Displaying Payroll Totals

Overview

Before printing payroll checks, you should always review and verify payroll totals with the client. This critical quality control step helps catch errors before checks are printed, saving time and avoiding costly corrections.

Why Verify Totals

Verifying payroll totals before printing serves several important purposes:

• Catches data entry errors before checks are issued
• Confirms accuracy with the client's source documents
• Prevents costly corrections that would require voiding and reprinting checks
• Ensures compliance by verifying tax withholdings and deductions are correct
• Provides documentation of review and approval

Best practice: Make payroll totals verification a required step in your payroll processing workflow. Never skip this step.

How to Display Payroll Totals

1. After entering all paychecks for the pay period, go to Paychecks > Display Payroll Totals
2. The system displays hash totals for the current payroll batch
3. Review the totals screen, which shows:
• Total hours for hourly employees
• Total gross pay for all employees
• Total tips (if applicable)
• Total meals (if applicable)
• Total advances (if applicable)
• Total other pay items
• Total deductions
• Total taxes withheld
• Total net pay

What to Verify

Total hours for hourly employees

Compare the total hours displayed with the client's time records:

• Regular hours - Should match total regular hours from timesheets or time clock
• Overtime hours - Verify overtime calculations are correct
• Total hours - Sum of regular and overtime hours

If hours don't match:

1. Review each hourly employee's hours individually
2. Check for data entry errors
3. Verify overtime calculations
4. Ensure all employees were processed

Total gross pay for salaried employees

Verify the total gross pay for salaried employees:

• Expected amount - Number of salaried employees × their salaries
• Partial pay periods - Account for new hires or terminations
• Salary changes - Ensure recent pay rate changes are reflected

If gross pay doesn't match:

1. Count the number of salaried employees processed
2. Verify each employee's salary amount
3. Check for partial pay periods
4. Look for employees who might have been missed

Tips, meals, and advances

Confirm totals for supplemental pay items:

• Tips - Should match total reported tips from the client
• Taxable meals - Verify against meal benefit records
• Advances - Confirm advance amounts issued
• Other pay - Review bonuses, commissions, or special payments

Deductions

Review total deduction amounts:

• Voluntary deductions - Insurance, retirement contributions, etc.
• Involuntary deductions - Garnishments, child support, tax levies
• One-time deductions - Loan repayments, advances recovered

Withholding taxes

Verify withholding tax totals are reasonable:

• Federal income tax - Should be appropriate for the gross pay
• FICA (Social Security) - Should be 6.2% of taxable wages (up to wage base)
• Medicare - Should be 1.45% of all taxable wages
• State income tax - Should match state withholding requirements
• Local taxes - Verify local tax withholdings if applicable

Note: Tax amounts that seem unusually high or low may indicate setup errors or incorrect employee tax information.

If Totals Match

When your totals match the client's source documents:

1. Note that verification is complete
2. Document the totals for your records
3. Proceed to print paychecks
4. Follow your normal check printing workflow

If Totals Don't Match

When totals don't match, follow these steps to identify and correct errors:

Step 1: Click Review

Click the Review button to access individual employee paycheck details.

Step 2: Review with client

Go through each employee's pay with the client:

1. Start with the first employee on the list
2. Compare entered data with source documents:
• Hours worked
• Pay rate
• Deductions
• Special pay items
1. Note any discrepancies
2. Continue through all employees

Step 3: Identify errors

Common errors to look for:

• Transposed numbers - 56.00 entered as 65.00
• Decimal point errors - 40 hours entered as 4.0 hours
• Wrong pay rate - Using old rate instead of new rate
• Missing employees - Employee not processed
• Duplicate entries - Same employee entered twice
• Wrong deduction amounts - Incorrect insurance premium or loan payment
• Tips entered incorrectly - Wrong amount or missed entirely

Step 4: Correct the errors

For each error found:

1. Go to Paychecks > Delete Payroll Checks
2. Delete the incorrect paycheck
3. Re-enter the paycheck with correct information
4. Click Accept to save the corrected paycheck

Step 5: Re-verify totals

After making corrections:

1. Return to Display Payroll Totals
2. Verify that totals now match the client's records
3. If they still don't match, repeat the review process
4. Continue until all discrepancies are resolved

Troubleshooting

Totals don't match client records

Issue: Displayed totals differ from client's source documents.

Solutions:

1. Double-check all entries for accuracy
2. Verify any recent changes in employee status or pay rates
3. Ensure all overtime and special payments have been correctly entered
4. Confirm all active employees were included in the payroll
5. Check for duplicate entries
6. Verify deduction amounts haven't changed

Cannot identify the discrepancy

Issue: You've reviewed all employees but still can't find the error.

Solutions:

1. Calculate the difference between your totals and the client's totals
2. Look for an amount matching that difference (or half that difference)
3. Check for:
• Missing employee
• Duplicate employee entry
• Transposed numbers
• Decimal point errors
1. Print the payroll register and review it line-by-line with the client
2. Start over and re-enter the problematic section

Unable to delete an incorrect paycheck

Issue: Cannot delete a paycheck to make corrections.

Solutions:

1. Ensure you have the necessary user permissions
2. Verify you have the correct password
3. Check if the paycheck has been locked due to processing
4. Log out and log back into ProPay
5. Contact your system administrator if the issue persists

Review button not available

Issue: Cannot access the REVIEW function.

Solutions:

1. Verify you're on the Display Payroll Totals screen
2. Ensure paychecks have been entered for the current pay date
3. Check that you have permission to review paychecks
4. Restart ProPay if the button remains unavailable

Totals screen shows zero

Issue: All totals display as zero or blank.

Solutions:

1. Verify you selected the correct payroll date
2. Ensure paychecks were entered and accepted (not just calculated)
3. Check that you clicked Accept for each paycheck during entry
4. Confirm the pay period selection matches the entered paychecks

Best Practices

Before displaying totals

1. Complete all entries - Ensure all employees have been processed
2. Verify acceptance - Confirm all paychecks were accepted, not skipped
3. Have source documents ready - Client's timesheets, salary records, and deduction info should be available

During verification

1. Work systematically - Review totals in a consistent order
2. Use a checklist - Mark off each verification item as you complete it
3. Document differences - Note any discrepancies for follow-up
4. Communicate clearly - Explain any unusual items to the client

After verification

1. Document approval - Note that the client verified and approved totals
2. Keep records - Save the totals report for your files
3. Note corrections - Document any errors found and corrected
4. Proceed confidently - Move forward with check printing knowing totals are accurate

Related Topics

• Entering New Payroll
• Computing Paychecks
• Delete Payroll Checks
• Print Payroll Checks
• Payroll Entry Methods
• Error Correction Procedures
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