Practical guides for payroll and HR decisions

Choose software, manage HR-to-payroll handoffs, and improve everyday payroll processes with detailed guides, checklists and reusable worksheets.

Three colleagues review a document and laptop together in a bright glass-walled office.

Inside the guides

Employee Record Continuity Sheet

An excerpt from the featured guide's reusable worksheet.

Expected and observed state

Expected employment state:

________________________

Observed record state:

________________________

Difference requiring action:

________________________

Keep the standing record and its payment consequence distinct. A correct profile does not establish that the intended run used it.

How HR Decision Guide helps

Understand your options
Explore the tradeoffs, practical limits and questions to resolve before choosing a tool or process.

See the decision in context
Work through realistic examples, common exceptions and the details that can change the answer.

Put the guidance to work
Use copyable worksheets and checklists to record the decision, supporting evidence and next steps.

A payroll manager in a slate-blue blouse reviews employee folders in a three-slot organizer as a colleague passes her a beige folder.

Employee Payroll Records: Keep Hires, Changes, and Departures Consistent

Featured decision guide

Check employee records across hires, changes, departures and returns. Follow the difference between an updated profile and the payroll work still to resolve.

Includes an Employee Record Continuity Sheet and a worked example of offsetting record errors.

Read the employee records guide

Built for the people who make payroll work

For founders and operators, HR and benefits teams, payroll practitioners, and accounting teams. Find guidance for choosing a provider, handing an approved change to payroll, reviewing a run or resolving an exception.

Find guidance for your next decision

Compare software
Consider operational fit, tradeoffs and what to verify before choosing a provider. Payroll software comparisons

Plan a switch
Work through migration, cutover and validation decisions before moving payroll. Switching and migration

Improve payroll operations
Review handoffs, permissions, reconciliations and the evidence behind a completed task. Operations and controls

Latest Decision Guides

A navy network hub and coiled cable sit beside an anonymous payroll document folder being reviewed by two colleagues.

Payroll API vs File Integration: Buy the Supported Exchange

Buy a supported exchange, not a technology label. Compare access, data behavior, timing, recovery, maintenance and costs before accepting a payroll connection.

6 hours ago14 min read

Two colleagues compare an anonymous paper document and cream time cards beside a navy folder and calculator.

Salaried Nonexempt Payroll: Test the Pay Agreement Before Calculating Overtime

A salary label does not define the overtime divisor. Reconstruct the agreement, weekly hours and additional pay, then compare the supported result with payroll.

13 hours ago13 min read

A person compares two blank paper planners beside a navy folder, teal document tray and analog clock on a sunlit desk.

Changing Pay Frequency: Reconcile the Bridge Period and Annual Pay

A longer interval between paydays can conceal an uncovered week or simply change cash timing. Map three payments and reconcile the salary and deductions behind them.

17 hours ago14 min read

Browse All Decision Guides

Written and maintained by Ben Scott