Payroll · Daily operations · 8 min read

Manual inputs, adjustments and eligibility

Enter one-off pay amounts with a second approver, handle HR corrections to frozen periods, and check who can be paid.

Before you begin

• A pay period exists for the employee's group.
• You hold payroll.prepare to enter inputs. A different person with payroll.approve decides them.

Steps

Enter a manual input

1. Go to Payroll > Pay inputs > Manual inputs and click New input.
2. Choose the Employee and the Period.
3. Enter the Element code, for example BONUS. If an approved package is in force for the period, the element must be in it: 'The rule package DEMO-AE v1 has no element XMAS.'
4. Enter the Amount, more than zero.
5. Enter a Source reference that is unique, or leave it empty for a system id. The company can make it Required or Hidden.
6. Save. The status is Pending.

Approve or reject

1. Another user with payroll.approve opens the input and clicks Approve or Reject.
2. Only a pending input that no run has taken can be decided.

Review HR adjustments

When HR changes a period that payroll has already frozen, for example late approved unpaid leave, the change is queued under Payroll > Pay inputs > Adjustments with its price. Filter by All, Queued, In a run or Void.

To cancel one, click Void adjustment, enter a reason of at least 5 characters, and confirm. Needs payroll.approve, and only while Queued.

Check eligibility

1. Go to Payroll > Pay inputs > Eligibility and click Check eligibility.
2. Read the Why not column for Blocked people. Reasons include not activated, has left, no active contract, no bank account, invalid IBAN, no pay group, and ambiguous pay group.

What happens next

• Freezing a run takes the approved inputs of the period. A pending input is left out with an exception: 'Input <id> (BONUS 1500) is excluded: input is pending, not approved.'
• Example: an approved BONUS of AED 1,500 adds 1,500.00 to the employee's earnings, and a percent-of-gross deduction then applies to the higher gross.
• A queued adjustment is paid in the next regular run with a later period, as a separate line and a review exception: 'Supplemental adjustment for period 2026-09: ... Review before approving.' Example: 2 extra unpaid days for someone on 15,000 a month is priced at -(15,000 / 30 x 2) = -1,000.00. The original run is not changed.
• If the package has no retro elements, the adjustment shows Cannot price and the employee is held back with a blocking exception until it is fixed or voided.

Good to know

• 'A pay input is approved by somebody other than whoever entered it.'
• 'An input needs an amount, or a quantity and a rate.' for zero; negative amounts are refused.
• The same source and version cannot be entered twice: 'The source manual:BONUS-2026-09-A (version 1) is already recorded as input <id> (pending). It cannot be paid twice.'
• 'This input is already approved.' when deciding twice.
• Only a queued adjustment can be voided: 'Only a queued adjustment can be voided; this one is consumed.'
• The employee list on the input dialog comes from HR. A payroll user without HR access may see an empty list.
• Turning the Pay adjustments feature off hides the Adjustments menu and refuses voiding.