Irregular Salary

How do I handle employees who get an irregular salary?

An employee gets an irregular salary if they aren't being paid by the hour or some other time period, and don't get the same wage amount each pay period. You may call it a "draw" rather than a salary.

That can happen in any of the following cases:

  • When you give employees a "daily salary" per days worked, with different days worked in each period
  • If you calculate wages based on a formula of some kind that can't be handled as piece work
  • If the employee is paid by profit sharing or some other method that produces an irregular amount

HINT-- Other ways to pay irregularly are via an Owner Draw, or a Commission

To set up an employee to get an irregular salary, follow these steps:

  1. Choose Payroll Setup from the Costs menu, and choose Wage Schedules from the submenu.
  2. Click the New button.
  3. Enter Irregular Draw into the Wage Type popup field. NOTE-- If the employee is a business owner, choose Owner Draw instead.
  4. Enter a name, the pay period, payday, and other details for the wage.
  5. Click OK, then click Close.
  6. Choose Employees from the Accounts menu.
  7. Locate the employee who gets the irregular salary.
  8. Enter the new schedule into the Wage Schedule field.
  9. Hit the Enter key to save the record.

To pay an employee with an irregular salary, follow these steps:

  1. Enter the hours that the employee worked. It will be used for job costing and T&M billing.
  2. Choose Write Payroll from the Bank menu.
  3. Double click on the Employee name. You'll see an itemized breakdown of hours worked.
  4. Click in the Pay Now column, and type in the actual amount of pay for this period.
  5. Click OK.

HINT-- It is usually more accurate for job costing, if you can pay by the hour! That way the cost of labor is allocated to the actual work done, each week.

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