Payroll cutoff settings

Set the payroll cutoff day and time, choose what happens when it lands on a weekend, and understand the legacy schedule that applies before you save, plus what saving does to the reports you download.

The payroll cutoff is the moment each month that decides which approved expenses land in the current report and which roll into the next one, and when that month's report unlocks for download. HR users set it on the Payroll settings page, choosing a day of the month, a time, and what to do when the cutoff lands on a weekend. This article walks through each field, the weekend options, the preview, the legacy schedule that applies before you save anything, and what saving does to the reports you download.

Open Payroll settings

Payroll settings is part of the HR area and is only visible to HR users.

• Go to Settings in the HR menu, then open Payroll settings (the page lives at /hr/settings/payroll).
• If you are not an HR user, the page is not available and you are returned to your dashboard.

Under the heading, a short line says what the page is for: "When each month's expenses and benefits are locked and sent to payroll." Everything you set is in one card, Payroll cutoff, which sums up the rule: "Anything approved before the cutoff goes into that month's payroll. Anything approved after waits for the next month."

Set the cutoff day and time

Two fields together define the cutoff moment:

• Day of the month: the day the cutoff occurs, picked from a list that starts with Last day of the month and then runs from 30 down to 1. A numbered day is followed by "of every month".
• Time: the hour and minute, in one field, for example 12:00. The hint under it reads "Swedish time."

For example, day 7 at 12:00 sets the cutoff to the 7th of each month at 12:00.

The cutoff splits approved expenses between two monthly reports:

• Expenses completed before the cutoff are included in that month's payroll report.
• Expenses completed at or after the cutoff roll into the next month's report.

So with a cutoff of the 7th at 12:00, an expense completed before March 7th at 12:00 belongs to the March report, and one completed at or after that moment belongs to the April report.

Last day of the month falls on each month's last day: 31 January, 28 February (29 in a leap year), 30 April and so on. Days 29 and 30 are missing from some months. If you pick one, a note under the fields says what happens: "Some months have no day 30. In those, the cutoff falls on the last day of the month, and then the weekend rule applies." The weekend option always works on the day the cutoff actually lands on, so a last day that is a Saturday or Sunday moves as usual. A cutoff day of 31 saved earlier shows as Last day of the month, since it is the same thing.

When the cutoff falls on a weekend

When the cutoff day you set lands on a Saturday or Sunday, the If it falls on a weekend buttons (below the day and time) decide whether that cutoff moves to a nearby weekday or stays put. It matters because the cutoff does two jobs at once: it decides which approved expenses fall into the month, and it decides when that month's report unlocks for download.

• Friday before. A cutoff that lands on a weekend moves back to the preceding Friday. A Saturday moves back one day; a Sunday moves back two days. The hint reads "Gives approvers less time, but payroll gets the file before the weekend."
• Monday after. A cutoff that lands on a weekend moves forward to the following Monday. A Saturday moves forward two days; a Sunday moves forward one day. This is the default for new companies. The hint reads "Gives approvers the weekend, and payroll gets the file on Monday."
• Keep the day. The cutoff stays on the Saturday or Sunday exactly as set. Nothing moves. The hint reads "The cutoff happens on the weekend as set."

Because the cutoff is the single line that separates one payroll month from the next, moving it changes two things together. Approved expenses completed before the effective cutoff are included in that month's report; anything completed at or after it rolls into the next month, so shifting the cutoff by a day or two moves any expenses approved in that window across the boundary. And the month's report becomes available for download immediately after its cutoff passes, so rolling the cutoff forward to Monday delays that unlock, while rolling it back to Friday brings it earlier.

Which one to choose:

• Choose Friday before if you want the report ready before the weekend, for example when your pay run is processed early in the week.
• Choose Monday after if you would rather include the full weekend and unlock the report on the next working day.
• Choose Keep the day only if you genuinely want the cutoff to fall on a weekend, with no adjustment.

Preview the next cutoffs

Under the fields, a preview shows what your choices mean:

• A calendar of the month the next cutoff falls in. The cutoff day is marked and weekends are shaded. When a weekend moved the cutoff, the original day is marked too.
• The line Next cutoff: followed by the day and time, and which month's payroll it closes.
• A list of the next four cutoffs. A cutoff that the weekend rule moved is marked Moved from and the original day.

