How to Use Payroll Pay Groups

This guide explains how to set up and manage Pay Groups in Awditify — the foundation for scheduling and automating your payroll runs.

What is a Pay Group?

A Pay Group defines when a group of employees gets paid. It sets the pay frequency, pay dates, processing deadlines, and groups employees who share the same pay schedule.

For example, you might have:

• A Bi-Weekly Salaried group for full-time staff paid every other Friday.
• A Weekly Hourly group for part-time workers paid every Thursday.
• A Monthly group for contractors paid on the last day of the month.

Getting to Pay Groups

1. Open the client you want to work with.
2. In the left sidebar, under Payroll, click Pay Groups.

The Pay Groups Page

What you see

The page displays all pay groups in a card layout. Each card shows:

• Pay Group Name — the name you assigned.
• Description — optional notes about the group.
• Pay Frequency — Weekly, Bi-Weekly, Semi-Monthly, or Monthly.
• Employee Count — how many employees are assigned to this group.
• Status — Active or Inactive (shown as a badge).
• Default badge — indicates if this is the default pay group for new employees.
• Current Period — the start and end dates of the current pay period.
• Next Pay Date — when the next payroll is scheduled.
• Actions — Edit, Manage Employees, or Delete.

Pay Group Cards in Detail

Each card also shows:

• Processing Days Before — how many days before the pay date the system should start processing (used for auto-process).
• Pay Day — for weekly/bi-weekly: the day of the week (e.g., Friday). For semi-monthly: the two days of the month (e.g., 15th and last day). For monthly: the day of the month.

ℹ Info: If a pay group has no employees yet, the card will show "0 employees." Use the Manage Employees action to assign employees.

Creating a Pay Group

1. Click the Create Pay Group button at the top right.
2. Fill in the form:

Pay Group Details

• Name (required) — a descriptive name like "Bi-Weekly Salaried" or "Weekly Hourly."
• Description (optional) — any notes about this group.
• Pay Frequency (required) — choose from:
  • Weekly — every week.
  • Bi-Weekly — every two weeks.
  • Semi-Monthly — twice a month (e.g., 15th and last day).
  • Monthly — once a month.

Schedule Settings

The schedule fields change based on the pay frequency you chose:

• Weekly / Bi-Weekly: Select the Pay Day of Week (Sunday through Saturday).
• Semi-Monthly: Set the First Pay Day of Month (e.g., 15) and optionally the Second Pay Day of Month (e.g., last day).
• Monthly: Set the Pay Day of Month (e.g., 1, 15, 30).

Additional Settings

• Processing Days Before Pay Date — how many days before the actual pay date you want to begin processing. For example, set to 2 to start processing two business days before payday. This is used by the auto-process feature.
• First Pay Date — the date of the very first payroll for this group. The system calculates all future pay dates from this starting point.
• First Period Start / End — the start and end dates of the first pay period. The system uses these to roll forward all subsequent periods.
• Active — toggle on to make the pay group immediately available. Toggle off to create it in a dormant state.
• Default — toggle on to make this the default pay group. New employees will be auto-assigned to the default group unless you specify otherwise.

3. Click Save.

✓ Tip: Set accurate first pay date and period dates. All future pay periods are calculated automatically from these values. If they are wrong, every subsequent period will be off.

Editing a Pay Group

1. Click the Edit action on the pay group card.
2. The same form opens pre-filled. Make your changes.
3. Click Save.

⚠ Warning: Changing the pay frequency or schedule after payroll runs have been created may affect historical data. Only edit schedule settings between pay periods.

Assigning Employees to a Pay Group

1. Click Manage Employees on the pay group card.
2. A dialog opens showing all active employees.
3. Check the boxes next to the employees you want to assign to this group.
4. Click Assign Employees.

Employees can belong to only one pay group at a time. Assigning an employee here will move them from their current group.

ℹ Info: Employees without a pay group will not appear in any payroll runs. Make sure every active employee is assigned to a pay group.

Deleting a Pay Group

1. Click the Delete action on the pay group card.
2. A confirmation dialog appears. Confirm the deletion.

⚠ Warning: You can only delete a pay group that has no payroll runs associated with it. If runs exist, deactivate the pay group instead by toggling Active off in the edit form.

Auto-Process Setup

The auto-process feature lets the system automatically generate draft payroll runs based on your pay group schedules. Set this up from the Payroll Runs page by clicking Auto-Process Setup.

For each pay group, you configure:

• Auto-Process — toggle on to enable automatic draft creation.
• Process Days Before Pay Date — how many days before the pay date the draft should be created.

When enabled, the system will automatically create a draft payroll run for the pay group at the scheduled time, pre-populated with the employees assigned to that group.

How Pay Groups Work with Payroll Runs

When you create a new payroll run:

1. You select a Pay Group from the dropdown.
2. The pay period start, end, and pay date are auto-filled from the pay group's current period.
3. All active employees assigned to that pay group are included in the run.
4. You can adjust dates and add or remove individual employees before processing.