What Payroll Lock Does
Payroll Lock helps protect completed payroll periods from changes. Locking a period prevents accidental edits after payroll has been reviewed, approved, or paid.
Unlocking a period allows authorized users to make corrections when needed.
When To Use Payroll Lock
Use payroll lock when:
- Payroll has been finalized.
- Payslips have been created.
- Finance has approved the payroll run.
- Bank files or GL exports have already been generated.
- The company wants to prevent late changes to a paid period.
When To Unlock A Period
Unlock only when a correction is required, such as:
- A payslip was created with incorrect hours.
- A deduction was missed.
- A payroll item was entered incorrectly.
- Payroll needs to delete and recreate a payslip.
Only authorized payroll or finance users should unlock a period.
Practical Example
Payroll for January 1 to January 15 was paid and locked. The next day, payroll discovers that one employee had approved overtime missing from the calculation.
The administrator unlocks the period, corrects the overtime or payroll item, reviews the employee again, recreates the payment if needed, and locks the period again after the correction is complete.
Basic Steps To Unlock
- Confirm why the period needs to be unlocked.
- Confirm the user has permission to unlock payroll.
- Open the payroll period in Make Payment V2 or the payroll lock area.
- Unlock the period.
- Make the required correction.
- Rerun Draft Review or Make Payment review.
- Recreate or correct the payslip if needed.
- Lock the period again.
Common Mistakes
- Unlocking a period without documenting the reason.
- Forgetting to lock the period again after correction.
- Changing payroll setup instead of correcting the specific employee or period issue.
- Unlocking after bank or GL exports without telling finance.
- Deleting payslips without understanding downstream effects.
Related Articles
- Make Payment V2 Overview
- Draft Review V2
- Deleting Or Correcting Payslips
- GL Export Overview
- Bank File Export