Pay schedules determine how often employees are paid, so it's important to design them thoughtfully. A well-structured pay schedule helps avoid payroll issues and ensures consistent, accurate payments.
Types of Pay Schedules
See below for a description of the four types of pay schedules.
Weekly | Employees are paid on the same day each week, such as every Friday. |
Every other week (bi-weekly) | Employees are paid every other week on a specific day, commonly every other Friday. |
Twice a month (semi-monthly) | Employees receive their wages on two specific dates each month, typically on the 15th and the 30th. |
Monthly | Employees receive their wages on a specific date each month. This is uncommon and may not be compliant with labor laws in some states. |
💡 It is best practice to pay child care workers weekly or bi-weekly. It is industry standard to pay employees on Fridays for the period that ended the previous Friday.
🚨 Hourly employees should never be paid on a semi-monthly or monthly pay schedule, as it will result in incorrect overtime calculations.
Create a Pay Schedule
From your Admin Dashboard, navigate to the Payroll tab and then click Home.
Click the blue Add Pay Schedule button at the bottom of your screen.
The Create Pay Schedule window will open. Name your pay schedule and select the frequency, first payday, and period end date.
It is best practice for the period end date to be seven days before the payday. For example, a payday on Friday would have a period that ends on the previous Friday.
Click the blue Continue button to save your pay schedule.
View Your Pay Schedule
Admins can view their pay schedules to see the future period dates, pay dates, and approval deadlines. You can also view the employees who are assigned to the pay schedule.
💡 It is highly recommended that you share this schedule with your staff. To share the schedule, take a screenshot of the schedule and post it as a feed post with your Staff as the recipients.
From your Admin Dashboard, navigate to the Payroll tab.
Scroll down to the Pay Schedules section.
Click the three dots next to the pay schedule you want to edit, then click View Schedule.
From this window, you will be able to view Upcoming Paydays and Employees Enrolled
To add another employee to the selected pay schedule, click the Employees Enrolled tab, enter the name of the employee you would like to add, and click the blue Add button.
Manage Multiple Pay Schedules
Playground can support multiple pay schedules for different sets of employees. Multiple pay schedules can be advantageous if you have both salary and hourly employees. Semi-monthly pay schedules may be preferred for the salary employees, while hourly employees must be paid weekly or bi-weekly.
🚨 If using multiple pay schedules, all employees must be assigned to a pay schedule. You will be blocked from running payroll if an employee is not assigned to a pay schedule.
Assign Pay Schedules
If an employee is not assigned to a pay schedule, you will see an alert on the payroll home screen and you will be unable to run payroll until all employees have a schedule assigned.
Navigate to an employee's profile and click the Settings tab.
Under General, assign a pay schedule, then click Save Changes.
Edit a Pay Schedule
💡 A pay schedule that has been used to run payroll cannot be edited. If you would like to change any details of your pay schedule, create a new pay schedule and then inactivate the old pay schedule.
From your Admin Dashboard, navigate to the Payroll tab.
Scroll down to the Pay Schedules section.
Click the three dots next to the pay schedule you want to edit, then click Edit.
Delete or Inactivate a Pay Schedule
💡 If you have processed payroll using a pay schedule, you cannot delete the pay schedule. However, you can mark the pay schedule as Inactive if you no longer use it.
From your Admin Dashboard, navigate to the Payroll tab.
Scroll down to the Pay Schedules section.
Click the three dots next to the pay schedule you want to remove, then click Delete or Inactivate.