Putting a paid period right, and getting a run out

Two questions about a run that is already finished.

May was wrong, and May is paid

A closed run never changes. That is the rule everything else in Pay rests on, and it is what makes a statement mean something a month later.

So the money reaches somebody the other way: as a correction, carried into the next run.

Open the person under Users, choose Pay, then Show pay. Under Corrections to periods already paid, press Correct a period. Correct a period already paid asks for:

• Period being corrected — the dates it puts right. It must already have been paid by a closed run.
• Which way — They were owed or They were overpaid. It is a choice rather than a minus sign you have to remember to type, because getting it backwards takes money off somebody who was owed it.
• Kind of pay — Ordinary pay, Overtime or premium, Paid leave, Day rate, Piece work, Materials or Bonus or allowance. This is not a label. It decides which kind of pay the correction travels as in your payroll file, so your payroll provider can treat it like the pay it corrects. For a contractor, it also decides whether withholding reaches it, through what feeds what. A correction to overtime is not a bonus.
• What it is — the words on the person's statement, such as A day of hours missed. The statement adds the dates it corrects.
• How much, as a positive amount.
• Why — required. Money moving between periods is the first thing an auditor asks about, and nobody remembers in March.

Then Record it.

Maliru refuses two things, both to stop somebody being paid twice:

• A period they were not paid for — Pay that period first, or record this as a pay item instead. Pay for the current period belongs in materials, bonuses and allowances.
• A period whose run is still open — work that run out again instead, or the correction would be paid in both.

A member of a gang has no pay run line of their own, so a correction to their hours is recorded against the gang's leader, who was paid for them. See paying a gang.

When it is paid

In the next run that pays that person, not in the period it corrects. It reaches your payroll provider in that run's payroll file, and for a contractor, withholding is worked out on it in that run. That keeps the paid period matching any return you have already made.

A correction is used up when that run closes, not when it is worked out. Record corrections before you work the run out, or work it out again afterwards: one recorded in between is not in that run's figures, so it waits for the run after.

Until it is paid, and after

Each correction is listed with a pill — Next run while it waits, Paid once a closed run has carried it — the period it corrects and, once paid, the period it was paid in. An overpayment shows with a minus.

While it waits, Take it back (the ×) removes it. Once a run has closed carrying it, it is as frozen as the run: no edit, no delete. The way back is the opposite correction.

Reversing the run that paid a correction hands the correction back, waiting, so the fresh run carries it again. Nothing is lost by reversing a run to fix it.

A person can see their own corrections on their own record, without the permission to change them.

Getting a closed run to your payroll provider

Maliru works out gross pay. Your payroll provider — Xero, Sage, QuickBooks, BrightPay or your accountant — works out tax, social insurance, pension and take-home pay from it, issues the payslips, files with the tax authority and pays your employees.

Set up the file once under Pay › Payroll provider: its format, your pay items and everyone's payroll ID. See setting up your payroll provider. Then open a closed run under Pay › Runs and press Export for payroll, or choose More › Export for your payroll provider. The dialog shows the control totals, and anything to fix before you download.

A correction travels on a line of its own, as the kind of pay it corrects, so your payroll provider can treat it like that pay. A correction that takes money back is a negative line, or a deduction before tax in a file that has no negative lines.

The file carries no withholding and no net. Your payroll provider works net out from the gross, and a contractor's withholding stays in Maliru, where the withholding return picks it up. Contractors are not in the file: your business pays them itself, from the payment schedule or the payment file, and the dialog says how many were left out. See running pay.

Every export comes off a closed run only — until then the figures can still change — and stays available on any plan, so a workspace can always get out what it has already paid.

The pay journal has gone

The journals for Xero, QuickBooks and Sage are no longer in the More menu. A journal posts net pay and what is owed to the tax authority, and your payroll provider works both of those out now, so it posts the wages journal to your accounts. Account codes you set for the journal are no longer used.