Payroll Definitions and Time Periods: Overview

Payroll definitions contain calendar and offset information that determine when to calculate and cost payments. It includes definition of payment frequency, processing schedule, and other parameters for a particular payroll.

For example, to pay employees semimonthly, you can create a payroll definition using the semimonthly payroll period type, ensuring that tax and other calculations produce correct results for those employees.

You can't change either the first effective start date or last effective end date for an existing payroll definition. Create payroll definition objects with effective start dates on or before the start dates of other objects that refer to your definitions.

Payroll Offset

Payroll offsets help you define your payroll cycle schedule. You can select for your payroll cycle events to occur on specific dates or be based on offsets from period start or end dates. Based on your choices and the number of calendar years you specify, the complete calendar for your payroll's lifetime is generated.

This table describes the predefined payroll cycle events that you can offset.

Date	Description
Planned Submission Date	The date on which the user will submit the payroll run.
Cutoff Date	The final date that payroll information can be entered for the payroll period.
Payslip Availability Date	The date on which payees can view payslips.
Payroll Run Date	The date the payroll calculation process uses to retrieve effective values, such as employee details.
Date Earned	The date on which the payroll process processes element entries for the payroll run. The date earned must be within the effective dates of the payroll period.
Date Paid	The date the employee is marked as paid. For check payments, this is the date that the check is valid for cash or deposit. For electronic funds transfer (EFT) payments, it's the transfer date.

Valid Payment Methods

You can specify an effective date that determines when your organization payment method will be used for this payroll definition. This date range must fit within both the effective date range of the payroll definition and the effective date range of the organization payment method.

Payroll Time Periods

Payroll Time periods represent the various dates within each payroll cycle and their frequency. Payroll time periods hold the payroll definition calendar that's based on the frequency of the payroll, such as weekly and monthly. For example, you can adjust payroll days to account for a bank holiday.