Payroll periods in the RecStaff Payroll Integration and Timesheet module will match the payroll periods used by your organization. A RecStaff payroll period has a payroll group, a date range, a set of timesheets for the period, and some status and summary information. 


Your existing payroll periods are listed in .... you guessed it ... the Payroll Period Listing (we work hard at our naming conventions :-). There are two ways to get to this listing - if you have a payroll period that is coming due for processing you will get an indicator on your dashboard:



If you don't have this indicator on your dashboard, you can still get to your listing through the "Manage Payroll" menu option:



Here is an example of a payroll period listing:



  • The first column is the payroll group ID for the period
  • The next column is the year for the period
  • The next column is the period number.
  • Date range for the period - any shifts within this period will appear on the timesheets
  • Status - as you move through your workflow this status will change
  • Submit by date - determine by your payroll group's configuration


Noe that this listing has some useful search filters on it:



By default, the listing shows you all the payroll period for whichever payroll groups you manage. If you are attached to other groups, perhaps as backup for a manager when they are away, then you can filter your listing to only show your primary groups.


The next criteria is the Payroll Period Number - this is the number of the payroll period within the year. When you create the first payroll period for a year, RecStaff will set this value to 1 and then increment automatically. In some cases, you may need to override this - for example if RecStaff select period "1" for a period that crosses the New Year, but your finance department wants that to be period "53". Once you override it, RecStaff will just increment it each period.


If you are in an administrative role, dealing with a large number of different payroll groups, filtering by period can also help you focus on the work that needs to be done in a single period.


Note that you can only look at the periods from one year at a time. By default the listing always shows you the current payroll year. If you are early in a New Year (say Feb 2024) and you need to look at periods from the previous year you use the search filter to look at previous period years. 



What Can I Do From This Listing?


The Payroll Period Listing page gives you options to work with individual payroll periods or with multiple periods that you've selected. On the far right of each payroll period are two actions you can choose:


  • Pencil (edit) icon to edit the details of a period (i.e. its date range, payroll year or payroll period number)
  • Bank Card icon to open the Payroll Period Report. Click here to learn about this report. 


The actions to add, or manage multiple payroll periods are in the menu on the left:



Let's start at the top:


This open opens a dialogue to create a new payroll period. It will select the next dates automatically, based on the previous periods, for each payroll group you might select. Click here for an article on adding a payroll period.


This option prompts you to confirm that you want to remove whatever periods you have selected in the listing. This option is rarely used, except when you've made an error like created a period with the wrong initial dates.


Completing a payroll period is the final approval step in the payroll workflow. It tells the system that all processing for a period is finished and nothing more will be happening to it. Depending on your settings, this may lock the period to further changes. You may also complete a period from inside the Payroll Period Report itself.


This is an optional menu item that you may see depending on your configuration. It manually delivers an export of your payroll information to a predetermined location for processing by your payroll department.