Auto payroll is a setting which will submit your payroll automatically in Toast Payroll. It is available to pay groups and businesses who meet the eligibility requirements.

In short, at the end of a pay period, customers with auto payroll enabled will receive an email with any action items that must be resolved before the payroll's due date. If a pay group has outstanding action items, auto payroll will cancel itself and payroll will need to be submitted manually. See When Auto Payroll Is Enabled to learn more.

On the morning of the payroll due date (three days before your check date), assuming all action items were resolved, auto payroll will occur at 5:00 p.m. CST. The person listed as your contact in your payroll settings will receive a payroll submission confirmation email around this time. You can see your payroll settings contact by navigating to Payroll > Pay group settings. They are listed under the Contacts section.

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There are eligibility requirements for each business and each pay group. You must meet both sets of requirements per pay group in order to enable auto payroll.

Business:

Pay Group:

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There are two ways to turn on auto payroll:

Both of the methods above will open the Pay group settings page.

Note: If you turn on auto payroll for an eligible pay group while the payroll is open (the button on the Pay Cycle Dashboard will read Continue rather than Preview) or while the payroll has a Past due alert, auto payroll will begin with the next eligible payroll and will not be enabled for the current payroll.

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During the pay period, it's business as usual. You should onboard new employees, keep pay changes and job updates up-to-date, and ensure staff is paid correctly via the company-wide paycheck delivery setting and the per-employee payment method settings, all as you normally would.

At the end of the pay period, anyone listed on the Pay group settings page will receive an email summarizing this payroll and detailing any action items you must address before auto payroll begins. These are the same actions you would take for a normal payroll, including things like auto clock outs, missed time entries, approving and sending tips to Toast Payroll (if you use Toast Tips Manager), approving TAFW requests, and payroll to dos.

On the morning of the due date, you'll receive a follow-up email showing the estimated payroll withdrawal amount and any remaining action items. If you have to add any quick calcs or off-cycle payrolls, you will have to facilitate those separate from your auto payroll pay groups; see Request Off-Cycles and Add Quick Calcs With Auto Payroll below. If all the action items in the email are not complete by 3:00 a.m. CST on the due date of a pay group's payroll, auto payroll will be cancelled and you will need to submit it manually by 4:00 p.m. CST on the business day before your check date. It is your responsibility to make sure all payrolls are submitted timely and accurately.

At 5:00 p.m. of the payroll's due date, auto payroll will run as long as all action items are completed. Once it's finished, Toast Payroll will send a final confirmation email with a breakdown of your costs (e.g. direct deposits, taxes, vendor payments, fees, etc.) along with a record of the transactions being made (Toast Payroll withdraws taxes and direct deposits in separate transactions).

After auto payroll has been submitted, you can find this payroll and its reports by navigating to Payroll > Past Payrolls > View. You are responsible for reviewing any submitted payrolls and submitting any missed payrolls. Additionally, if you pay some employees by paper (live) check, use the Paycheck Delivery Responsibilities section below for instructions on paying these employees.

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If you'd like to temporarily turn off auto payroll from an individual payroll, navigate to Payroll and select Cancel Auto Payroll for the applicable pay group. You can do this anytime before auto payroll has run. Note: Archiving a payroll will cancel auto payroll as well. If you unarchive a payroll, it is no longer eligible for auto payroll and it will need to be processed manually.

If you'd like to permanently turn off auto payroll for all your payrolls, navigate to Payroll > Pay group settings. Toggle to Off for all the pay groups listed on the left side of the page.

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When using auto payroll, off-cycle payrolls will need to be manually processed. The request process to create an off-cycle remains the same: submit the Off-Cycle Request form to us via the blue chat dot in the lower-right corner of any Toast Payroll page. Once the off-cycle is created in Toast Payroll, you can manually review and submit it. Off-cycle payrolls are not eligible for auto payroll.

With auto payroll, as long as you finish a quick calc and attach it to a pay cycle before the end of a pay period for an auto payroll pay group, it will process as a part of that auto payroll. If you submit the quick calc after the pay period or attach it to an off cycle, you will have to make sure that payroll is submitted manually.

For context, today Auto Payroll only processes regular pay cycles. Irregular cycles, such as off-cycles for bonuses, corrections, or voids, still require manual processing because auto payroll currently relies on your standard pay calendar’s timing (i.e. if you’re biweekly with Friday pay checks).

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If you have employees who elected to receive paper (live) checks as their payment method, they will be paid via one of these three methods. It is your responsibility to facilitate self-written or self-printed checks that are necessary after the auto payroll processes.

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This content is for informational purposes and is not intended as legal, tax, HR, or any other professional advice. Please contact an attorney or other professional for advice.