Should you use an Adjustment for a paycheck?

Before addressing how to adjust a paycheck, you should consider if an adjustment is appropriate or not.

• Don't use an Adjustment to issue additional or missing wages to an employee. In most cases of underpayment, you should run a Special pay run to issue those wages.
• If funds have not yet been dispersed to the employee, you would not typically use an Adjustment. Instead, void the prior paycheck and then initiate a replacement check.
• Use an Adjustment when:
  • You overpaid an employee. (for example, an incorrect flat-amount or an incorrect number of hours worked)
  • A wrong work location for an employee yielded incorrect tax calculations.
  • An incorrect benefit or deduction code was assigned to an employee, or the codes they were assigned contained an error.
  • The employee's Profile contained incorrect information that impacted the paycheck, such as an outdated salary or a missing garnishment order.

Overview of Adjustment paychecks

In Greenshades Payroll, we offer a step-by-step walk through of the process. You will select the pay run and then the paycheck(s) that need adjustment, review the original information on those paychecks, and be prompted to provide the correct information for those checks. Note: This process of prompting for the “correct” information is different from other payroll systems that require admins running payroll to calculate a differential check, that would then be applied alongside the original check. Within our system, the user is prompted for the desired or correct information, and then Greenshades Payroll will automatically generate the differential check by comparing the original check vs. the now-desired check.

When generating the differential check, our system will properly account for changes in hours, codes, locations, minimum wages, and more. This saves admins a significant amount of time, and also eliminates many simple errors that can happen when having to manually calculate differentials.

Steps to adjust a paycheck

Step 1

Locate the original pay run that contained the incorrect check(s) and select Adjust. You can find these pay runs using the “Recent Pay Runs” section of the main Payroll page, or by selecting View All and choosing from a list of all prior pay runs.

Step 2

On the window that appears, select the scenario that best matches what you need to accomplish. If your scenario warrants an Adjustment, select Adjust Payrun. If you choose a scenario where Adjustment isn't the right solution, we will guide you accordingly.

Step 3

In this step, you will see employees who were in the original pay run. Select the ones whose checks need to be adjusted.

Step 4

The screen will display the standard pay-run wizard, loaded with the selected employees, and populated with the information as it was for the original pay run. Each of the sections will be populated in this way, allowing you to see exactly what was entered on the original check.

Note: The name of the pay run will be marked as “Adjusted” and you may see a banner advising how to edit information.

Step 5

Throughout the pay run, update values from what they were in the original pay run to what they should have been. For instance, if an employee was originally paid for 40 hours, but should have been paid for 32, then enter 32 hours. Do not enter a new 8 hour transaction. If an employe was paid in Montana, but should have been paid in Mississippi, adjust the existing entry to show Mississippi. You can adjust any fields on any of the steps of the payroll wizard.

Step 6

The final page of an adjustment pay run is “Review Adjustments”. Here, you will see differential paychecks that have been generated based on the changes you made on the prior screens. In calculating these differential checks, we will take into account changes to deduction/benefit calculations, taxation, minimum wage adjustments, and more. If an adjustment results in a negative earning, Greenshades Payroll will place it into an earning arrear as part of the normal arrears functionality.

To see the original check and the desired check that generated the adjustment checks, select the caret (triangle pointing to the right) on the left side of the table to expand the adjustment check row.

Step 7

When satisfied, you can complete this adjustment pay run using the same process as completing a standard pay run.

Adjusting a paycheck that has previously been adjusted

An Adjustment pay run itself may not be adjusted. If a further change is required, return to the original check and once again enter the amounts/information that you want. The system will take all prior adjustment checks into account when generating the new adjustment checks.

For example, you corrected an employee paycheck from 40 hours to 32 hours, resulting in an adjustment paycheck of -8 hours. If you later discover that the employee should have in fact been paid for 35 hours, then return to the original 40-hour paycheck and enter a desired amount of 35 hours in the Adjustment pay run. We will see the prior adjustment of -8 hours, and will generate a new +3 hour adjustment so that the employee is paid for 35 hours.

The rule remains the same: when adjusting payroll, always enter the amounts that the employee should have received originally and let us generate the differentials.