Payroll Processing App Overview

Payroll Processing

1. What it is

Payroll Processing turns approved timesheets into per-employee gross-pay reports — regular hours, overtime, and shift-differential premium pay — for any pay period you choose. Reports export to CSV, PDF, or JSON so you can feed them into your payroll system or keep them as an internal record.

• Enablement: Payroll Processing is a licensed app. An admin enables it from the Apps Marketplace; it is not turned on by default.
• What it is not: This is a gross-pay engine, not a full payroll processor. It does not calculate tax withholding, net pay, direct deposit, or file tax forms. If you already run payroll through ADP, Gusto, Workday, or another provider, use Payroll Connect instead — that app bridges MangoApps to your existing provider.

2. Standing it up

1. Go to Apps → Apps Marketplace and enable Payroll Processing. The app requires a license and is not visible in the public app directory — it appears only for businesses that have it explicitly licensed.
2. Configure pay periods. Go to Admin → General Settings → Payroll Settings. Choose a pay period type (Weekly, Bi-weekly, Semi-monthly, or Monthly) and set the pay day offset — the number of days after a period ends when payment is processed. These settings are shared with Timesheets and Attendance and live outside any single app.
3. Verify employee hourly rates. Payroll Processing reads each employee’s hourly rate from their employee record. If no rate is set, the report line shows a zero rate — making the gap visible rather than using an invented default. Set rates in the employee’s compensation record before generating reports.
4. Ensure timesheets are approved. The report engine only picks up timesheets with an Approved status whose date range overlaps the report’s pay period. Pending or rejected timesheets are excluded — approve them first.
5. Grant access. Admins see all reports by default. Managers and users with the Payroll permission (granted through the hierarchical permission system) see only the reports and employees in locations they have access to. App-admin delegates can manage Payroll Processing settings without holding a global admin role.
6. (Optional) Enable the Payroll Agent. Go to Apps → Payroll → Settings and turn on Enable Payroll Agent. This lets employees ask the AI assistant about their own pay history, year-to-date earnings, and pay schedule via Ask AI. The agent is enabled by default when the app is set up, but it is automatically disabled if the Hide Pay Amounts policy is on.

Silent-until-paired: The app is enabled, but pay periods are not configured. The report form defaults to the current calendar month if no pay period settings exist — reports will still generate, but the pay-period alignment that the Pay Periods dropdown offers will be missing until you configure them in General Settings.

Timesheets must be enabled. Payroll Processing reads from approved timesheets. If the Timesheets app is not enabled for the business, there is no data source and the Payroll Agent will also be unavailable.

3. How it fits together

Approved timesheets are the only input. Payroll Processing does not read raw clock punches or shift assignments directly. It reads timesheets that have been submitted and approved in the Timesheets app. If an employee’s hours are not on an approved timesheet for the period, they will not appear on the report. This is the most common reason for a “missing employee” on a report — the timesheet exists but has not been approved yet.

Overtime is a weekly threshold, not a period-wide total. Hours are bucketed per 7-day week inside each timesheet, and only hours above the weekly overtime threshold count as overtime. The default threshold is 40 hours per week. The overtime multiplier defaults to 1.5×. Both values are set on the business and apply organization-wide to all reports.

This distinction matters for bi-weekly and semi-monthly periods: two 38-hour weeks in a bi-weekly period produce zero overtime even though the period total is 76 hours. Overtime is always evaluated per week, not per period.

Premium pay tracks shift-differential codes. If employees earn shift-differential premiums (night, weekend, holiday, or custom codes defined in your scheduling setup), the report itemizes premium hours and premium pay per code on each employee’s line. Total pay on every line is Regular + Overtime + Premium. The premium breakdown exports in CSV as a pipe-delimited list (e.g. NIGHT_DIFF:4.5h/$67.50|WKND:8h/$56.00).

Hourly rate comes from the employee record. The report reads each employee’s compensation rate from their employee record at the time the report runs. If no rate is set, the line shows a zero rate and zero pay — this makes missing data visible to the admin rather than substituting an invented default. Set rates before generating reports.

Pay amounts are sensitive data. Viewing or downloading a report requires step-up identity verification (a 15-minute window after re-authenticating). Every view and download is audit-logged. If the business-wide Hide Pay Amounts setting is on, non-admin users see only hours — and export is blocked entirely for those users, since every export format includes pay figures.

Leave data is optional. When generating a report, you can choose to include leave balances. When included, each employee’s line shows their current leave balance, leave days used during the period, and unpaid leave hours (the portion of leave not covered by PTO, prorated to the pay period). This helps payroll teams identify shortfalls before processing payment.

Payroll Processing vs Payroll Connect: These are two separate apps. Payroll Processing generates gross-pay reports internally. Payroll Connect syncs employees, timesheets, paychecks, and compensation changes with an external payroll provider (ADP, Gusto, Workday, BambooHR, Paychex, or MangoPay). They can be used together — generate reports here, then feed to a provider through Payroll Connect — or independently.

