Namely Recommended: Preparing to Process Your Payroll

This article provides you step by step instructions on how to validate and audit your data before you open your payroll.

OVERVIEW

Payroll isn't just a daily task - there are scores of employee changes and company activities to stay on top of to make sure everyone is paid properly. This article provides details and resources to help you complete our Namely Recommended: Payroll Processing Checklist tasks that should be completed prior to opening your standard payroll.

Reviewing and validating the below items will save time and last minute scrambling on your payroll due date. Before you open your payroll, prepare and validate all the necessary items in case you need to make any changes to your payroll data. 


ONE WEEK OUT

Finish Onboarding New Employees

 Completing an Onboarding Session

  • If you've kicked off an Onboarding session, make sure you finish onboarding your new employees so they gain access to Namely and can be included in your payroll run, if applicable. From there, they can enter their personal information and sign any necessary documents.

 

Approve Outstanding Benefit Elections and Workflows

 How to Approve or Reject Benefits Enrollments

  • Approve or decline any outstanding benefit enrollments.

 Payroll Processing Audits: Benefits Elections Review (10 mins.)

  • Make sure that all of the benefit information within the pay period is accurate to ensure a successful payroll process using the Confirmation Report.

 Payroll Processing Audits: Workflow Review (15 mins.)

  • Review any outstanding workflows to ensure any employee changes and updates in HRIS are reflected in Namely Payroll.
     

Updating Employee Profile Data and Deductions

 Payroll Processing Audits: Profile Status Review (15 mins.)

  • Review the Profile Status page under HRIS Admin Tools to ensure HRIS data is accurate and syncing to payroll. 

 Payroll Imports: Deduction Imports and Company and Employee Level Deduction Setup

  • If changes are needed to employee deductions - make them prior to opening payroll. Refer to these articles if you need instructions on importing deductions, or making changes to an employee's deduction individually.

 

Updating Classes and Demographics

Make sure your employees' classes and demographic data are accurate and up to date to reflect their correct benefit eligibility. These articles will help you update employee demographic information.

Updating an Employee's Benefits Class

Assigning Org Units (With Allocations)

 Assigning Org Units (Without Allocations)

Payroll Imports: Demographic Imports  

HRIS Imports: Org Unit and Class Imports  

 

 

Updating Salary, Pay Groups and Compensation

Make sure your employees' wages, additional payments, and checks are all in line to ensure an accurate payroll processing.

 Payroll Processing Audits: New Hire with an Active Pay Group Review (10 mins.)

  • Review your new hire's active Pay Group and Include In Payroll information to ensure the correct information is synced over to Namely Payroll.

 Payroll Processing Audits: Rate Review (15 mins.)

  • Make sure that all of the rates for active, non-exempt, exempt, and hourly employees within the pay cycle are accurate to ensure a successful payroll process.

 

These resources will help you update employee compensation details:  

Adding and Editing Pay Groupsand Compensation

How do I update an employee’s salary?

HRIS Imports: Salary Import 

 

 

Updating Tax Information

Make sure your employees' tax information is up to date to reflect any personal tax changes, i.e., changes to marital status or work location.

 Adding and Editing Employee Tax Information

  • Refer to these articles for instructions on how to manually update recurring tax changes.

Employment Tax Registration Overview

Get the most out of Tax Withholding Unification

Enabling Dual-State Taxation forExisting Employees

Excluding Live-In State Tax forExisting Employees

 

TIP:

Make sure you register for any taxes that are in an "Applied for" status.

​​​ 

TWO TO THREE DAYS OUT

Review and Upload Additional Pay

 Uploading Additional Pay  

Review Direct Deposits

 Pull a report of employee banking information

  • Confirm direct deposit information has been entered for all employees (including any new hires).

 

NEXT STEPS

Once you have completed all of your payroll preparation, you are now ready to audit your payroll data in Namely Recommended: Pre-processing Payroll Validation!

You may be interested in our enhanced service, Managed Payroll, which is designed to remove the burden associated with day-to-day payroll administration. Namely will handle payroll uploads, garnishment priority processing, dedicated payroll consultant, and more!