A payroll run takes a period from a draft to finalised, closed pay. Each step is gated: you can only recalculate before approval, payslips generate only from an approved or closed run, and closing locks the period. Approval enforces segregation of duties — the approver must differ from the preparer.
Before you start
- You need the relevant payroll permissions: manage runs to prepare and calculate, approve to close, and release to export payments.
- The period’s calendar, policy, components and employee profiles should be in place.
- A run cannot be created for a period that is already closed.
Steps
- Open the Payroll workspace and go to the Runs panel.
- Create the run for the period. It starts in Draft with no lines.
- Calculate the run to build its lines and freeze a snapshot; it moves to Calculated. Recalculation is allowed only before approval and produces identical numbers each time. Review exceptions on the Cockpit before submitting.
- Submit for review. Choose an Approver (required) who must be a different user from the preparer. The run moves to In review. A run pending approval cannot be recalculated — reject it back to the preparer first.
- The approver approves the run (moving it to Approved) or rejects it (returning it to the preparer as Rejected to recalculate). An optional decision note can be added.
- Generate payslips from the approved or closed run — one payslip per run line, stored as PDFs. Affected employees receive an in-app notice and, where enabled, an emailed payslip.
- Export the payment batch as a bank EFT / CSV of net-pay lines. Release requires the release permission and can only run once.
- Close the approved run. It becomes immutable and locks its period.
[screenshot: Runs panel showing a run’s lifecycle status and the Cockpit review]
Result
The run is finalised: payslips are issued, the payment batch is exported for the bank, and the closed period is locked so no silent edits can occur.