If you’re new to payroll as an employer, making sure you calculate everything correctly might seem overwhelming at first. You’ve experienced payroll as an employee, but now you’re the one in control. You’re in charge of keeping up with changing tax laws, correctly classifying workers, and recordkeeping for compliance. The pay period section will showcase the period beginning and ending date, the total amount of hours worked, and the date the employee will receive payment. There are several different taxes typically displayed and taken out of your pay stubs.

The Social Security fund provides benefits to current Social Security recipients. They may also show other employee information such as the amount of vacation time owed or used. Pay stubs are also known as payslips, paycheck stubs, or pay advice. When you start a new job or want to change the amount of tax that is withheld from your paycheck, you will need to fill out a W-4 Form. This will tell your employer how much money to deduct from your check for taxes and benefit contributions. Pay stubs include the details of each pay period’s wages including the following, depending on your personal circumstances.

Income Pay Stub Abbreviations

The following taxes and deductions are what you can expect to see on your paycheck, explained in detail below. Employees can receive a physical document handed to them in person or via post. They can also access paystubs online through a secure payroll system where employees can download or print off their digital paystubs.

Intuit Inc. does not warrant that the material contained herein will continue to be accurate nor that it is completely free of errors when published. Your pay stub should always show any period when employees were paid while taking time off. This is important for both employers and employees in case there is a dispute with the payment amount. A pay stub should accurately determine an employee’s pay within a payroll period.

What Pay Stub Deductions & Taxes Mean for Your Net Pay

How you calculate the employee’s gross wages depends on if they are hourly or salaried. For hourly workers, multiply the employee’s hourly pay rate by the number of hours worked in the pay period. To find a salaried worker’s gross pay, divide their annual salary by the number of pay periods in the year.

• As a small business owner, you can foster trust with your team by ensuring that your employees can access pay stubs with accurate information about the current pay period.
• If an amount seems unusually high or low, you can catch errors early to avoid IRS penalties and conflicts with employees.
• Employees can receive a physical document handed to them in person or via post.
• On the pay stub, create a separate line for each tax and show the amount withheld for the current pay period and year-to-date.
• Data from state-level studies show that between 10% to 20% of employers misclassify workers as independent contractors.

Every day, employers pay steep fines for making honest mistakes. They accidentally deduct a uniform cost from the wrong employee’s pay. They follow federal regulations to the letter but overlook obscure state rules. At Horizons we work closely with companies to ensure that they are staying compliant with international labor and tax laws, particularly relating pay stubs meaning to payroll, taxes and holiday bonuses. Horizons is a global PEO (“Professional Employer Organization”) which means we act as the ’employer of record’ of our clients’ international employees. This means that we are responsible for payroll and taxes for those employees, and therefore you will always be compliant with varying international laws and regulations.

Pay Your People Confidently.

Nothing makes employees happier ‌than being paid on time by an employer they trust. As a small business owner, you can foster trust with your team by ensuring that your employees can access pay stubs with accurate information about the current pay period. Employers save themselves the trouble of answering routine payroll calculation queries by giving their employees detailed pay stubs. Employers can also use the information on the pay stub to resolve any disputes or confusion that may arise with regard to the payroll. Paycheck stubs are handy for the employer to fill out Form W-2 for each employee. Some states require that the employer give the employee pay stubs.

Many companies list codes on their paycheck specific to how they do business or the benefits they offer to employees. For example, some businesses may list health insurance as HS while others may call it HI. Unions, savings funds, pensions, organizations and companies all have their own codes too, any of which could appear on your paycheck, depending on your circumstances.

What Is a Pay Stub? Quick Facts for Employers

Taxes and other deductions are factored in to calculate the actual take-home or net pay. The information that goes into the calculation of the payout to the employee is detailed on a pay stub. This includes the allowances and deductions that are calculated and made on the gross pay amount.

• It’s important to ensure that this information is correct, but not enough people make an effort to do so.
• These deductions can vary depending on your own personal financial situation.
• The Social Security fund provides benefits to current Social Security recipients.
• They are useful to help avoid any confusion or disputes regarding pay as they clearly outline where percentages of the wage are being deducted and why.
• All the information on your pay stub is important to insure you are being compensated correctly.