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Run payroll with SafeShift: from pay period to paid
Pick the period, clear what needs fixing, add bonuses or corrections, approve & lock, adjust the pay instruction if you must, then submit it to SafeShift Payroll and our team runs it — or mark it paid if you pay through your own provider.
Show transcript
Running payroll in SafeShift takes four steps: pick the period, check the numbers, lock the run, and send it. Open Payroll Run. Pick the pay period. The cards at the top add it up: gross pay, hours, overtime, premiums, card tips, and how many people. Under the cards, SafeShift lists anything to deal with. Fix required means you cannot approve yet, for example a shift that is still clocked in. Review means take a look, like a pay rate under minimum wage. FYI is just information.
This period is clean. Nothing blocks approval. Tip distribution shows how the period's tips were split under your tip policy, day by day and person by person. Need to add money that did not come from punches? Click Add earning. Pick the person, the type, retro pay, commission, a bonus or a correction, then the amount and the date it was earned.
Saved. It shows under Other earnings and in the person's row. A bonus has two switches. Earned or promised means it counts toward overtime, so SafeShift reprices the week. A discretionary gift does not. If the bonus covers more than this period, tick the box. That opens the Bonus True-Up tool. It recalculates the regular rate for every week the bonus covers, the way California requires, and queues exactly the difference. So you never underpay overtime on a bonus.
Export has what your provider needs: the ADP RUN import file, a detail CSV, a PDF summary, the tip statement, and the W-2 memo. Approve and lock when you are ready to pay. If punches changed since the draft, SafeShift shows what changed and offers the new numbers. Once locked, the run never changes. Later fixes pay on the next run.
After locking, this grid is your pay instruction: what you actually pay, one row per person. The Gross column on the right is the number each person gets. As paid at the top is the whole payroll. You can still change a cell, hours or dollars. SafeShift keeps its own number in grey beside yours, so both stay on record. Add a pay line for anything the system did not know about. Here, two hours of paid sick leave for Daniel, priced at his rate.
Every edit shows its difference, and the totals read as paid against computed. Save. Now send it. Submit to SafeShift Payroll. Where your numbers differ from SafeShift's, you confirm that the difference is your decision. Our payroll team then runs these exact amounts. Submitted, version one, two edits. The period is closed.
Payroll → Payroll Run computes gross pay for a pay period from the punches, your break rules and your tip policy: regular, overtime and double time, break premiums at the regular rate, split-shift premiums, tips and other earnings. No taxes or money movement — the run is the pay record you (or SafeShift's payroll team) pay from. The video above walks one period through in plain steps: the checks, an added earning, approve & lock, a post-lock edit, and submitting to SafeShift Payroll.
- 1
Pick the pay period
The period list follows your pay schedule (Pay Schedule sets frequency, payday and the anchor date). Runs are per location — each has its own calendar and payroll provider. The cards above the table total the period: gross, regular / OT / DT hours, premiums, card tips, headcount.
- 2
Clear what needs fixing
Three kinds of item sit between the cards and the table. Fix required blocks approval: a shift still clocked in, an employee without a pay rate, house tips entered under a policy that cannot pool them, overlapping shifts. Review is worth a look but never blocks — a pay rate below minimum wage, a role missing from the tip policy, a meal attested but not punched. FYI is informational, like certifications not yet signed. Each row names the people and links to the fix; once every blocker is resolved the heading reads *Worth a look before you approve*.
- 3
Add bonuses, commissions and corrections
Other earnings → + Add earning: the person, the type (bonus, commission, retro pay, corrections), the amount, the date earned and a note. An *earned or promised* bonus counts toward overtime, so the preview reprices the week's regular rate and break premiums; a *discretionary gift* does not. A bonus that covers more than this pay period (monthly, quarterly, annual) gets the checkbox — SafeShift's Bonus True-Up tool then recomputes the regular rate for every week the bonus covers, the way California requires, and queues exactly the difference. See *Adding bonuses, commissions and corrections* and the *Bonus True-Up tool* guides.
- 4
Check the tips
Tip distribution — period totals expands the split under your tip policy: pooled tips by day and who received them. Declared cash tips are reported, never paid twice. Adjust declarations or the split on Tip Management, and the draft reprices.
- 5
Approve & lock
Approve when you are committing to these amounts — typically on payday, right before you pay. The run becomes a permanent record: every export renders exactly these figures, and it can never be edited. Punch fixes or earnings added later pay as prior-period corrections on the next run. If the punch data changed since the draft, SafeShift shows the per-employee diff before you approve. Need to recompute instead? Void the run with a reason and run the period again.
- 6
Adjust the pay instruction if you must
After locking you still have the last word. The Pay instruction grid is what you actually pay, one row per person. **The Gross column on the right is the number each person is paid for the period, and *As paid* above the grid is the whole payroll. Edit hours or dollar amounts inline, or Adjust this payment to add a line (sick leave, PTO, a premium, a correction) priced at the person's rate. A bonus or commission is a real earning: it goes under Other earnings** and pays on the next run. SafeShift's computed record stays in grey beside every edit and is never changed; the totals read *as paid* against *computed*. Details in *Editing pay after a run is locked*.
- 7
Submit to SafeShift Payroll — or mark as paid
On an account where SafeShift's payroll team runs payroll for you, click Submit to SafeShift Payroll: the run lands in our team's queue, we run these exact amounts, and the page shows *Submitted to SafeShift Payroll* with the version and the number of edits. Where your instruction differs from the computed record, you confirm in the dialog that the difference is your company's decision and responsibility — both records are kept. Once our team has run the batch, the run is final — a later punch fix or earning pays as a prior-period correction on the next run. If you pay through your own provider instead, the same button reads Mark as paid and simply closes the period. Export is there either way — the ADP RUN import file, a detail CSV, a PDF summary, the tip statement and the W-2 memo for qualified overtime and tips.
Good to know
- Payroll runs are in private beta — if the Payroll Run page shows the beta card, ask support to enable it. Tip Management, Sick Leave, PTO and the Pay Schedule work for every account.
- Approve only once you are ready to pay. Voiding is explicit and reasoned; corrections unwind newest-first, so a run that later runs reference cannot be voided.
- The ADP RUN import file exports from the locked numbers; draft exports are watermarked DRAFT.
If something goes wrong
Why does my button say Mark as paid, not Submit to SafeShift Payroll?
Because SafeShift's payroll team does not run payroll for this run's location. On an account we do run, that happens while a location's payroll offer is pending or its activation did not complete — the run page says so, and our team is not notified when you mark it paid. Both are the same door: once the location is in managed payroll, the button submits the run to our queue instead of only closing the period.
I marked a run paid and then found a punch error. What now?
Fix the punch on the Clock Station or the Time Entries report. The locked run never changes; the difference pays as a prior-period correction on the next run, with the audit trail pointing at the edit.