Biweekly pay periods

[mowgli]

I know there's a feature request to make adding pay periods more automatic. But one thing would be very handy for practices with consistent biweekly pay periods, and maybe easier to implement. A checkbox in the Time Card Setup screen labeled "Biweekly pay periods." If checked, the "add" button would make a period of 14 days (adding 13 days to the start date) rather than 15 days. It would save them from having to edit the end date every single time.

[wjstarck]

Hmm, I'm wondering why you have to edit the end of them manually?

We pay biweekly, and our pay period starts on Wednesday and ends on Tuesday of the second week, with Friday being payday. Once we entered the first one that way, adding the subsequent ones always figured the dates properly. I agree that a biweekly checkbox would be nice so we wouldn't have to manually enter them at all though.

[mowgli]

Thanks for the reply. I tried entering Wed Feb. 23 as the start date, Tues Mar. 8 as the end date, and Fri Mar. 11 as the pay date, in accordance with your post. When I add another period, the start date is OK as Wed. Mar. 9. But the end date was Wed. Mar. 23, and pay date Sun. Mar. 27. So by default, it bumped the end date an extra day ahead, and the pay date 2 extra days ahead. Using 7.2.47 on Vista, but also finding on XP and in a couple other versions.

[wjstarck]

Now that I look at it more closely, I also see a discrepancy. From what I can see, here is how OD seems to be calculating the math:

Take start date + add 14 calendar days to it + add 4 days for direct deposit = paycheck date

And, for the next pay period, which is automatically entered for you, the math is:

Prior start date + 1 day = new start date + add 14 calendar days to it = new end date + add 4 days for direct deposit = paycheck date

so if I enter start date 1/31/2011, end date 2/11/2011 and pay check date 02/22/2011 the next time I add a pay period OD will already have entered:

start date 2/12/2011, end date 2/26/2011 and check date 3/2/2011 which is not quite what you'd expect for a standard (i.e. M-F, M-F pay period)

So for a standard pay period the math really should be:

Prior start date + 3 days = new start date
new start date + 11 days (or prior start date + 13 days ) = new end date
new end date + 4 days for direct deposit = pay check date

Now in the case of biweekly deposits, the math should be

prior end date + 1 day = new start date
new start date + 13 days = new end date
new end date + 3 business days for direct deposit = pay check date

I say 3 days for direct deposit because here with QuickBooks Assisted payroll if I cut checks on Wednesday the are deposited at 00:01 Friday morning. But it might be different elsewhere.

As you have found, this is not how it's currently done, so you'll have to put that in as a feature request.