Processing payroll is one of the most essential tasks to help an organization operate smoothly. Grandd Central has a very intuitive and easy way for your to process your payroll.

Although the following steps are not all required, we highly recommend following them to avoid any errors.

First off, it's important to understand the Key Indicators that will help you understand how prepared your organization is to process payroll. Navigate to the Payroll tab and you'll see a row of individual graphs at the top.

At the Account level of the Hierarchy Navigation, you can view the status of your entire payroll preparation for the specified Pay Period. You will be able to view what percentage of your organization has approved timecards, been locked down, or exported. Changing your hierarchy navigation will narrow down the Key Indicators to hierarchy-specific items.

As you can see above, as employees and supervisors approve timecards the Key Indicators will change (if your organization implements approvals).

This step is very important because we do not allow payroll to be processed if there are missing punches on an employee's timecard. There are many other types of exceptions that you should review as well.

You can filter by any exception. For a full list of exceptions, read this guide. The most common exceptions are:

Go to the timecards tab and review the exceptions, follow this guide here if you need a brush up on how that is done.

You may find that sections of your organization are better at getting their exceptions and timecards cleared for payroll in a timely manner. If that is the case, you will want to lock down the completed hierarchies.

As your organization gets all the exceptions cleared up, you may want to lock down sections of your hierarchy. When a hierarchy item is locked for payroll there can be no changes made to the timecards. Any punches that are uploaded to the cloud will be held in a "suspense state" and will not be added to the timecard.

Follow these steps to lock down payroll:

1. In the Payroll tab, the last section is "Payroll by Hierarchy."

2. To lock down a section of the payroll, click the checkbox next to the hierarchy item and click the lock button that appears (shown below).

As you can see above, I have two hierarchy items and I just locked down one. Now, my Key Indicator for "Locked" has changed.

3. Continue to resolve exceptions hierarchy by hierarchy, locking them as you go, until you are 100% locked down.

4. Hover over the lock symbol to view who locked down the payroll and at what time.

Note: You can unlock payroll once it has been locked. Check the hierarchy item and click the unlock button that appears.

By now, you've reviewed timecards, resolved exceptions and have locked down your hierarchy. You may feel like you are in the clear and are ready to process your payroll. However, if you spend a few minutes doing the following checks, you can be even more confident that the payroll is accurate.

1. Payroll Hours Summary

2. Job Costing Summary

You have now reviewed and locked down timecards. You've done your checks and are confident in the accuracy of the payroll. Now, you can export your payroll!

This is done by the payroll tab in the bottom section "Payroll by Hierarchy" where you have been locking down your payroll. You can export all or sections of your hierarchy by selecting the check box and clicking the arrow "Export Payroll" (shown below).

When you click Export, you will see confirmation pop-ups. DO NOT disregard them. Sometimes they may warn you of missed payroll items that could affect your employee's pay. Heed the warnings!