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Lock Pay Periods from Unwanted Changes / Auto-Close vs You Close
Lock Pay Periods from Unwanted Changes / Auto-Close vs You Close

Protecting your time cards automatically - why you should close pay periods.

CustomerCareTeam avatar
Written by CustomerCareTeam
Updated over 6 months ago

About Pay Period Auto-Close

Are you getting the 'auto-close' message on the Time screen?

This is just a reminder to close the pay period. The system will close pay periods automatically (as the message states), but it is best if you close them.

Let me explain...

  • Are you using Chronotek for payroll hours? If so, you will need to batch the pay periods into batch files and then close the pay periods to get to the payroll exports.

    IMPORTANT!! These payroll "batch files" have hours in decimal format that are used for payroll. Other screens show time in HH:MM ⬅️ notice the colon, not decimal.

  • Even if you don't pay people with Chronotek hours you still will want to close pay periods. Reports will not sum hours for a day or week if there is an open/red issue time card. You might be fine with that, but we wanted you to know.

I suspect most of you will want to Prepare Payroll to get correct exports and reporting.

Preparing for Payroll

Let's see how this looks....

This is our test account. Currently, anyone can change timecards in any of these Open pay periods.

(Reminder: The Time is livestreamed in HH:MM ⬅️ notice the colon -- don't pay by this. Manage by this time.)

Clear the Issue Tiles

First you will want to make it a practice to Clear Red Tiles every couple of days. Remember even the reports need corrected time cards.

  • Missed Clock Out

  • Pending Travel

  • Unknown Job

Batch Your Payroll

This Time screen is where you trigger the payroll batching. See at the top where the Payroll Period shows Closed, Open, Current. This is where you Prepare Payroll the payroll batches and close the pay period.

It is not urgent. Don’t worry, we allow 2 open pay periods, and your current pay period.

And yes, you can always get to time cards in any pay period. They are grouped as Closed, Open, and Current.

It is best practice to close a pay period. Here's how: ‘Prepare Payroll Hours’.

Are you not using Chronotek for payroll? You can disable auto-close reminders.

We are trying to make life easier.

Find more articles in our Help Center. And go ahead and bookmark the site! 😎

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