From Approved Hours to Payroll-Ready File.
The payroll cycle is the workflow that turns approved hours into a payroll-ready file. The schedule already happened, the timesheet has been approved row by row, the leave ledger reflects every booking. Approval is what locks each row — there's no separate period to close. Open the Payroll Summary and it shows per-employee totals — hours, premiums, leave, deductions — calculated against the country's work rules without manual computation. Verify the exceptions (missing approvals, overtime tier hits, leave overlapping worked shifts), then export. No double-entry, no last-minute reconciliation, no evening spent rebuilding the month in Excel.
Four Steps. Most of It You've Already Done.
Step 1 happened during the cycle. The rest is reading off the numbers.
Approve the timesheet, row by row.
Manager confirms each row. Most rows go through clean; the flagged ones get the attention. Approving a row locks it for payroll — no further edits flow through without unapproving it first.
Open the Payroll Summary.
Per-employee totals: hours, premiums, leave taken, deductions, gross pay. The summary you'd otherwise be building in Excel, sliced by your payroll frequency.
Verify exceptions.
Anything flagged: missing approvals, overtime tier hits, leave overlapping with worked shifts. Last cross-check before export.
Export.
CSV, XLSX, or PDF — formats your payroll provider accepts. Send the file or share read-only access with your accountant.
Three Habits the Cycle Replaces.
Maintaining the parallel payroll sheet.
You stop reconciling Excel against the schedule against the timesheet. The summary is what you export, and it's already right.
Computing premiums by hand.
Sunday, night, overtime tiers — all calculated automatically per the work rule. You verify; you don't compute.
Chasing missing clock-outs the day before payroll.
Flags appear during the cycle, not the night before. Manager handles them as they arise instead of in a panic.