Enter the end date of the pay period covered by the timecard. In order to be processed during a payroll calculation, a timecard's period end date must be the same as the pay period end date you enter at the top of the Calculate Payroll window. (Reusable timecards are automatically processed when you run Calculate Payroll.)
For information about the uses of the pay period end date in payroll, read below:
The Pay Period End Date determines whether earning/deduction is eligible for timecard entry
The system compares an earning/deduction's start and end dates (on the Employee Payroll window) to the period end date you enter for nonreusable timecards to determine whether the earning/deduction is eligible for entry. To be eligible, an earning/deduction's start date must be the same as or earlier than the period end date. The end date must be the same as or later than the period end date.
For reusable timecards, the comparison occurs when you run Calculate Payroll and the reusable timecards acquire a period end date. To be calculated, an earning/deduction’s start date must be the same as or earlier than the period end date. The end date must be the same as or later than the period end date. Ineligible earnings/deductions are reported as exceptions on the Payroll Processing Exceptions Report.
The Pay Period End Date determines accrual carry-over
The period end date is also used to determine whether vacation, sick, and compensatory/banked time carry-over dates have been for employees within the current processing. If they have, any employee accruals, up to the limits specified on the Earnings/Deductions window, are carried over to the next year.
The Pay Period End Date may be used as the G/L journal entry date
Unless you chose to use the check date as the journal entry date on the Payroll G/L Integration window, the system uses the pay period end date when posting expenses to the Payroll Wages accounts and liabilities to the Employer Liability accounts.
The Pay Period End Date determines Overtime calculation
The period end date may also be instrumental in overtime calculation. For example, if a date has not been entered for an earning on the timecard detail line, Payroll prorates and spreads the hours worked among the days preceding the period end date. Click this link for more details on proration and overtime calculation.
The Pay Period End Date determines EI calculation
When processing EI information, Sage HRMS Payroll expects, and bases its calculations on, a normal progression of pay period end dates. For example, the system expects to process Semi-monthly employees with pay period end dates of the 15th and last days of each month.
To ensure the correct calculation of EI information, always enter the last day of the pay period in which the employee is being paid as the pay period end date. For example, suppose you issue a bonus check to a Monthly employee on November 23. The bonus check may be unrelated to employee pay periods, but you should still use the actual pay period end date — November 30 — when processing the check.