# Gotchas The mistakes that shortchange a person or double-pay a period. Payroll errors are not accounting errors — they land in someone's bank account on Friday. --- ## Gotcha: filling in a missing clock-out **Why it matters:** This is the single most damaging thing this skill could do. A filled-in punch produces a paycheck that looks completely normal, so nobody checks it. If the guess is low, someone worked for free. If it is high, the owner overpaid and will never know. ### Bad ``` Marcus, Thursday: 6:40 AM – 3:10 PM (estimated out, matches his usual) 8.0 regular hours ``` ### Good ``` Marcus, Thursday 3/12: clocked in 6:40 AM, no clock-out. Hours unknown — his gross below excludes that shift entirely. What did he actually work? ``` --- ## Gotcha: breaks deducted twice, or not at all **Why it matters:** Half an hour a day across five people for two weeks is 25 hours. On an uploaded sheet you cannot tell by looking whether lunch is already netted out. ### Bad Assume the uploaded sheet's hours are gross and subtract 30 minutes a day. ### Good Ask once: "Does this sheet already take out lunch, or should I?" Then apply it consistently and say which way you went in the run sheet. --- ## Gotcha: estimating employer taxes **Why it matters:** The owner uses the total to decide whether payroll clears. A percentage-of-gross estimate looks precise and can be off by hundreds, which is exactly the margin that matters when cash is tight. ### Bad ``` Employer taxes (est. 8.25%) USD 812.00 Total cash USD 10,652.00 ``` ### Good ``` Employer taxes not available — no payroll provider connected Gross wages USD 9,840.00 You will need gross plus your usual employer share in the account by the 20th. ``` --- ## Gotcha: silently accepting a rate change **Why it matters:** A rate that moved is either a raise the owner gave or a data error. Both are common. Running on it without asking pays the wrong amount either way, and pay corrections are miserable to unwind. ### Bad Read USD 32.00 from the record, use it, mention nothing. ### Good ``` Luis reads USD 32.00 this period, USD 29.50 last. That is USD 100 a week. Raise, or a bad entry? ``` --- ## Gotcha: batching the flag review **Why it matters:** "Three flags, all look minor, proceed?" gets a yes. Each flag asked separately gets a real answer, because the owner is thinking about one person at a time. ### Bad ``` 3 anomalies found. Review and confirm to proceed. ``` ### Good Three separate questions, each naming the person, the day, and the dollars, answered one at a time and recorded. --- ## Gotcha: submitting the payroll **Why it matters:** Once direct deposit is submitted it is very hard to reverse, and the reversal itself is visible to the employee. The gap between staging and submitting is the last place an error can be caught for free. ### Bad Stage the run and submit it in Gusto because the owner said yes to the run sheet. ### Good Stage it, tell the owner it is ready in Gusto, and let them press submit. Say why: it is the last free chance to catch something. Same rule in QuickBooks Payroll. Having write access to a payroll system is not permission to run payroll, and the reversal there is no easier. --- ## Gotcha: the period that straddles month end **Why it matters:** A period ending the 31st with a pay date on the 4th sits in two months. Guess wrong and either the month's labor cost is understated or the cash lands in the wrong period. ### Bad Post the whole entry to the period end date because that is when the work happened. ### Good Ask once whether they accrue. Post cash to the pay date. If they accrue, split the wages; if they do not, do not invent accrual entries for books that have never had them. --- ## Gotcha: paying someone who is not on the roster **Why it matters:** A name appearing on a timesheet with no hire record is either a new person nobody set up or an error. Paying first and sorting it out later creates a tax and classification problem. ### Bad New name on the sheet, hours look normal, include them. ### Good ``` "D. Amara" appears on the sheet with 22 hours. No hire record. New apprentice, or a name I should be matching to someone? ``` --- ## Gotcha: allocating labor with an invented burden rate **Why it matters:** Every job margin in the business inherits that number. A guessed 22% loading makes them all wrong in the same direction, which is the hardest kind of error to notice. ### Bad Apply a standard burden multiplier so job costs look complete. ### Good Allocate raw wages, label them as raw, and ask the owner for their burden rate once. Then remember it.