Setup Considerations: corrections

What this achieves

A finalised payroll run cannot be edited, so correcting a mistake means deciding how to make the employee whole rather than how to change history. This page covers that decision and its consequences before you are under time pressure making it.

Why finalised runs are immutable

Finalising locks every payslip and closes the pay period. That is deliberate: a payslip is a statement of what someone was paid on a date, and a document that can be rewritten afterwards is worth nothing to an auditor, a court, or the employee holding a copy.

The cost is that correction becomes forward-looking. Humavera never rewrites what was paid; it pays the difference.

Decision 1: does it need correcting before the pay date

This is the first question and it changes everything after it.

Option	Description
Caught before finalisation	Recalculate the run, or reject it back if it is already in review. Nothing has been paid and nothing is permanent.
Caught after finalisation	The payslip stands. The correction is a separate payment or a deduction in a later period.

Example: if Priya Raman spots an error in HC Corp UK Ltd’s March run while it is still in review, she rejects and recalculates. If she spots it after finalising, March stands and the fix lands elsewhere.

Decision 2: off-cycle run, or next regular period

Once a run is finalised, you choose how urgently the difference reaches the employee.

Option	Description
Off-cycle run	An ad-hoc run on its own period, outside the regular calendar. The employee is paid now. Use it when someone has been materially underpaid.
Next regular period	The difference is carried into the next scheduled run. Simpler and cheaper, and acceptable for small amounts.

The test is whether the employee is out of pocket. Someone underpaid a significant amount should not wait a month; a small rounding difference does not warrant its own payment run and bank file.

Example: an HC Corp UK Ltd employee whose allowance was missed entirely gets an off-cycle run. One whose allowance was a few pounds short waits for the next period.

Decision 3: who carries the overpayment problem

Underpayment and overpayment are not symmetrical. An underpayment is corrected by paying more. An overpayment means recovering money the employee has already received and may have spent, which is governed by employment law and often by an agreement with the employee.

Settle your policy before it happens: whether recovery is spread over periods, whether there is a threshold below which you write it off, and who authorises that.

Decision 4: what the correction does to your reporting

A correction paid in a later period appears in that period’s figures, not the one it relates to. Anyone comparing periods, or reconciling a month against your accounting, sees a discrepancy that is entirely correct and entirely confusing without an explanation.

Use the off-cycle run’s Label to say what a run is for, so the reason survives.

Example: labelling a run June correction means the entry still explains itself when someone reconciles the quarter months later.

What is expensive to get wrong

Decision	Cost
Finalising before checking	High. It is the point after which nothing can be edited.
Loan installments on an off-cycle run	Medium. A one-off run should not usually take a monthly installment as well — the option is off by default for that reason.
Correcting silently, with no label or note	Medium. The money is right and nobody can explain it later.
Recovering an overpayment without an agreed policy	High. It is a legal and employee-relations issue, not a payroll one.

What happens next

If you are correcting now, an off-cycle run is the mechanism. If you are correcting in the next period, the adjustment goes in as an input to that run. Either way the original payslip stays as issued, and the correction is visible as its own event.