Pay Cycle Setup & Management in ClickTime Australia | Payroll Frequency & Compliance

Manage Pay Cycles / Pay Periods

Overview

In ClickTime Australia, a pay cycle defines the recurring period used to calculate wages and determine pay dates. Whether your organisation pays staff weekly, fortnightly, or monthly, you can configure single or multiple pay cycles to suit different teams or departments. This guide explains how to create, edit, and delete pay cycles, move employees between cycles, and manage payroll recalculations — ensuring accurate, compliant, and timely wage processing.

What is Pay Cycle

A pay cycle is a time frame used to calculate earned wages and determine when employees receive their paychecks. Pay cycles are fixed and most often recurring on a weekly, bi-weekly or monthly basis.

Pay Period & Pay Date

The employee does not receive his or her check at the end of the pay period, but a number of days after it has concluded, which is known as the pay date

Single or Multiple Pay Cycles 

Depending on your organization's needs, the system allows you to create single or multiple pay cycles if you need to.
i f you are running a small company and all your staff get paid on the same payday and on the same pay period, then you can just create a single pay cycle.
if you are running a large company with multiple teams or departments and each team or dept have a different pay cycle, you can create multiple pay cycle, where each pay cycle have different start and end dates. For example, you might have a certain team that gets paid on a weekly basis and some other team that gets paid fortnightly.

Setup and Add Pay Cycle

Depending on your organization's needs, the system allows you to create single or multiple pay cycles if you need to
To add and create a new pay cycle:
  1. Go to:   Setting > Payroll Setting > Pay Cycle
  2. Click on the button +Add New
  3. Fill up the Pay Cycle details
  4. it might a good practice to name your pay cycle based on your pay frequency (Weekly, Fortnightly or monthly)

                     


Deleting a pay period

Head back to Setting > Payroll > Pay Cycle to delete a pay cycle. Tip the delete button will only appear for pay cycles with no employees assigned, and no timesheets are using this pay period.


Employee payroll changes and pay cycles

All changes made to employee payroll settings are affected by the pay cycle. If you are changing employee employment contracts, base rate, pay template, pay cycle, overtime template or weekly ordinary hours, you will need to decide if those changes should go into effect from the current pay cycle forwards, or from the next pay cycle forwards.  No changes can be made to these details for a previous pay cycle.

Moving staff to a different pay cycle

Pay cycles are fixed and cannot be changed. New pay cycles can be created and employees can be moved to a new pay cycle. To move a staff member to a new pay cycle, wait until the current pay cycle has been finalised.  (Do not move them until the first day of the new pay cycle.)
Moving employees' mid pay cycle will add them to the new one, but they will no longer be part of the old pay cycle, meaning they will not appear in reporting for that period and will not get paid.

Pay Factors & Recalculation

There are certain changes that will affect employee pay such as employee base rate, work schedule, pay template, weekly ordinary hours, overtime template and pay cycle. These items can be changed from the current pay cycle forwards or the next pay cycle forwards.

Changing any of the above-mentioned pay fields or factors on the current pay cycle will tag the employee record to be recalculated. 
the system will display a recalculate button on the Payroll export screen and also on the Paysheet screen. 


Handling Hours Worked on the Last Day of the Pay Cycle

ClickTime have a specific approach to handling hours worked by employees whose shifts span from the last day of the pay cycle into the next pay cycle. Here’s how it works:

  • Shift Spanning Pay Cycles: When an employee’s shift starts on the last day of the pay cycle and continues into the next pay cycle, our software considers all hours worked during this shift as part of the current pay cycle.
  • Current Pay Cycle Inclusion: This means that even if the shift extends into the next pay cycle, the hours worked will be attributed to the current pay cycle. This ensures that employees are compensated accurately and promptly for their work.
  • Example: If an employee’s shift starts at 10 PM on the last day of the pay cycle and ends at 6 AM the next day, all 8 hours will be included in the current pay cycle.
  • Benefits: This approach simplifies payroll processing and ensures that employees receive their wages without delay, maintaining consistency and fairness in payroll management.









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