A pay cycle produces compensation records: the monthly statement of what each person is paid. It draws on the employee details and attendance you have already recorded, so preparing a cycle is mostly reviewing and confirming the figures rather than calculating them by hand.
What a compensation record is
A compensation record is the pay statement for a run of employees for a given month. It gathers each person's earnings, leave, overtime, deductions, and tax into one record you can review, finalize, and share. Each cycle is tied to a month, so your history reads as a clean sequence of periods.
Templates decide the shape
Before your first cycle, set up a compensation record template. The template defines which columns appear and how they are worked out, so every record for that template comes out consistent. Once a template exists, running each month is quick because the structure is already decided. You will find templates in the Payroll menu alongside compensation records.
Related settings such as income tax rates and pay columns also live in Payroll. Getting these right once means each cycle applies them the same way, month after month.
Run a pay cycle
- Make sure the inputs are ready. Confirm employee details are current and attendance for the month is recorded, since both feed the record.
- Open Compensation records. From the Payroll menu, open Compensation records to see past cycles and start a new one.
- Choose the month and template. Pick the month you are paying and the template that shapes the record. Payroll pulls each employee's figures together for that period.
- Review each employee. Open the record and check the detail per person: earnings, leave, overtime, deductions, and tax. This is your chance to catch anything before pay goes out.
- Finalize the cycle. Move the record to closing once you are satisfied. A finalized record is the settled statement for that month.
Share and keep the results
Once a compensation record is ready, you can export it. Individual statements can be produced as PDFs for each employee, and a whole run can be exported together, including as a spreadsheet or a bundled download of everyone's statements. This gives you both a copy to share with each person and a record to keep for the firm.
Finalize a cycle only after you have reviewed the figures. Treat closing a record as settling that month's pay, and correct attendance or employee details before you close rather than after.
Run cycles in the same order every month: confirm employees, finish attendance, then produce compensation records. A steady rhythm makes each period faster and keeps your pay history easy to follow.