1. Determine if your payroll software has self-service import functionality
WorkBright’s Reports tool exports data to a csv spreadsheet file. If your payroll software does not allow for bulk creation of new staff by csv import, then this workflow unfortunately isn’t an option. Sorry!
2. If your payroll software allows for bulk creation of new staff by csv import, determine the formatting requirements
Every payroll software’s formatting requirements will be different. Most will provide their users with a sample import sheet, and this generally be the swiftest way to determine what your spreadsheet for import needs to look like.
For some, a specific order of the data columns may be required. For most, the labeling of the column headers may be relevant. These requirements will depend entirely on your payroll software.
3. Determine if you need to be capturing any additional information in WorkBright from your staff
Everything that is required for import into your payroll software needs to be on your spreadsheet when you import it, but does all of that info need to be in WorkBright? This is for you to determine.
For example, a payroll software may have a required field called “Rate Type” to denote if the staff’s pay is hourly, salaried, or other. In WorkBright, all of your staff are hourly pay and you haven’t been inputting a value to denote this. You can either,
Create a field in WorkBright to start inputting Rate Type, matching the syntax required by your payroll software,
Or you can make a practice of adding this information to your spreadsheet AFTER you’ve exported your report from WorkBright:
If you decide that capturing/storing the information in WorkBright is the better option, create all necessary custom fields to ensure that you/your administrators are entering the data into WorkBright at the beginning of their onboarding process.
4. (Optional) Create a Custom Field or a Group to use as a marker for staff already exported to your payroll software
As you start to run this report regularly, you’ll need a way to filter out the staff that have already been added to your payroll. You may already have a way to determine who you have already added to payroll in WorkBright, but one way to ensure that you’re tracking this is by creating a custom field or a group:
New Custom Field |
New Group |
You can then use bulk actions to mark your custom field or add staff to groups, and filter those staff out for the future.
5. Create Your Payroll Report in WorkBright
Add all the fields you’re gathering in WorkBright that you’ll need to add to your payroll, and if necessary, place them in the prescribed order that your payroll software expects them.
Then add a filter to exclude anyone already marked by your custom field or Group as having been added to payroll already:
You may want to add additional filters such as Start Date, or I-9 Certified Status, to ensure that you are only showing new staff that your company is ready to add to payroll.
If you are using a custom field or group as described in Step 4 to filter out staff already added to payroll, be sure to use a Bulk Action before exiting to mark the staff you’ll be importing to your payroll today.
Finally, export your results to Excel or CSV.
6. Spreadsheet Manipulation
After you’ve exported, you’ll undoubtedly have to massage the spreadsheet to make it’s formatting compatible with the requirements of your payroll software. This may involve:
Changing the headers in Row 1
Adding columns of data not captured in WorkBright or even blank columns
Changing the formatting of certain data. For example, WorkBright outputs “Filing Status” from the W4 as “Single” or “Married,”
And your payroll may require them to be input as “S,” and “M.”
Again, this step will vary greatly depending on your payroll software, and you will have to gauge the time-saving value of this process. If you determine with certainty that it takes an administrator 4 minutes to add a new hire to payroll, but that the process of running a report in WorkBright, manipulating the spreadsheet, and importing into payroll takes 15 minutes, then the process is only a time-saver when adding four or more staff at a time.
7. Import into your payroll software
Ideally, this all went as smoothly as possible given the constraints and you’ve saved a lot of time!