Help Center · Time payroll
Run payroll
Run payroll for a pay period to turn its approved, locked hours into a finalized, downloadable export.
Who this is for
Owners only. Payroll is Owner-only by default: the permissions that run and read payroll are real, but no role below Owner carries them out of the box. A manager's permission to manage time deliberately doesn't extend to payroll. An org can grant those permissions to another role explicitly.
Before you start
- The week picker won't let you page past the current week. Payroll only ever acts on a completed or current period.
- Every member you expect to pay needs approved (or locked) hours for that period; pre-flight will point out whoever isn't ready rather than blocking the screen itself.
- Payroll has to be part of your plan. If it isn't, running pre-flight shows an upgrade prompt instead of a verdict.
Steps
- Open Payroll runs from the Payroll section of the sidebar.
- Choose the pay period with the week picker.
- Read the pre-flight verdict: a green "Ready to run" banner with a payout preview (member, hours, rate, and amount) when every included member passes, or a "Not ready to run" banner listing the blockers by type (Unlocked time, Overlapping entries, Missing pay rate, No approved timesheet) with the affected member names.
- Once pre-flight is clean, select Run payroll. Until then the button stays disabled with a tooltip explaining why: "Pre-flight must pass before you can run payroll."
- Once it finalizes, select Download CSV in the export section to download the per-member lines.
What happens next
A successful run finalizes the export: a toast titled "Payroll finalized" confirms the total payout and how many members it covers, and the Run payroll button relabels to Finalized and stays disabled. A period can only be finalized once. The finalized export's per-member lines appear below it, with a Download CSV button for the file.
If pre-flight didn't pass, the run is blocked rather than run partially: a toast titled "Run blocked" reads *"The period didn't pass validation. See the blockers below."*, and nothing is finalized.
If it doesn't work
- If you aren't an Owner, the whole screen shows "Payroll is restricted to owners", *"Only an organization owner can pre-flight and run payroll. Ask an owner if you need an export."*
- If your plan doesn't include payroll, you'll see "Upgrade to unlock this" instead, *"Payroll connectors isn't included in your current plan. Upgrade to unlock it. Your data and settings stay exactly as they are."* (or, when the required tier is known, it names the plan that unlocks it), with a See plans & upgrade button.
- If you try to run an already-finalized period again, you'll see "Already finalized", *"Payroll has already been run for this period."*
- "Couldn't load your team", "Couldn't run pre-flight", "Couldn't run payroll", and "Couldn't download the CSV" each carry the server's own message, or, when your session itself is the problem: *"Your session may have expired, or you lack access to payroll."*
Related
- Timesheets (overview)
- Approve a timesheet