Check date vs. distribution date

HRQ

I want to distribute paychecks dated 6/30 on 7/1. The company does not offer Direct Deposit.

Is there anything wrong with distributing checks the day AFTER the check date?

We are transitioning a company from semi-monthly payroll (5th & 20th) to bi-weekly payroll (every other Friday), and the paydate in question is an abbreviated pay period of 7 workdays. If we weren't changing, the normal paydate would have been 7/5 with a full semi-monthly pay period.

Hope that all makes sense... Thanks in advance for your help!

Shadowfax

I don't see any problem. Is there something specific about which you were worried?

HRinFL

Our payroll is centralized. Due to the size of the company, we cut checks several days before they are released to ees. On the check it has the date the check was printed and the date it is to be issued.

As far as I know, the only thing that matters is that you communicate pay periods and that the checks are available to ees on that day. We pay mosts ees weekly, in our handbook it identifies the day of the week that checks are issued. During orientation we identify where, when, and who to see for ees to picl up their checks. If we have to issue paychecks on another day than is identified in our policy, we send various forms of communication to ees alerting hem of the change and the reason for it (i.e. week contained a holiday, etc.). Hope this helps.

HRQ

Thanks for your answers!

When I asked the payroll person to do it, she said she thought it was illegal to distribute checks later than the date on the check, so I thought I'd check with my Forum friends.

Effective 7/1, we are changing from outsourced payroll to inhouse payroll for one company as well as transitioning the other company's semi-monthly payroll at their "old" corp office to to bi-weekly AND bringing it over to my office.

To ease the transition, I asked the other company's payroll person to move a paydate earlier.

The normal lag between end of pay period and paydate is 5 days. In this case, the check would be cut after 4, and distributed after 5.

I'm stuffing a letter and pay calendar in their payroll envelopes today so they have more than a month's notice of the change in paydates.

Thanks again!

marc

I don't think it is illegal.

You can get into timing issues with respect to quarterly reports, payment of withholding taxes, etc, especially at the end of a quarter.

The other time this is an issue is at the end of the calendar year. Technically, the payroll is taxable to the EE on the date it is in their control, which would be the date of issue. If the checks were dated 12/31 - the W-2s would treat them as received by 12/31, but if the EEs did not get them until the next day - they are in effect being taxed in the wrong year. Slim possibility and technical at that, but still not illegal, just needlessly confusing.