Payroll Processing Step 3: Using batch totals to check payroll information



Objectives:

Learn how to use batch totals to ensure your payroll data has been entered or imported correctly.

What's in this article?

Instructions for how to use batch totals to check your payroll data.

💡 Good to know: Using batch totals is not required as a part of your payroll processing, but it is a best practice and AllianceHCM recommends using it before you run a pre-process register to ensure your payroll data is accurate.

This is a part of our Intro to Payroll Processing and Manual Entry guide, which covers starting payroll and adding batches, manually inputting payroll data, running a pre-process register, and closing a batch and submitting payroll.

AllianceHCM tips: Keep an eye out for tips from our experts!

Using batch totals

Once you’ve input all the payroll amounts, whether manually or by importing data, you can do a check to ensure you did your data entry correctly. Payroll experts are usually fast and accurate at keying in information, but anyone can make a mistake, so we have safeguards in place. Using batch totals is a best practice to help you check your work before you run a pre-process register.

From within the Payroll section, click on the Batch Totals tab toward the top of your screen.

This will take you to the Batch Totals section.

Take a look at your total sheet that you were referring to as you were manually entering your payroll hours or amounts. You’re going to use the information from that total sheet to fill out information in the Control Hours or Control Amount fields.

For example, if you know from your total sheet that your E-2 code amount should be $25,123.30, you would put that into the Control Amount field. You can see we’ve filled out all the Control Hours and Control Amounts from our total sheet.

As you can see from the Difference Amount column, there’s a problem! The Batch Totals screen has run the calculation of everything keyed in or imported in AllPay for this payroll batch under the Actual Amount or Actual Hours columns, and it doesn’t match your controls. The difference has also been calculated and highlighted for you.

The Totals line at the bottom of this Batch Totals view also shows you the calculation of all your earning and deduction codes in this batch.

It’s easy to get into the specific code where you may have made a mistake. Simply click on the Code you need to revisit.

In the pop up window for your Code Details (E-2), you can double-check your amounts and make any edits.

For example, thanks to the Batch Totals, we know there’s a $100 difference between this grouping and what our total should be. In this example, our total sheet shows Rebecca Arthur should get $335.89, but we can see that the amount is different in AllPay.

We’ll update her amount and click Save.

We can see from our Batch Totals page now that everything we keyed in individually is totaling out the way we expect and matching our controls.

And that’s it! You’ve reached the end of this guide about using batch totals to check payroll information and you're ready to run a pre-process register. If you need additional support, please see the full list of sections in the Intro: Payroll Processing and Manual Entry guide.

Remember, if you have any questions, you can always reach out to AllianceHCM experts by phone at 281-875-1818, or you can contact your dedicated Customer Service Representative (CSR), who is listed on your AllPay dashboard. We’re happy to help and look forward to supporting all of your payroll needs.