Calendar ready
The pay period, pay date, workweek boundaries, internal cutoff, and provider or bank deadlines are known.
The Margin · Ordinary payday
What has to happen between payroll cutoff and payday?
A cutoff does not finish payroll. It creates a controlled handoff from changing source facts to calculation, review, payment instructions, external outcomes, and a record that can still explain the payday.
The ordinary-payday handoff.
Each stage should have an owner, a deadline, an outcome, and evidence.
Inputs collected
Time, earnings, new hires, terminations, leave, reimbursements, deductions, and approved changes have a source.
Facts validated
Missing time, duplicate earnings, unusual changes, worker setup gaps, and other exceptions are resolved or explicitly held.
Payroll calculated
Gross pay, deductions, taxes, net pay, employer liabilities, and cash requirements are computed from the accepted facts.
Payroll approved
An authorized person reviews the payday, changes, exceptions, funding requirement, and remaining external work.
Instructions released
Payment and other authorized instructions are sent to the relevant external systems under their actual cutoff rules.
Payday observed
Expected outcomes are monitored without treating file creation or provider acceptance as proof of worker receipt.
Payroll reconciled
Cash, liabilities, returns, rejections, accounting, receipts, and unresolved exceptions are matched back to the approved payroll.
A useful cutoff-to-payday board.
“Done” should mean something different at every handoff.
CheckpointQuestionUseful evidence
At cutoffWhich expected facts arrived, and which did not?Source, owner, effective period, arrival time, and unresolved exception.
After calculationWhat changed from the prior payday?Worker-level deltas, reasons, liabilities, cash requirement, and calculation version.
At approvalWhat exactly is being authorized?Approver, time, reviewed facts, exceptions, and external work still pending.
Before paydayWhich instructions were released and accepted?Instruction identifiers, acknowledgements, cutoff status, and funding state.
On paydayWhich expected outcomes occurred or failed?Settlement, return, rejection, reversal, or other provider and bank evidence.
After paydayWhat remains open?Reconciliation differences, tax calendar, accounting state, corrections, and named owners.
Late facts need an explicit path.
The cutoff controls change; it does not make new information disappear.
Before approval: recalculate from the changed source fact and show the reviewer what moved.
After approval: require a visible decision about cancellation, reapproval, holding, or a later correction.
After an external instruction: preserve the original instruction and record whether it can be stopped, replaced, returned, or corrected.
After payday: add the correction to history instead of silently rewriting the approved payroll.
The available path and timing depend on the provider, payment rail, bank, jurisdiction, and the nature of the change. A trustworthy payroll record distinguishes the new fact from the action taken in response.
Payday is not the only clock.
Payment, tax, filing, accounting, and recordkeeping deadlines must remain visible as separate obligations.
The U.S. Department of Labor identifies payroll records that covered employers generally must maintain, including hours, additions and deductions, total wages, payment date, and the pay period covered. IRS Publication 15 explains that federal employment-tax deposit timing depends on the employer's applicable deposit schedule and other rules—not simply how often employees are paid. Nacha's ACH explanation shows that Direct Deposit moves from the employer through its originating bank and the ACH Network to the employee's receiving bank.
A payroll system should connect these clocks without collapsing them into one green status.
Questions for the next payroll cutoff.
The answers reveal whether the process is controlled or merely familiar.
Who owns every expected input, and how will a missing input become visible?
Which changes require a second review or new approval?
What provider and bank deadlines apply to this specific pay date?
What does “submitted” mean for each payment, tax, and filing instruction?
Who watches for returns, rejections, reversals, and funding problems?
How will the books, payroll liabilities, and external receipts be reconciled?
What happens when a fact arrives after approval or after payday?
Sources and boundaries.
This operating model is educational; it does not replace the rules or deadlines that apply to a specific employer.
- U.S. Department of Labor: FLSA recordkeeping requirements
- IRS Publication 15 (2026), Employer's Tax Guide
- Nacha: How ACH payments work
Runbook's public Status page controls current availability. Live payroll processing, direct deposit, tax payments, and tax filing are not yet generally available. This article is educational and is not tax, legal, accounting, financial, banking, or ACH-compliance advice.
Map the handoffs before the next payday.
Tell Runbook—without sending sensitive payroll records—where your cutoff-to-payday process depends on memory, screenshots, or an unexplained green status.
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