Bi-monthly payroll

AnaFL · November 2004

Hi

Does anyone out there pay their employees on a bi-monthly period? If so, would you mind sharing how you record it (timesheet sample) - i.e. what your timesheets look like in order to properly record hours worked weekly to ensure proper DOL recordkeeping requirements.

I am dealing with a nonprofit agency that has to pay their employees bi-monthly due to requirements by a funder/contract, even though they would love to switch to bi-weekly, so their current timesheet lists in one column, days 1-15, and next to that column, days 16-31. The problem is that during longer or shorter months the weekly hours worked are not really being properly recorded to show that all hours worked over 40 are clearly noted and payed. My task is to try to design a compliant bi-monthly timesheet!

Any tips would be greatly appreciated. My e-mail is [email]acasey@legalaidpbc.org[/email] if anyone has a sample to share.

Sincerely,
Ana

AJ SPHR · November 2004

I'm sorry, but I need to clarify - do you really mean "semi-monthly" instead of bi-monthly? semi-monthly is typically 15th and end of the month, while bi-monthly would be every other month. Just wanted to clarify before I can figure out the info you need.

AnaFL · November 2004

Yes, I did mean semi-monthly, sorry!

Any tips would be greatly appreciated!

Ana

marc · November 2004

This is a nightmare! Trying to track this without the benefit of payroll software would be a real problem. We are non-profit also, but do not have a federal requirement in the contract to pay the way you do. We switched from semi-monthly to bi-weekly for just this reason. We did not want to take money from our client services to put into software when this option was available to us.

I do not know of any payroll software programs that will track this, but they must be out there.

AnaFL · November 2004

Thanks so much for all your helpful input. To answer Calico's question, the funder requires the semi-monthly (pay on 15th and 30/31st of month) pay method, and there is no way around that, from what the agency is telling us. So it seems that at the moment, this is the only way, and they asked me how to make their current timesheet compliant, so other than having employees fill in weekly timesheets and perhaps attaching them to the current timesheet, which requires mountains of extra paperwork, but at least brings them to compliance as far as FLSA recording requirements, I can't see any other way to do it.

Thanks again!

Ana

HRCalico · November 2004

I think that is probably your best of limited choices. I don't have a copy of it, but we used a spreadsheet to track programs under which hours were worked (which locked cells with formulas so they couldn't screw it up very easily). If you had an Excel guru, it would take some initial setup time but might be well worth it.

I just figured out how to link spreadsheets, so for example, each month, I will total my attendance charts to show how many days they were gone that month. It automatically dumps those numbers into a total worksheet, so I can see at a glance who is on the path to abusing our unpaid time off generosity.

Anyway, that might be one option.

HRCalico · November 2004

I'm with Ana - I thought "bimonthly" could be defined as twice per (but every other is right as well). Such confusion.

My mother just changed from a twice per month to biweekly and I asked if she had a good system. Answer was "NO". Ana, the nonprofit I used to work for was biweekly, too - can you find a loophole that won't kill whoever does the payroll? This might murder your turnaround time, but could employees report time weekly but still pay bimonthly? Not sure. Can you tell us what the funder says? (Or is it just that "thou shalt pay twice per month?)

dynamite9551 · November 2004

when we paid semi-monthly, we paid our employees 86.67 hours per pay period. we calculated this by multiplying 40 hours x 52 weeks divided by 24 pay periods per year. however, our employees worked 40 hour weeks, so as long as this rule holds true for your employees the same fomula would work.

marc · November 2004

That is a great formula for averaging, but it does not hold true for some pay periods. Just consider February alone.

dynamite9551 · November 2004

we did. it was an incidental amount in our opinion and not worth the headache. we treated feb just like the other months. we also considered all of our employees "salaried" for purposes of payroll and only made deductions for 1/2 and full day increments (unless that person was truly "exempt" then only the full day increments applied. we found we had a much more dependable work staff using this scenario. abusers were counseled and dealt with appropriately. seldom did we have repeaters.

human resource13 · November 2004

We currently pay semi-monthly the 15th and last day of the month. We also use the calculation of 86.67 hours per pay period. We have salaried exempt and non exempt employees. For the salary exempt there is never a problem they always get paid the same amount. For the salaried non exempt they fill out a time sheet each week based on a 40 hours work week. If there is a week that they work over 40 they put their overtime or if they work less than 40 then enter their actual time worked and then are docked whatever the hours are. The time sheets cover the requirements for the DOL. There will be some pay periods where they worked over 40 hours and are entitled to overtime but because of the payroll transmital date it can happen that they will not be paid until the following pay period. This still meets the DOL requirements.

Bi-monthly payroll

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