Running Your First Pay Run
The checklist version — what must exist before the first run, then the run itself.
Before you create anything
| Check | Where |
|---|---|
| Payroll country set (this selects your tax engine) | Account settings |
| Employment levels exist, with overtime thresholds and payslip settings per level | Payroll configuration |
| Pay codes created (regular, overtime, holiday, leave types) with tax switches reviewed | Payroll configuration |
| A payroll group with the right frequency and pay-date rule | Payroll Groups |
| Every employee has: compensation, pay frequency, tax identifiers, an active bank account | Employee Profiles |
| Hourly staff have timesheets for the period; approved leave is on them | Timesheets |
The run
- Create Pay Run → Create On Cycle, pick your payroll group, set the period and pay date. Read the coverage panel — the included/excluded counts should match your headcount expectations exactly. (Pay Runs)
- Let it calculate, then open the Issues panel and clear every flag. First runs surface data gaps — missing tax IDs and bank accounts mostly. Fix on the profile, recalculate.
- Spot-check three employees end to end in Show Payroll User Details: one salaried, one hourly with overtime, one with a loan or unusual deduction. If those three are right, the pattern usually holds.
- Open Pre-Run Review. On a first run there's no previous run to compare against, so lean on the hygiene checks and the tax breakdown — sanity-check the statutory totals against what you paid under your old system.
- Approve, then Publish. Payslips go out; year-to-date totals start accumulating from here.
- Export the bank file, upload it to your bank, and pull the accounting export for your books.
Parallel-run your first month
Run TriblockHR alongside your old payroll for at least one cycle and reconcile gross, statutory, and net per employee before going live alone. Differences are almost always configuration (tax switches, thresholds, rounding) — much easier to fix before employees are paid from the new numbers.
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First pay run, start to finish (8–10 min)
The implementation video: walk the readiness checklist quickly, then the full run on a 10-employee demo account — including hitting a missing-NIB flag and fixing it — through approve, publish, bank file, and accounting export. This is the video to send every new customer at go-live.
Save as: how-to__first-pay-run__vid1.mp4