The preview updates as you change the fields, before you save, so you can try a day or a weekend option and see where the cutoffs land.

Save your changes

Changes are not saved field by field. As soon as you change something, a bar appears at the bottom of the page.

Reports become available immediately after the cutoff time passes, using the new schedule.

Before you save anything: the legacy schedule

Until your company saves a cutoff on the Payroll settings page, CLVR Benefits groups approved expenses and releases reports using an older, built-in schedule rather than a cutoff you chose. Two things follow that legacy schedule:

• Grouping. Each approved expense lands in the report for the calendar month it was completed in (the month its approval finished). There is no time-of-day cutoff: anything approved in March goes in the March report, anything approved in April goes in the April report.
• Availability. A month's report unlocks on the first day of the following month. If that first day falls on a Saturday or Sunday, it rolls forward to the next weekday, so the report becomes available on the following Monday.

So under the legacy schedule, the March report becomes downloadable on April 1, unless April 1 is a weekend, in which case it waits until the next Monday.

While this applies, the Payroll cutoff card says so: "No cutoff is saved yet, so each month's report covers the calendar month and opens on the first weekday of the next month. Save a cutoff to change that."

The fields start at the same defaults the legacy schedule assumes: Day of the month 1, Time 00:00, and If it falls on a weekend set to Monday after. These are starting points, not a saved configuration. The bar at the bottom of the page already shows "Not saved yet. Save to start using this cutoff.", so you can save the defaults as they are. The page still behaves in legacy mode until you actually select Save changes.

Selecting Save changes switches your company from the legacy schedule to cutoff-based reporting: expenses are grouped by your chosen cutoff instant instead of by calendar month, and a report becomes available immediately after its cutoff time passes, rather than waiting for the first business day of the next month.

Whether your settings are saved or still at the defaults, the values are kept inside safe ranges before they build a report: the cutoff day is clamped between 1 and 31, the hour between 0 and 23, and the minute between 0 and 59. A day higher than the number of days in a short month (for example, day 31 in February) is also capped to that month's last day when the report is built. Anything missing or unreadable falls back to the defaults above, so reports are never blocked by a bad value.

What saving does to reports

Saving a cutoff changes no file and clears nothing. It changes which month an approved expense belongs to, and every download after the save follows it.

Each time you select Download for a month on the Reports page, CLVR checks what that month holds right now. If nothing has changed since the last download in that format, you get the same file again. If something has changed (a new cutoff, a corrected payroll code, a late approval), the download is a new file built from the data as it is now. This works the same for every month, however old.

Files you downloaded before are kept. Open the month's preview on the Reports page and select History next to Download: earlier files are listed there, marked Replaced once a newer one exists, and you can still download them. So a payroll run you have already exported and handed off is never lost, even if a later download of the same month comes out different.

When the save succeeds, the change is recorded for your company so the previous and new settings are kept on file.

Troubleshooting

• The page is not in my menu. Payroll settings is HR-only. If you should have access and do not, ask your HR contact to confirm your role.
• A month's totals changed after I saved. The new cutoff moved some approved expenses into a different month. The next download of that month is a new file that follows the new cutoff. The file you downloaded before is still under History in the month's preview on the Reports page, marked Replaced.
• My cutoff day looks shifted in a short month. A cutoff on the 29th or 30th falls on the last day of any month that does not have that day, and then the weekend rule applies. This is by design. Pick Last day of the month if you want the cutoff on the last day every month.
• An expense I expected this month landed in the next one (or the other way around). It was approved on the wrong side of the effective cutoff after the weekend shift. Check the If it falls on a weekend option and the cutoff day, then confirm when the expense was approved. The list of the next four cutoffs in the preview shows which ones a weekend moved.
• A cutoff before December 2026 looks one or two hours off. Until the December 2026 payroll month, the cutoff time was read in UTC, two hours later than the time you set in summer and one hour later in winter. Those months keep the grouping they were paid with.
• The report unlocked a day later than I expected. With Monday after, a weekend cutoff is pushed to Monday, so the report unlocks then rather than over the weekend. Switch to Friday before if you need it earlier.
• My change did not take effect. Make sure you selected Save changes in the bar at the bottom of the page and saw the "Saved." confirmation. The new settings only apply after they are saved.
• I want the file I downloaded before, not a new one. Open the month's preview on the Reports page and select History next to Download. Every earlier file is listed there and can still be downloaded.