How to process a Christmas Holiday

Last Pay before Christmas

In the final pay before Christmas it is likely that you will be paying several weeks wages in the single payment. If that is so, you can add the Tax Period payment to each employee's pay calculation screen to average the tax calculation over several pay periods, and save the employee from paying too much tax. When you enter the number of pay periods the employee is being paid in the Tax Period's units, the total taxable gross is divided by the number of pay periods, the tax calculated on that, and then multiplied back up by the number of pay periods.

Thus, if you are paying $300 ordinary pay for a week's work and $900 for three weeks holiday pay, you should add a Tax Period payment with 4 units to their pay calculation screen. The system will then work out the tax as 4 pay period's worth at $300 per period, instead of $1200 in one pay period.

Where a pay item has been defined as having a 'Pay Period' basis, then the calculated cash, or units in the case of a leave accrual, will be multiplied by the number of tax periods.

First pay after Christmas break

When you return to work after the Christmas break, and you are opening the pay period for the first payment in the New Year, you don't need to open and close pay periods until you have advanced the pay date to the new pay period. To get that to work correctly, you would have to delete all payslips in the calculation screen first, and then re-enter pay details when you have skipped to the correct period.

Instead, simply overtype the pay date in the Open New Period form with the date for the period you are going to pay. In that way you will carry forward ordinary pay from the last pay period before Christmas, and need only make the kind of adjustments you would normally do each pay period.