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 why saving regenerates recent reports.

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 plus an exact hour and minute, and what to do when the cutoff lands on a weekend. This article walks through each field, the weekend options, the legacy schedule that applies before you save anything, and what happens to recent reports when you save.

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.

Set the cutoff day and time

The form has three number fields that together define the cutoff moment:

• Payroll cutoff day: the day of the month the cutoff occurs, from 1 to 31.
• Payroll cutoff hour: the hour, from 0 to 23 (24-hour clock).
• Payroll cutoff minute: the minute, from 0 to 59.

For example, day 7, hour 12, minute 0 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.

If you pick a cutoff day that is higher than the number of days in a given month, CLVR caps it to the last day of that month. A cutoff day of 31 falls on February 28th (or the 29th in a leap year), April 30th, and so on, so you never lose a cutoff in a short month.

Weekend behavior

When the cutoff day you set lands on a Saturday or Sunday, the Weekend behavior dropdown (below the cutoff day, hour, and minute) decides whether that cutoff shifts 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.

• No change (allow weekend cutoff). The cutoff stays on the Saturday or Sunday exactly as configured. Nothing shifts.
• Roll to Monday after cutoff. 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.
• Roll to Friday before cutoff. 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.

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

Save your changes

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

Before you save anything: the legacy schedule

Until your company saves anything 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.

When you open Payroll Settings for the first time, the form is pre-filled with the same defaults the legacy schedule assumes: Payroll cutoff day 1, Payroll cutoff hour 0 and Payroll cutoff minute 0 (that is, 00:00), and Weekend behavior set to Roll to Monday after cutoff. These are starting points, not a saved configuration. The page still behaves in legacy mode until you actually press Save Changes.

Pressing 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.

Why saving regenerates recent reports

CLVR caches each payroll report file the first time it is downloaded, so re-downloading the same month and format gives you the identical file. Your cutoff settings (the day, time, and weekend behavior) decide which approved expenses land in each month, so a new cutoff can change what a recent report should contain. To keep those recent months honest, saving Save Changes stores your new cutoff and clears the cached report files for the three most recent months, counting back from today:

• The current month.
• The previous month.
• The month before that.

Any month older than those keeps the file it already had, because changing the cutoff now should not rewrite payroll runs you have likely already exported and handed off. If you download an older month again, you get the same file as before, generated under the rules that were in place when it was first built.

When the save succeeds, both the Payroll Settings page and the Payroll reports page refresh so they reflect the new cutoff right away, and the change is recorded for your company so the previous and new settings are kept on file. The next time you open the Payroll reports page and select Download for one of the three recent months, CLVR rebuilds that file from scratch using your new cutoff and weekend behavior, then stores the fresh copy.

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 recent month's totals changed after I saved. That is the cache refresh: the three most recent months recompute against the new cutoff. The file rebuilds on the next download, not at save time, so open the Payroll reports page and select Download for that month to get the regenerated report.
• An older month did not update. Only the three most recent months are cleared. Older months keep their original files by design; if one genuinely needs rebuilding, contact your HR contact at CLVR.
• My cutoff day looks shifted in a short month. A day higher than the month length is capped to the last day of that month, which is by design.
• 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 Weekend behavior option and the cutoff day, then confirm when the expense was approved.
• The report unlocked a day later than I expected. With Roll to Monday after cutoff, a weekend cutoff is pushed to Monday, so the report unlocks then rather than over the weekend. Switch to Roll to Friday before cutoff if you need it earlier.
• My change did not take effect. Make sure you selected Save Changes and saw the Settings Updated confirmation. The new settings only apply after they are saved.
• I want the same file back, not a rebuild. Avoid saving payroll settings if you only want to re-download an existing report. Saving is what triggers the rebuild for recent months.