How to Change Payroll Cycle or Frequencies

Question:  How do change my pay frequencies. For example, I want to change from Semi-monthly to Biweekly.

There are several steps in changing payroll frequency.

1. Set up a New Processing group.

Once a processing group has been used you cannot change the pay frequency, even at the beginning of the year. As a result, you will need to set up a new processing group using the new payroll frequency. Alternatively, you can use an existing processing group if it is set up for the frequency.

Go to Maintain>Payroll>Processing Group.

Create a new processing group with the desired Pay Cycle

Click on the Pay Schedule tab. Type in the year. Then fill in the 1^st Pay Date and 1^st Pay Period end date in January (1^st payroll of the year).

NOTE: Even if you are making the change later in the year it is recommended that you set the new processing group up from the beginning of the year to avoid issues.

2.  Change Processing Group and Salary

Go to Maintain>Payroll>Employee Information. Go to the Job and Pay Tab.

Change the processing group to the one you set up.

If employees are salaried you may need to adjust their Salary Per Pay Cycle to Reflect how much they get paid per pay period.

If the employee is hourly no changes need to be made to their hourly rate.

3. Adjust Additional Withholding (Optional)

If an employee has additional withholding at the Federal/State/Local Level, you should check to see if they wish to keep the same elective additional withholding since the amount of their paycheck will change.

 Save the employee and then make similar changes to everyone who has their pay cycle changed.