Paying Your Employees

Paying your employees might not seem very complicated, however there is a lot involved in making sure that the amounts you pay your employees each payday are correct. The following are issues to take into account when paying your employees:

Making deductions from pay. The complex federal and state laws that control how deductions from an employee’s paycheck are made.
Docking pay. The rules regarding reducing an employee’s pay to recoup expenses due to breakage, spillage, cash register shortage, and the like.
Garnishing wages. Your responsibilities when a garnishment is made against an employee’s wages. The order generally will have arisen from a legal proceeding filed by someone to whom your employee owes money.
How often must you pay employees? While federal law doesn't regulate how frequently you must pay your employees, most states have rules regarding how often employers pay wages.
Establishing a pay period. Selecting a pay period that makes it easy to withhold the proper amount of taxes for designated payroll periods.
Calculating employee hours worked. Determining how many hours each employee works each pay period to ensure that you pay each the proper amount and to ensure that you are complying with both minimum wage and overtime rules.
Tracking hours worked. Establishing a reliable system for keeping track of your employees’ hours to pay them properly and to ensure compliance with wage and hour laws.