pay period to be paid. (This is also our policy if a time card is turned in without all time recorded on it - we make up their hours on the next check.) We believe we are safe with this practice because our pay periods and pay days are within the guidelines of the laws on payment of employees for work performed, and it is not the employer preventing the timely payment, but the employee themselves. We've never been challenged on our policy, and it was reviewed by an attorney who read through our personnel policy manual - they didn't offer any negative comment on it - so I interpret that to be their "blessing". You probably need to carefully read the laws for your state to see if you can do something like this. If it turns out that you need to, or choose to, pay employees as late time cards are turned in, I would guess that you'd need to do it as you receive them, rather than as a group once all the late ones are turned in. (Employees cannot control when other employees will turn theirs in.)

ljohnson · May 2003

To put a new twist on this thread, what about paying employees on the same day? We have eight locations across the state, and it can take up to five days for something to go through the mail. As long as we send payroll checks on Tuesday, does it matter if some employees don't receive them until Saturday or Monday? Also, we send them to offices, not to individual homes, so they would have to come in to get them. I worry that it might be grounds for discrimination claims these days. Thanks.

kcovalt · May 2003

It is my understanding of the FLSA that all employees have to receive their paycheck within 7 days of the end of the pay period. If the checks are arriving later than that to some of the offices, I believe that you would be in violation of the FLSA. We resolved this problem by offering direct deposit.

Whatever · May 2003

We are in two locations in two different states. We use time clocks that are connected to computers at this office. We check daily and contact the supervisor if there is a problem. Pay day goes quickly and we rarely have a problem. As to delivery, since we only have two locations, ADP was willing to delivery to both.

LindaS · May 2003

I am in WI which required timely payments as well (I'm assuming all states have this). When I worked in Payroll I only paid employees based on the information I had. If an employee failed to turn in their time card, they did not receive their pay since I didn't have any information to base what they were getting paid on. This only happened on a couple of occasions but I always ran a "manual check" for them when I received their time card(s). I think we all know the feeling of living paycheck to paycheck and making a person wait 1-2 weeks for their pay is VERY unfair. I can guarantee you it only takes once for an employee to receive either a shorted check, or no check depending on the payroll cycle, to ensure it never happens again.

njjel · May 2003

I am in NJ and the state reg states that an employee must be paid for "all hours worked" in the pay period. Thus if we have knowledge that an employee worked in the pay period, we pay them a straight 35 hours (over time is extremely rare) and make any necessary adjustments the next pay period. Therefore I would suggest checking your state regs closely.

Timely payment of wages

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