4. Running it

Generating a report

1. Go to Apps → Payroll and click Generate Payroll Report.
2. Choose a date range. The Pay Periods dropdown offers the current and next period based on your pay period settings — select one, or enter custom dates.
3. Optionally filter by Locations, Departments, or specific Employees to scope the report.
4. Choose whether to include leave balances in the report.
5. Choose an Export Format: CSV, PDF, or JSON.
6. Give the report a name or leave it blank — a default name is generated from the date range (e.g. “Payroll Report 08/01/2026 - 08/15/2026”).
7. Click Generate. The report processes immediately and the result appears on screen.

Non-admin users can only include locations they have permission to view. Attempting to include a location outside their access is blocked with an error.

Reviewing a report

The report detail page shows summary tiles — total regular hours, overtime hours, premium hours, and total pay — plus a cost breakdown chart. Below the summary is a per-employee table with hourly rate, regular/overtime/premium hours, and the corresponding pay columns. If leave balances were included at generation time, leave balance, leave used, and unpaid leave hours appear on each line as well.

Non-admin users (managers, payroll-permission holders) see only employees in locations they have access to. If the Hide Pay Amounts policy is active, pay columns are hidden and only hours are visible.

Use the employee search field to filter the list by name or email. Results are paginated at 25 employees per page.

Downloading and exporting

Click Download on a completed report. The file is generated in the format you chose at creation time (CSV, PDF, or JSON). The export includes all columns: employee name, email, hourly rate, regular/overtime/premium hours, pay amounts, shift-differential breakdown, shift count, and leave data if included.

If the Hide Pay Amounts policy is active and you are not an admin, the download is blocked with an explanation — every export format includes pay figures, so there is no hours-only export.

Regenerating a report

Completed or failed reports can be regenerated from the report detail page. Regeneration reprocesses the same date range and filters against current timesheet data — useful if timesheets were approved or corrected after the original run. Non-admin users can only regenerate reports they created, or reports scoped to locations they have access to.

Deleting a report

The report creator or an admin can delete a report from the report list. Deletion removes the report and all its line items permanently.

Email notifications

When a report finishes processing (either the initial generation or a regeneration), the person who generated it receives an email notification with a link to the report. This notification is controlled by the Payroll Report Ready Notifications toggle in Admin → Notification Settings.

5. Settings

Payroll Processing settings are split across two pages because pay periods and the pay-privacy flag are consumed by Timesheets, Attendance, and Scheduling as well.

App settings — Apps → Payroll → Settings

Setting	Default	What it changes
Enable Payroll Agent	On	When on, employees can ask the Payroll Agent about their own pay history, hours, overtime, year-to-date earnings, pay schedule, and benefit deductions via Ask AI. When off, the agent is hidden from Ask AI for all users.

Pay period settings — Admin → General Settings → Payroll Settings

Setting	Default	What it changes
Pay Period Type	Bi-weekly	The pay cycle: Weekly, Bi-weekly, Semi-monthly, or Monthly. Determines the default date ranges on the Generate Report form.
Pay Period Start Day	Monday	The day of the week pay periods begin (Weekly and Bi-weekly only).
Reference Start Date	(none)	A reference date to align weekly/bi-weekly cycles with your existing payroll calendar. Setting it auto-adjusts the start day.
Pay Period Dates	1, 15	The two monthly dates where semi-monthly periods begin.
Pay Day Offset	3 days	Days after a period ends when payment is processed. Used to compute the pay date shown on reports and in the Payroll Agent.
When pay day falls on a non-working day	Pay on the following business day	Shift the pay date to the next or previous business day when it lands on a weekend.
Adjust pay day around holidays	Off	When on, a pay day landing on a business holiday is also moved using the direction above.
Include Pending Leave	Off	When on, pending (not yet approved) leave requests are included in payroll calculations.
Hide Pay Amounts	Off	Hides pay amounts from non-admin users across the platform — they see only hours and the next payday. Blocks non-admin payroll report downloads. Also disables the Payroll Agent for the entire business.

Business-level overtime settings

Setting	Default	What it changes
Weekly overtime threshold	40 hours	Hours worked above this in a single week count as overtime on the report.
Overtime multiplier	1.5×	The rate multiplier applied to overtime hours when calculating overtime pay.

Filtering the report list

The Apps → Payroll landing page lists all previously generated reports, newest first, paginated 10 per page. Use the filter bar to narrow by:

• Location — show only reports that include a specific location.
• Pay Period Start and Pay Period End — show only reports whose period falls within these dates.

Click Clear to reset all filters.

6. More help

• Payroll Processing FAQ — specific questions about report generation, overtime calculations, and export formats.
• Time & Attendance App Overview — the attendance system that feeds timesheets into payroll.
• Shifts & Scheduling App Overview — shift assignments and premium types that drive premium-pay calculations.
• Ask AI — the Payroll Agent answers employees’ questions about their own pay, hours, and pay schedule from completed payroll reports. It can show recent pay periods, a full breakdown of one period, year-to-date totals, pay-period comparisons, benefit deductions, and the upcoming pay schedule.