Using the Payroll reports

Only HR Admins can access this report. To access the report:

1. Click Reports in the main navigation bar
2. Visit the Payroll tab

Payroll reports are designed for regular use (every pay cycle) to provide an overview of recent changes in Workable HR. An HR Admin creates and customizes the report, saves it, and then accesses it each pay cycle to generate a CSV export of all data needed for the payroll provider.

Default payroll report

The Default payroll report is a "template" that payroll managers use to view, filter, and export data (to CSV) for submission to their payroll provider for processing payroll. You can adjust the time filter of the report to the pay cycle you wish to monitor changes for (e.g., weekly, bi-weekly, semi-monthly, monthly).

Each line output of the Default payroll report constitutes either a new hire, a profile update, or an approved time-off request for the current month. More specifically:

Employee profile updates (including new hires)

The Default payroll report will track any profile changes on the following fields: 

• Employee name 
• Employee ID
• Address
• Pay rate
• Effective date
• Pay type

Only the new field values will be provided, as this is what payroll needs. If you wish to view both the previous and new values of an updated field, then you can use the Profile Updates report as an audit log. For new hires, there will be a new line for each new hire with all their data fields (a new hire counts as an update by default).

You can customize your data columns as explained below.

Time-off requests

The Default payroll report will track any approved time-off requests for the specified time range capturing the following fields:

• Time-off type
• Time-off start date
• Time-off end date
• Time-off amount
• Time-off effective dates

Filtering and sorting

Use the filter options to narrow down the report data by time-off type, department, and entity/location (you can select more than one at a time). By default, only Active employees are shown. You can change this filter to include Draft employees or other employment status types.

You can also choose a past date in the date picker to see how balances looked at a specific point in time. The default date filter is set to 'As of today'.

Advanced filtering is available across all table columns, using the format [filter] [operator] [value]. This allows you to build precise queries — for example, fetching balances greater than 5 days by filtering on the Amount column.

Most columns are sortable. Select a column header to sort the table in ascending or descending order.

Saving and scheduling

The report can be saved (and give a descriptive name, e.g., UK Payroll - Full time) and scheduled. Saved reports are listed under the Custom reports section of the Employee Management tab. When saving, your column selection, order, applied filters, and sorting preferences are all preserved. 

To set up a schedule, open a saved report and select the schedule option from the report actions. Scheduled reports are delivered to your email on the configured frequency.

Actions in custom payroll reports

Clicking on the tile of a custom payroll report you can view it and make edits, if needed. If you are editing an existing custom report, you can Save changes there or save them as a new custom report. From the three dots menu on the right of each custom report tile, you can also rename, duplicate, or delete a custom report.
 

Exporting

To export the report, select Download CSV. The export is processed asynchronously — once ready, a link will be sent to your email address. Export links are valid for 7 days. A maximum of 100,000 rows applies per CSV export.

FAQs

What if I don't want to capture some fields (e.g., address, time off related fields)?

In your custom report, untick the fields from the data columns and save your changes. That way, all employees who had an update for the removed fields during this pay cycle will not show up in the report (that is, if they did not have any other profile updates).

By removing all time-off-related fields, the report will not fetch any approved time-off requests.

Are new hires included in the payroll reports?

For new hires, each one will have a separate line with all their information. New hires are considered updates by default, so they will always be included in payroll reports.

How can I track employment terminations in the payroll reports?

To track terminations, you can include the 'Status' from the data columns so that every time this changes from active to inactive, you can count the terminations for a specific pay cycle.

How is this different from the "Profile updates” & “Time-off requests” reports?

The following features are included with the payroll reports but not with the other reports:

• Time-off requests are trimmed along with the time filter. For instance, a time-off request spanning from August 30 to September 2, 2024 (two days in total) will only appear as August 30-31 and will count as one day in the August pay cycle report.
• Only approved time-off requests are included.
• Customizable report and column names
• Data column reordering
• Extra filters (Employment types, Time-off types)
• Shows only the new value and does not provide a history of changes (changed from -> to)

Will the work email always appear in the report?

Because the payroll report is a changelog report, the work email will display a value only if it changed during that timespan; otherwise, it will be empty. You can use the employee ID as a unique identifier, if needed.